Could Google Save the Newspaper Business?

While I drove to the post office this afternoon to mail my tax returns, I heard a discussion on NPR about the fate of the newspaper business. I don't recall the guest, but he was commenting on the severe advertising slump that is threatening the likes of the New York Times.

From the discussion, I learned that about 10 years ago, a fledgling Internet startup by the name of Amazon approached the New York Times about using its book reviews on its website. Amazon was willing to pay for the content. For reasons that I don't recall, no deal was struck.

It was a lost opportunity for the New York Times, because it clearly could have turned their book review section into quite a money-maker.

In spite of the fact that the New York Times website is perhaps the most highly trafficked newspaper site on the planet, I learned too from the NPR discussion that ad revenues online are only 10% of the print advertising. That was surprising.

However, the more I followed this discussion, the more I thought about how a newspaper like the New York Times could better leverage its online presence.

On my plate tomorrow morning is to read and analyze the 10K for Google, which reports its first quarter results tomorrow afternoon, after the market closes. I have been following Google's business for several years, and have read several corporate biographies and other books, like The Big Switch. Google's future is fascinating to watch unfold, and it's scale and opportunity is unprecedented.

Here's my thought: what if Google was able to further leverage its AdWords service to be more integrated with online content? What if Google was able to take any phrase or subject matter published on any article and automatically hyperlink it to a search result page, so that the reader could easily go to related sites for more information?

For instance, as I write this, the New York Times has just published a story on its homepage about a medical study that delinks a person's genetic makeup from his/her susceptibility to disease. The article is a first rate piece, with related information about the study and comments from leading researchers. It is precisely the kind of high-quality reporting that draws people to the Times.

However, the few hyperlinks that are given to key phrases in the article only takes the reader to other New York Time articles. I imagine the editors of the Times are doing this to prevent its readers from leaving the site.

But what if these hyperlinks took the reader not to other, static New York Times articles, but instead took the reader to a search results page, listing for him all of the latest relevant websites and articles pertaining to that key phrase? What if Google were to offer this service, and by compiling this hyperlink search result page, it also listed paid advertisements from companies that sought the very readers who were interested in these same key phrases?

This could vault Google's AdWords service to another level, because it could be positioning Google's search engine to run on sites all over the web, on every article and post, and not just from its own homepage. Furthermore, it would allow high-quality content like the New York Times to tap directly into the paid advertising market, without sacrificing its content or editorial integrity.

The genetic article I mentioned earlier could be hyperlinked throughout, leading readers to search results for any number of key phrases, like "human genome" and "personal genome testing service". I would imagine that every article published every day on the New York Times would have at least one key phrase that was interesting enough to be searchable and marketable to online advertisers.

I would imagine also that Google could position itself as the premier aggregator of content-based searches, tapping its existing Adwords clients for an even deeper and more relevant search result. Let's face it, the easier you make information available to people, the more relevant you'll make the advertising. For the reader of a New York Times article, whether it be world news, business, sports or book reviews, the ability to instantly search for more info on that particular topic and on that particular webpage (without having to go to the Google website first) would be a powerful addition to its service. It would effectively integrate Google into all content on the Web.

For the New York Times, its online revenues would grow exponentially, as each new article published would bring with it a whole new set of searchable topics, adding a lucrative and high-margin cash flow stream to a business desperately searching for one.

Such an extension of Google's Adwords service just might save the newspaper business as we know it.