Google’s dominance will cease

Google’s market monopoly will end one day, according to a hopeful panellist at MediaTel Group’s ‘Future of National Newspapers’ seminar yesterday.

Walker Media’s chairman and chief executive Phil Georgiadis thinks Google’s dominance will cease, or at least change, although he admitted he has said that a few times before.

Georgiadis said: “It’s a big mistake to believe that Google is a substitute for traditional sales and marketing budgets; it is not advertising.” The industry is spending “loads of money on Google and less on advertising”, which is a “fundamental crime”.

However, fellow panellist Paul Hayes, managing director of News International Commercial, takes a lighter view – “Google is what it is,” he said. “Google is a technology company. News International is a content company. We are in different businesses. But you don’t have to let Google in to search your content.”

“Google does what it says on the tin… People moan too much about Google and then take their shilling,” he added.

Earlier today, Google reported a net profit increase of 18% to $1.48 billion (£901 million) in the three months to the end of June (see Google reports 18% rise in profits).

On the subject of the Kindle e-reader, Amazon’s software and hardware platform that allows users to read e-books and other digital media – the latest version of which has sold around 300,000 devices in 10 weeks this year despite still only being available in the US – panellists did not seem over impressed.

Tim Brooks, managing director of Guardian News & Media argued that the Kindle “will not work” as a viable alternative to print, saying it is just a “minority sport”, which “doesn’t have the merits of the iPod in music”.