Last month I mentioned forays by both Yahoo and Google into newspaper advertising.  While Yahoo's partnership with newspapers was based primarily around classified job listings, Google is attempting to take its system of ad bidding that has worked so well online to print mediums.  Google's newspaper advertising system works much like the AdWords service that has made the company billions of dollars.  Advertisers bid for ad space in the participating newspapers.  For the past couple of months Google has been testing the system with a select group of advertisers and newspapers.

MediaPost published an article today talking about how successful the pilot program has been for Google.  In fact, it only took the search company three weeks to sell inventory that it thought would last three months.  And even though Google isn't collecting any money off the system during this initial testing stage, they are considering the program a success.  So much, in fact, that plans for an expanded test program for next year are already in the pipe.

I can understand Google's interest in expanding its offerings.  They've done really, really well with online advertising and they want to grow into new markets.  In fact, the company's management has repeatedly made it clear that they want the Google name to eventually be synonymous with advertising, regardless of the platform.  They're testing radio ads in the United States and television ads overseas.  Google's ambition is quite clear.

I think Google is focusing too much on the short term.  Maybe the newspaper advertising system is working well in its limited test format.  But will it work well when it's expanded to include thousands of advertisers and hundreds of newspapers?  And will it be profitable enough for Google to continue pursuing five years from now?

My take:  this will NEVER amount to enough revenue to make it worthwhile for Google.  But they'll have to learn that on their own I guess.