Important Ad Age story this week. We urge everyone to read it. Here are excerpts:
“Major media companies are increasingly lobbying Google to elevate their expensive professional content within the search engine’s undifferentiated slush of results…But crumbling ad revenue is lending their push more urgency;…Last November John Kosner, ESPN’s digital-media senior VP, renewed the charge at a meeting of Google’s Publishers Advisory Council, a small, invitation-only group for professional publishers to pow-wow confidentially with the search giant. Members include BusinessWeek, ESPN, Hearst, Meredith, The New York Times, Time Inc. and The Wall Street Journal…
Then in January, Martin Nisenholtz, New York Times Co. senior VP-digital operations, got up at the annual Online Publishers Association summit in Florida, an event closed to the press, to blast both the algorithm and the results presentation on the screen…Publishers are nonetheless looking forward to the next closed-door meeting of Google’s Publishers Advisory Council on April 30…”
source:  Media Giants Want to Top Google Results: Argue That Professional Sources Should Be More Recognized Than Blogs. Nat Ives. Advertising Age. March 23, 2009 [sub required].
