Part of what makes Google such a fascinating company is trying to figure out where it goes beyond search. In the wake of Google Talk's launch, there's news Google is moving into print advertising by buying full-page magazine ads and slicing them up into smaller units that are re-sold to AdSense customers. So what does print advertising have to do with the Internet and Google's dominance of the paid-search market? Yannick Laclau believes Google could be taking the AdSense pay-per-click model and migrating it to the print world with a pay-per-call business. He does a nice job of explaining how this would work and how companies such as InsiderPages and Ingenio are already trying to establish and grow this kind of business. Yannick cleverly points out InsiderPages is backed by Bill Gross' Idealab. Idealab started GoTo.com (a.k.a. Overture), which launched the pay-per-click model. Google's move into the print and the pay-per-call markets make total sense given the size of the print market and potential of the pay-per-call business. It also addresses the next killer-app for Google question that I've been exploring over the last past few months. I'm curious how Google Talk fits into the print advertising and pay-per-call worlds. I imagine AdSense ads would also provide people with the option of calling the advertiser rather than clicking to go to their Web site. Google could faciliate the call by steering people to Google Talk, which could drive peope to more AdSense ads or other Google services. It's intriguing and fascinating strategically.
Om Malik has some more thoughts about Yannick's idea. Rich Tehrani suggests Google will use Google Talk to analyze conversations and deliver relevant ads, which seems somewhat Orwellian but as long as people agree to the terms and conditions of using Google Talk.....