Google to release new advertiser tool today

INTERNET GIANT GOOGLE plans to get even more cozy with the advertising industry today, as it unveils a new tool which measures Internet use and helps stick ads in prime online locations to reach specific target audiences.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google’s tool will be passed around for free, dealing a blow on the head for services like Nielsen and ComScore who charge rather a lot of money for similar swervices (sic).

Firms like Nielsen and ComScore, lacking Google’s techspertise, commonly use things like customer panels and selective surveys (the kind where they promise the survey-ee 10 cents per 150 page survey completed). These, unsurprisingly, aren’t always the bastion of accuracy. Google’s tool, however, will apparently be able to collect actual data from Web servers themselves, thereby cutting out the cash-hungry, bored, unemployed, student, survey-taking middleman.

Giving the service away for free may seem strange, but doubtless it is yet another cunning marketing move, aimed at pulling advertisers away from the paid competition and luring them into Google’s deep pockets.

Google is announcing its new tool not even a week after the release of its new Trends service, a sort of beefed-up version of analytics.

The software enables users to compare web traffic and daily unique visitors for two or more sites, by using data garnered from organic searches. The service shows where around the globe site visitors are coming from, as well as other sites those users searched for in the same time slot. With so many narcissistic bogs and web 2.0 sites springing up on a daily basis, the service is already proving itself very trendy indeed. µ

L’Inq
Wall Street Journal