Where is AdSense for Newspapers?

From SeekingAlpha, read full story here.

Mark Cuban makes some good points, He obviously isn’t familiar with Mediabids–
that’s ok, I am not sure how the Mavericks are doing this season, so we are
even. But seriously, worth reading and it is always worthwhile to read someone
calling Google out for its hypocrisy.

Google (GOOG) is unquestionably the best
at selling advertising online. They can sell Text, Display, Video at a level that
is unparalleled anywhere. True ? The Newspaper industry obviously sucks at
doing the same. Eric Schmidt said
so in his editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

So why isn’t Google taking advantage of this unique opportunity ? Why not
just offer a specially tailored version of AdSense for Newspapers ? They do
what they do, create content. You do what you do, generate content and sell ads
?

Makes sense. Won’t happen.

Why ? Because of the Google hypocrisy in play. This argument is no
different than the same argument they made with Youtube and the music and film
industries. All those movies, tv shows, music videos on Youtube were GREAT
PROMOTION. The music and movie industries shouldn’t blame Google if they don’t
know how to monetize all the billions of views and impressions Google and
Youtube provided the content industry. Right?

But a funny thing happened along the way. Google caved on Youtube. Their
message is no longer “if you cant monetize the traffic, tough luck”. Youtube is
now sharing revenue with as many music and video content sources as they can.
They are even setting up VEVO a satellite music video site built around
Universal Music Group content.

There is absolutely zero chance that the end of this discussion is Google
saying “You will take our traffic and like it”. Google is posturing. They
recognize they have the advantage. Particularly if MicroSoft/Bing (MSFT) do nothing with Newscorp (NWS). Its only a question of how
they use it.