Google boss has high hopes for the mobile internet

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has advised sceptics convinced of the limitations of search engine marketing that his company still has plenty ideas for improving the technology and targeting advertising more effectively. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he predicted that the mobile internet would be the next major advertising platform. The iPhone was the first mobile device with a good web browser, said Schmidt, and more such devices will follow. Advertising will then become very personal, he continued. In a few years, mobile advertising will generate more revenue than advertising on the normal web.

Schmidt was less enthusiastic about the advertising possibilities of online video portal YouTube and DoubleClick. Indeed, he was not particularly happy with the advertising prospects of Web 2.0 at all. His company had invested $900 million in a deal to become the exclusive MySpace advertising and search provider. Although it was reaching many users, it was proving difficult to get the ad network established. He saw opportunities in video advertising and in graphic advertising. "Some things work, and others just don't – but the mobile internet always works."

Schmidt admitted to a great admiration for Android, the platform for mobile devices. "The applications that are now being developed are totally new to me. Things are being developed using GPS and maps that are quite astonishing." However, admitted Schmidt, it was not yet possible to say how well it will actually work because the programs have not yet been released. Cloud Computing was another trend the Google boss considered "very interesting". Google would also be going head to head with Microsoft and Yahoo in the management of large computer centres.

One issue not touched on during the interview was the assertion that Google is distributing unauthorized copyright-protected content on its YouTube video portal. A year ago, media group Viacom sued Google for $1 billion. Google claimed in its defence that the "safe harbour" provisions protected YouTube from liability. Viacom's position, said Google at the time, threatened the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, political and artistic expression. Google's lawyers repeated the claim in papers filed last week in New York at the court dealing with the Viacom lawsuit.

(trk)