27 July 2009
Traditional Australian media companies are at it again; attacking web innovators Google for their latest bold step in unifying a search category. The search category this time is 'real estate listings'.
Fairfax, owners of real estate listing website Domain, and News Limited, owners of RealEstate.com.au, are threatening to pull out their significant advertising dollars from Google if they become a competitor.
SMH quotes Greg Ellis of REA Group (realestate.com.au) as saying: "It will be interesting to see how Google reconciles its ability to encourage companies to purchase Adwords, buy Google Maps and DoubleClick services and then compete with those companies who currently or intend to buy these services. It's a discussion that should occur across the Australian internet landscape, not just within REA. We are reviewing our options. No decision has yet been made."
Ellis' comments are ludicrous. They follow on from that of Rupert Murdoch - News Ltd chief - who said earlier this year that Google should be investigated for not paying for media content in some of their search results.
Both these individuals are shooting themselves in the foot. A significant amount of their traffic comes from Google, thus threatening to not spend with them is laughable. Starting a fight with Google is also ill-advised.
If you haven't seen Google's latest Australian experiment - Google Real Estate - please do so by watching the video below: