» Google: Thinking about the future of TV ads | Googling Google | ZDNet.com

» Google: Thinking about the future of TV ads | Googling Google | ZDNet.com

It is fun to speculate about how good life will be in the future. We humans discount quickly how much better it is to live today that 100 years ago. Two hundred years ago life was really rough.

Google is going to be a significant part of the coming improvements. The Google influence may be more far reaching than we can imagine. For now, we should keep our speculation into the "near future". How about the idea of a Google DVR?

Men, women and children should be spared having to watch many of the adds on TV today. A Google DVR service should be able to serve up adds for us based on knowledge gained from the emails we send and our browsing habits. Those who have been planning a vacation trip to Hawaii might enjoy advertisements about local events, shows and sites to see.

Advertisers would certainly pay a permium for placement in front of motivated buyers. Googles most recent extremely strong earnings were strong for an important reason. The firm has worked hard to make the advertisments it serves highly relavent to the viewers. The Fortune 500 companies are beginning to understand that they can pay Google more per viewer, get a higher response and spend less money all at the same time. The old "shot gun" approach to advertising has tried to force panty hose adds on men and truck adds on women. The result is that even good content does not get watched as the remote goes wild on each commmercial break. The number of times a full show is not seen is large because viewers are running from the ads.

It is known that Google has looked at various means to distribute its services to the public. It is know that Google has purchased heavy duty fiber optic networks, it has invested in power line distribution technology, wireless technology and satelite technology.

We know that Google is interested in the "thin client" technology whereby the personal computer is more of a terminal. Why should the consumer need to build networks, fight spam, fight viruses and download massive word processing and other programs?

A relatively small computer could serve as a media server and computer. It is easy to get hooked on the idea that services might be free. Although free is nice, the idea that there is no free lunch is absolutely valid. It is also true that TV and radio worked well in the days when they were totally supported by advertising. By making advertising efficient, it is likely that most basic media services, including Gmail, Blogging, VoIP, Browsing, Music and Video can again be supported by "desireable" advertising.