R Petty's New Media Blog

It used to be an old joke between my friend Heather and I that Wal-mart was going to take over the world. She worked for a contracted service within their stores and thus did nearly all her shopping there. Conversely, I refused to shop there for reasons too numerous to mention. But now, Heather and I may need to revise the old joke to read that Google will be the new world leader. I don’t know if you have heard, but Google makes news on a daily basis, especially here in Pittsburgh where they are expanding their Burgh-based tech center out of CMU’s campus and into a big new space in the East End, adding a slew of new jobs to our market.

And today, there’s news about Google in China, several allegedly-hacked GMAIL accounts of human rights activists and organizations, and a possible revision of the agreement the Chinese government and Google have about censoring certain search results.

And don’t forget about the Google Nexus One phone and the possible Google tablet design partnership with HTC. All of the above makes news in tech circles, which unfortunately, I don’t know much about. But in the world of marketing, there is big news on the Google front…Google has been granted a patent to “identify posters, billboards and buildings within the Street View online maps” so they can sell the ad space to advertisers!

The patent is listed as “Claiming Real Estate in Panoramic or 3D Mapping Environments for Advertising” and will allow the search giant to replace the ads featured in Street View from when the original photography took place for that area, and create a new ad to fill the existing space. This is exciting news for marketers. Just imagine…you’re a local business owner, maybe a retail store, and you’re located at the corner of Elm and Main. This application would allow you to place a current relevant ad in the Street View map near your actual location, perhaps for an upcoming sale or for a new line or merchandise. This ad would also show up in the Google search results for your business name, bringing in even more traffic as your outlet would be even easier to find!

For example, take a look at the photo below; a street view search I performed for an area of the Pittsburgh with several ever-changing billboards:

In this example, an advertiser would be able to place their ad in place of the existing ad for State Farm and Ball Funeral Chapel. This could be an ad for the car dealership which is just out of sight to the right of this intersection, or an ad for the McDonald’s on the opposite corner.

But the scariest part of this concept is that local businesses, who would most likely benefit greatly from such an ad vehicle so close to home, may be squeezed out by national corporations who simply want to buy up as much ad space in the new medium as possible. The patent states “The link can alternatively be associated with an advertiser who placed the highest bid on the image recognized within the region of interest (e.g., poster, billboard, banner, etc.).”

This is because the ad spaces in Street View may be subject to the same rules as Google’s Adwords tool which means they would go to the highest bidder.

To explain my point, consider the available ad spaces in the above photo could be snatched up by Best Buy or TGIFriday’s, whose locations are more than 20 minutes away from the intersection in question, but whose ad budgets are a great deal larger than the car lot at the physical corner. The amazing ability to advertise in this virtual real-estate medium could cause an even greater crunch to the small businesses which are already struggling to compete in a recessed economy. This medium would also be a great way for local politicians to campaign in a virtual sense, right in the ‘location’ where their constituents live, but how can the local county-controller-hopeful compete with yet another ad for Starbucks or American Idol?

And just like retail-giant Wal-mart’s ability to force American owned firms into closure with their practice of buying tons of cheaper made foreign goods, the Google model might allow mega-corporations to out-advertise the little guys in their own virtual back-yard! Don’t get me wrong, I love Google and use it daily, but the worse-case scenario is that Google may become just like Sam Walton’s dream-gone-awry…crushing American small businesses with one hand while handing its people their only affordable daily living options with the other hand. Personally, I feel that the specifics of the patent and ensuing procedure for ad purchase should allow local business owners a first-dibs ability to buy an ad within a certain proximity to their physical location so the backbone of our country, our small businesses, aren’t swallowed up by yet another marketing trick. Google should show some respect for small business owners, especially as we now face the reality of new location-based marketing technology, and even more opportunities for Main Street America’s economic recovery and growth.

What do you think?