Diane Mermigas is a trade reporter who has covered media and communications for a variety of publications. Here is a very insightful excerpt from her Feb. 5th, 2008 article:“…The ultimate irony is that Microsoft and Google are being driven by the same fear and greed: a penchant for market monopoly, a passion for manipulation and an obsession with losing a strategic advantage. Both companies understand that interactive advertising and commerce will provide the golden profit pipeline…Google…has a good chance of winning the ongoing bidding for wireless spectrum–a nearly $5 billion bet that it can make many times that managing user data, advertiser pitches and online transactions in its own branded space…Google CEO Eric Schmidt is openly taking aim at selling advertising and subsequent transactions on the world’s 3 billion mobile phones and other portable devices…If the deal goes through as expected, look for Google to ramp up its search-based personal data mining and marketing across all digital interactive platforms. It will bore deeper into tracking and reporting on users’ Web selections and activities. Auctioning premium connections with target consumers and mining the long tail of products and services is Google’s new advertising industry paradigm…”
from: Google v Microsoft: Fear and Loathing in Merger Land. Diane Mermigas. Mediapost.
