Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt acknowledged sliding share values and a shortage of credit in financial markets was “a very serious issue” and that many people were expecting a global economic slowdown.
“It’s too early to say if there’s (already) been any specific impact but if there were I don’t think it would be much,” Schmidt told reporters at a briefing during a visit to Sydney.
“We believe that if there were (a US recession), we’ll be well positioned. We’re not particularly dependent on any particular one market. There’s not a lot of advertising for any one market over another,” he said.
Direct marketing, a successor to online marketing, had historically performed well in times of economic recession, Schmidt said.
“There tends to be a flight in a global slowdown to higher quality advertising and higher quality advertising is determined by what sells,” he said.
Google, which earned $4.827 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, makes around 98% of its revenues from text ads but was exploring new formats, such as advertising on YouTube videos.
Google has a $900 million, three-year deal to sell advertising to News Corp‘s MySpace customers under which it must pay MySpace whether or not it makes money selling ads on the site. (Reuters)
Producing journalism that is worthy of the name is a costly business. For over 30 years, the publishers, editors and reporters of the Budapest Business Journal have striven to bring you business news that works, information that you can trust, that is factual, accurate and presented without fear or favor.Newspaper organizations across the globe have struggled to find a business model that allows them to continue to excel, without compromising their ability to perform. Most recently, some have experimented with the idea of involving their most important stakeholders, their readers.
We would like to offer that same opportunity to our readers. We would like to invite you to help us deliver the quality business journalism you require. Hit our Support the BBJ button and you can choose the how much and how often you send us your contributions.
