Google looks to have the upper hand, in what could be a
battle to the death between two giants of the Internet. Their acquisition of
social marketing platform, Wildfire, is a major development and perhaps a real
blow to Facebook. Wildfire is a two-and-a-half year old player that lets brands
manage all their marketing and advertising stuff in one place. And, this move
means Google has something today, it didn’t have yesterday…leverage with the
top social services online, including Facebook. Wildfire has in fact built
itself on the idea of expertise in Facebook marketing.
So what is this about? Well, it’s fairly simple actually.
Google is determined to take over the world of online marketing. According
their blog: “We’re happy to share that the Wildfire team will be joining
Google. … With Wildfire, we’re looking forward to creating new opportunities
for our clients to engage with people across all social services.”
The timing of this deal is worth noting. Facebook is
currently coming under pressure from both advertisers claiming to have lost
money to so-called click-bots, and marketers that want less generalities and
more proof of ROI. [Click-bots, in case you didn't know, click on ads, which means advertisers are
charged even though a live person didn’t actually see or engage with the ad…not
cool].
So in the war to control the web, Google has taken its
gloves off today. Is it really that big a deal? Well, as an aside, it’s worth
mentioning that one of Mark Zuckerburg’s sisters, works for Wildfire and is
therefore now a Google employee. Ouch!
No comments:
Post a Comment