5 ms·

By driving more eyeballs to the web and away from desktop apps.

• gaius 17y ago
  Really? So you'll be working away, on your document or your spreadsheet, or you'll be playing a game, and some ad will pop up, and off you go, zero attention span? Why would anyone want that? $50 on your Netbook isn't much if it means you hand your thesis in on time...
  • omnipresent1 17y ago
    It'll be worse than office assistant paper clip.
  • sjs382 17y ago
    No, not really. I doubt there will be ads in Docs & Spreadsheets. But there ARE and WILL BE ads in Gmail* and Google search results. The main idea is to keep you in Google's ecosystem and to make advertising on the web more valuable. Selling advertisings isn't about creating new places to put ads--it's about making advertising space more valuable. And that isn't as straightforward as you seem to think. :) * And adsense ads in apps that others create.
    • netsp 17y ago
      It still sounds pretty far removed. Release an OS that will drive traffic to your spreadsheet app that will drive traffic to your search engine where you can sell ads. *Gmail still doesn't really makes much money.
      • sjs382 17y ago
        Contextual advertising in an email client is VERY valuable. :)
        • netsp 17y ago
          I disagree
      • andreyf 17y ago
        Release an OS that will drive traffic to your [...] search engine where you can sell ads. Not far removed at all. Google makes billions by selling ads. Even if they budget a couple of million $/year for this project (might be less, depending on how you structure the proejct), they'll be making crazy returns if this increases their ad revenue just by 0.001. Not to mention all the FUD it'll cause inside MS :)
        • netsp 17y ago
          Release an OS that will send more people to the internet, where your (profitable) search engine is.
  • enomar 17y ago
    You should probably switch browsers if you're still getting pop-ups ;)
    • Elepsis 17y ago
      At this point you have to make an effort to download a browser that doesn't block popups by default. Even IE has been doing it since version 7.
  • jacquesm 17y ago
    lately youtube has been inserting overlays on top of playing videos, a highly annoying feature. If they ever do that to google docs there will be a mass exodus.
  • weavejester 17y ago
    Google isn't solely about advertising. In Google's other Linux-based OS, they make money off their app store.