Is it time for Ad Tech 2.0?

Last week I had a chat with Business Insider’s Lara O’Reilly, prompted by the news that Google is locking down access to buying Youtube ads. She wrote that up, and here’s what I said: “Programmatic is meant to be this open way of buying and selling media, but it’s not that, and it hasn’t been […]

Is it time to abandon IAB standard ad formats?

I spoke on a panel this week about media innovation alongside Andrew Girdwood of LBi, and moderated by Amit Kotecha of Quantcast. Two topics dominated the discussion: native ads and data. Native isn’t just advertorial Native formats attract a certain amount of derision (“it’s just advertorial”) – one of the reasons I don’t like the name. Ben […]

Comparing Google’s and Microsoft’s revenues

I was struck by this tweet over the weekend by Patrick Collison: The increase in Microsoft’s annual revenue since Google was founded is still greater than Google’s total annual revenue. — Patrick Collison (@patrickc) October 26, 2014 It’s worth digging out the actual numbers to see what that comparison really is. Google was founded in […]

Google: the $50bn advertising company

Google announced its Q4 results this week. Yet again it’s an incredible story. Advertising revenue for the whole of 2013 was $50.6bn. On top of that there’s nearly another $10bn from other revenues and Motorola. In the UK, Google earned $5.6bn (around £3.58bn) in total revenue for 2013. As a reference, ITV will turnover £2.0-2.5bn […]

Protecting kids from online porn, a debate at Google’s Bigtent

How do we protect our children from online porn? That was the question posed to a panel at Google’s Bigtent event today. The panel was what you might expect from a setpiece type debate such as this. The reactionary journalist (Amanda Platell) versus the civil liberties campaigner (Kirsty Hughes). The corporation that is terribly concerned […]

Falling CPCs are inevitable if Google increases paid ad space

True to form, Google announced another bumper quarter last night. But one statistic causing some hand wringing is the continual fall of CPC prices. Google say this isn’t a problem and not a concern for their business. Not only do I agree with them, but I think Google are the cause of the decrease in […]

Google Think Quarterly print edition

My copy of Google Think Quarterly just arrived in the post. Although it’s available online, Google has sent me a lovely hardback copy. Probably one of the nicest pieces of print marketing I’ve seen in a long while; I dread to think what the unit cost is. Here are some photos: Came in a nice […]

Another great year for Google UK

Google released its Q4 ’10 earnings last week. I’ve taken the figures for the UK and converted them to pounds which gives some insight on Google’s performance here in Blighty. 2010 showed a 13% growth on 2009, as Google recorded c.£2.15bn of revenue in the UK. It’s a staggering amount – ITV will probably make […]

Google Trademark Policy Change

On Wednesday Google announced separate trademark policy changes in that affect the UK, Ireland and Canada and the rest of Europe differently. Reading about the changes on the web, I’m really surprised how many articles have got this one wrong. Mostly it seems to stem from an inability to distinguish that different policies have applied, […]

Jonathan Beeston

Online advertising, digital marketing, social media and technology

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