How Google is Unlocking the Hidden Ad Value in Old Media

Recently I outlined my conviction that five years from now all media will either be completely digital or well on its way to becoming intangible. Two weeks later, the trend has accelerated.

Many are questioning the future of major newspapers which, faced with declining print ad revenues, are putting themselves up for sale. Meanwhile, the Amazon Kindle is sold out until February and book publishers like Random House are racing to embrace the iPhone as the next big growth market.

However, Google is quietly throwing the media a major lifeline by digitizing old physical media. This is going to unlock the hidden value of archived content and make the media's transition from tangible to digital much easier to monetize.

For example, consider three recent moves. Google Book Search this week started to incorporate a vast print magazine archive, including back issues of New York Magazine. Google News likewise recently digitized old newspapers and Google Image Search has done the same in bringing the complete Life Magazine photo database online

So media companies are increasingly partnering with Google to bring their entire back catalog of content online. Right now only Google Book Search's magazine pages are monetized with sponsored links. But you can bet that Google will slowly and surely layer contextual search ads on top of all of these databases, create others and split the revenues with the content owners

Such a move will unlock the huge hidden value in all of this content. It will offer advertisers all kinds of new opportunities to reach consumers through pay-per-click venues. However, most importantly, it will throw publishers a huge lifeline as they make the transition from atoms to bits. Keep an eye on this space.