If I may be so bold as to highlight a snippet of a comment left by Brian Flood on James Fee’s blog regarding those Google Earth ads:
This is AdSense not AdWords we’re talking about here. AdSense allows individuals to share in the profit. AdWords is primarily for the main Google Search page. So as a publisher of data, you could *choose* to place AdSense keywords in your KML and share in the click-through revenue with Google. […] This is something that could actually improve the quality of data, that is, shared ad revenue could help offset the cost of collecting/maintaining some datasets.
If this is turns out to be correct (and I suspect it is) it would make absolute sense (with hindsight), as the recurring metaphor for Google Earth is that it is a browser, with layers published to be rendered by Google Earth akin to websites published to be rendered by conventional browsers. And in both cases, it would be the content producers whom Google gives the option to show Google ads if they feel the need to be rewarded for their efforts.
In which case, the revenue model for Google Earth changes slightly. Sure, you can still pay upfront to remove all ads, but in other cases, Google shares its revenue with content producers, which spurs content for Google Earth, which in turn spurs its use. This is even more sophisticated than the Opera model.
And it has the potential to be quite devious too. Imagine a content producer who has enabled AdSense ads for his network link showing the 50 nearest casinos for a given view. Imagine ArcGIS Explorer being able to render KML (it will). Will ArcGIS Explorer then render the AdSense ads that come with the casino network layer, or will it choose to ignore them? Show them, and Google makes money while ESRI serves the base data and foots the bill. Skip them, and the content provider makes no money. Might ESRI rip out the AdSense ads and place generic ads elsewhere to pay its own bills for serving the base data? Would this be legal?
hi Stefan
just to be clear, that’s just me speculating about possible ad revenue scenarios in GE/GM. I have no concrete information that would suggest it was the actual model (I’d be surprised if Google even has figured this out yet).
Shared revenue makes more sense to me though, it’s one of the primary reasons why GM mashups have become popular (note they are all decorated with adSense goo). The change in the model would be tagging the actual data instead of just the UI. Because of the mobility of the data, you would be financially rewarded for making your data more mashable.
The real question is whether the free GE/GM clients will insert random (but relevant) ads into previously undecorated KML. Because they have control of the client software, Google could choose to do this however, the need for relevent keywords would suggest it would be difficult. As to the other inevitable KML clients (MS Metaverse, ArcGIS Explorer etc.), they could obviously choose to show or strip ads (or feed the keywords into their own ad system). What a dilemma :)
cheers
brian
Rev Dan Catt (of geobloggers.com) and I discussed a while back about advertising and spam on Geobrowsers such as Google Earth. His write-up is at http://geobloggers.blogspot.com/2005/09/location-based-geospam-and.html
I think that people accept that advertising is part of the internet experience. Sadly, spam is also part of the experience.