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Article(s) on Googles New Pay Service, controversies, and my experiences

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mouser:
very interesting post from Jellyfish blog - a service that is trying to do web advertising differently by sharing profits with users.

Jellyfish sounds like a really nice and different idea to me.. i wish them luck and hope that can compete against google.. i'm afraid they might get squished though.. definitely worth checking out:

Is this a fair trade off?  I give Google all of my purchase data (what I buy, when I buy, how much I buy) and they use it to benefit me by: 1) offering me the convenience of Checkout; and 2) giving me more advertising that will be more targeted to things I’m potentially interested in (to quote Marshall Kirkpatrick “Minority Billboards”).  And you know what Google gets?  They get to jack up their ad rates, charging bigger dollars to the companies that have to pay to reach you because you might buy what they are selling.   I’m pretty sure Google has done the math here and fully expects their increased ad rates to outweigh the cost of the Checkout service.  And you, as the end consumer will have no idea what that increase will be because Google’s advertising market isn’t transparent.

At Jellyfish, we don’t think this is a fair trade off.  Targeted ads are nice, but the ad’s Google will likely show you are from the advertisers that paid the most to get to you (Just because company X outbids Company Y to get in front of you at Google doesn’t mean that company X is the most relevant for your needs).  And most importantly, you won’t benefit from the competition that is fueled by Google having access to your buying information (or what we would call your historical record of buying intentions).   

At the end of the day, I think Google is doing some major free riding on the extreme value you create by allowing them to store and sell off the database of your buying intentions (e.g., your purchase history) to the highest bidding advertisers.

We intend to do this much differently at Jellyfish, because with our VPA advertising we always share back at least half of the advertising dollars that a merchant pays for your attention (both historical buying intention and present intention to buy when you search for a product at our site).  Thus, anytime a merchant pays more to get your attention at Jellyfish, you will get a direct, tangible benefit in the form of lower prices.  It’s the way we hope to show consumers that when it comes to their buying activity and attention, there is a better way.   

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http://jellyfish.com/blog/

mouser:
here's a pretty positive take on google checkout.. from the standpoint of it being smart business for google as a way of leveraging their advertising and removing the possibility of fraud from their ad system.


http://gigaom.com/2006/06/29/why-google-is-doing-checkouts/




from http://paul.kedrosky.com/

mouser:
and here's a wonderfully insightfull negative take on the new system:

Google Is A Very 1.0 Shopping Engine
With the launch of Google Checkout, Google is clearly aiming to be the world’s online shopping engine. The strategy has all the hallmarks of AdWords — Google doesn’t care what you’re looking for, what you find, or where you buy it — so long as Google can make money off of every step of the process.
Here’s the problem with this strategy — from the consumer perspective, Google is not an efficient way to shop online. Google’s blog mentions Starbucks are one of the merchants that signed up for Google Checkout, so let’s try searching for “gourmet coffee.”
There’s nothing wrong with the ads in the search results — each of these gourmet coffee merchants is potentially relevant. The problem is that I have no way to compare them — all I can do is click and browse, click and browse.

Google revolutionized search by leveraging the network effect of hyperlinks to determine relevancy — but the 2.0 efficiencies of page rank are completely missing from AdWords. Sure, advertisers compete on keyword relevance, but I as a consumer am unable to benefit from the network effects of the larger online shopping community. Which of these merchants has the best value proposition for people like me? Where do people like me most often shop? Which has the most relevant products? Which has the best prices?

Navigating Google ads feels like Yahoo circa 1997 — a lot of clicking and browsing in hopes of finding the right fit. The organic search results may be super-relevant, but the “sponsored” results are of limited value because the cost-per-click bids are too big a factor in ranking and there is no information available from my peers. The advertisers are in complete control. The ads are relevant to a degree, and certainly more relevant than the random interruption of old media models, but as a consumer, I’m still at the mercy of the system. And the return on my attention is marginal at best.
...

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http://publishing2.com/2006/06/29/google-is-a-very-10-shopping-engine/

Carol Haynes:
How do others react to sponsored links on Google searches?

Personally if I see a sponsored link I don't think that must be a good buy, I think someone is buying space to be at the top and I as a consumer simply move down the list.

I don't think I have ever inentionally clicked on a Google sponsored link - in fact the whole thing has a negative impact on me from the point of view of advertising.

nudone:
i agree with you, Carol. i'd even go as far as to say i don't click on any adverts - well, i suppose i must do once in a blue moon. i'm sure there are a vast number of people that never click on an advert.

if i'm after a product i'll do a search for it - or, i'll just go straight to a site that i expect will have the product. when i'm not 'online shopping' then i'm blind to adverts and banners.

i think there was an article on digg.com recently - if i remember correctly it said that a great deal of web surfers are 'banner blind' in that they simply ignore typical banner sizes and advertisements.

i assume that anyone who has used the internet for a few months will ignore banners. i'm more perplexed that anyone does click on an obvious banners advert. maybe i'm just too much of a snob so nothing takes my fancy.

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