Google and Other People's Content

GOOGLE AND OTHER PEOPLE'S CONTENT
[SOURCE: BusinessWeek, AUTHOR: Jon Fine]
[Commentary] Some perched in lofty places throughout the media biosphere advance a quietly radical notion: Google will start buying content companies. In fact, they say, Google will have no choice. This doesn't happen today or tomorrow but somewhere down the road, as the torrid growth tails off. The reason is AdSense, Google's business that runs ads around others' content and pays the owners the bulk of related revenues. This business is less profitable than AdWords, which runs targeted ads around Google's search results. And there are indicators that gap will widen. Owning some high-traffic sites, however, does away with revenue splits and immediately boosts profit.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_49/b4061083.htm?campaign...