The River

The personal professional blog of Pamela Parker -- musings on marketing, advertising, media and technology.

GOOG + DCLK

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Well, it’s happened. Google is buying DoubleClick. I followed DCLK really closely back in the day when I was based in NYC and it was our “hometown” ad serving company. They had that sign welcoming people to Silicon Alley, yada yada yada. So it’s wild — though not unexpected given rumors and reports — to see the company go so completely Valley. Folks have noted that the two companies already share a building in NYC, interestingly enough. Enough geographic musings. This represents a really interesting move for Google, one that will place it even more at the center of all digital advertising. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.

UPDATE: Tom comments: “Actually, I think this is about GOOG continuing to “go New York” – ie, get more and more into wider media buying/selling market.”

Agreed, Tom. It’s really both. As Google moves to become more Madison Avenue — becoming more entrenched in the advertising/marketing mainstream — it takes the whole media world just a little more digital and technology-oriented. After all, Eric Schmidt has said he wants people to think of Google as an “operating system” for advertising, or some such. Can you imagine anyone even conceiving of an operating system for advertising, before Google?

links for 2007-04-05

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PGM v. CM, Part 3

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I would be extremely remiss — and I’m already pretty darned late to the game — if I didn’t link to John Battelle’s latest musings on conversational media/marketing. It’s thinking like this, with which I heartily agree, that lured me to work at FM in the first place. But these ideas are influencing much more than my piddling career prospects. They’re really observations about a sea change in the worlds of marketing and media. (And there’s going to be a book!)

Perhaps I’m missing something?

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So, President Bush is pushing hard for ethanol to help us “end our dependence on foreign oil.” But we’re only able to raise ethanol-producing crops — specifically corn — in such abundance because we’re dousing them with petroleum-based fertilizers. (Yes, I read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”) So how in the world does this idea work? Yeah, I know there’s switchgrass (I also listen to the State of the Union speeches, occasionally), but could we produce anything sustainably that would genuinely make a difference? Maybe I’m just showing my ignorance, but I’ve never heard this element of the argument before. Anyone know how this reconciles? Or does it?