That $1.65 billion Google paid for YouTube last year? That was chump change.The big G has finished negotiations to buy online advertising giant DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. This will give Google a major foothold in visual advertising online. Google makes most of its money currently from relevant text advertising.
Microsoft and Google had been engaged in a bidding war over DoubleClick. While it'll take a lot of advertising revenue to make up for the largest purchase in Google's history, you can't put a price on beating Microsoft in the race for web dominance.
Microsoft had been trying to catch up to Google in the online advertising business, and DoubleClick is one heck of a chess piece. If Microsoft had won, the company would have immediately become a serious contender. With Google winning the bid, it'll be that much harder for Microsoft to get a strong foothold in the online advertising market.
An interesting sidenote: Doubleclick made $300 million in revenue last year. Either Google has really big plans for the company and its technologies, or this is a long term investment. Or both.
[via The New York Times]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-14-2007 @ 7:13AM
Jason said...
hmmmmm.... Microsoft not end up buying it?
Something tells me that they gave up for some reasons and let Google have it....
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4-14-2007 @ 7:13AM
Mysterius said...
Doubleclick must be ecstatic. :D
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4-14-2007 @ 7:13AM
keeves said...
Isn't this non-content based, flashing picture, and 'click-me'-type adverts exactly what google has been avoiding doing all along?!
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4-14-2007 @ 10:26PM
Paim said...
Maybe, but they're adverts I always avoid clicking
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4-15-2007 @ 4:03PM
Fabulo said...
Adblock. Really. It's better than Tivo. I thought DoubleClick died years ago, and seeing that it made $300M last year, I was right.
Google is turning into some kind of regular business and it appears that the "do no evil" veneer is peeling off already...
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4-15-2007 @ 6:54PM
Chris B. said...
The purchase, which came at a 10X multiple of last year's revenue, is more of a private equity play than it is a philosophical change in direction to focus on display advertising. Explained in detail at: http://blogs.doublepositive.com/2007/04/15/the-google-private-equity-fund-%e2%80%93-why-the-google-acquisition-of-doubleclick-will-probably-%e2%80%9cwork%e2%80%9d-but-is-a-mismatch/
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