John Battelle started a meme a couple of years ago when referring to Google's appetite for information: "All your [insert noun here] belong to us." That's the phrase that immediately came to mind when I read that they purchased DoubleClick today for $3.1B. For more, see Google's blog post.
When you think about it, Google may now manage an entire company's online ad buy, even if the ad dollars go to other media properties, which they will. It's almost like you can hear Google saying "All your ads, belong to us."
Many of Google's purchases are about data. The more data they collect, the better the ads and search results they serve. I wonder if this will finally raise the eye of regulators. There's no clear anti-trust conflicts here (at least to a layman like me). However, as Google grows and it gains more power, so will the government's watch.
For advertisers, there's nothing but upside here. Banner ads are great for branding but not for direct response. Now Google has an end-to-end advertising solution for both publishers and the clients they serve. The greatest value though may still lie ahead as Google begins to plow through 10 years of Doubleclick data and whatever they collect out from here.
