“The rough argument is we do things that are strategic because they get people to ultimately use the Internet in a clever and new way. We know that if they use the Internet more, they search more, watch more on YouTube, and we then know that our advertising [will reach them]. We do not require each and every project to be completely profitable or not profitable — we look at them in a strategic context: are they making the Web a better place? By making the web a better place, by getting more and more people online — especially on broadband connections — we have lot of data that says this results in very, very strong revenue growth from us because of targeted ads that we offer.”
I’d love to ask Schmidt exactly how many additional ads that Google Chrome will help it sell. My suspicion is that he doesn’t know, and that the actual number will be as close to zero as makes no difference.
And if he doesn’t actually know what the hell is he doing signing off on this multimillion dollar tilt at windmills?
Posted via web from Ian Betteridge’s lifestream
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Nope, he doesn't know. If he did, he would at least have hinted as much. But then he doesn't know how many ads Gmail, Android, and the rest will help it sell. What he does know is that those properties will provide it with more and better data about users who view the ads and that will make the ads more valuable. It's not necessarily about selling more ads, if it can sell the same number of ads for more money, the end result is the same.