Less than a month ago, I posted a rant about how Google is an ad company, not a search company. If you disagreed with me then, I have new evidence for you.
The New York Times is reporting that Google, not Microsoft, will acquire DoubleClick for $3.1B. TechCrunch says that a 10x valuation of a mature company is "...healthy." That's definitely one word to use... insane might be another. Om Malik says that Microsoft's offer was only $2B. The should not have let Google outbid them.
You know what pisses me off about this? Before this whole "Who is gonna buy DoubleClick?" thing, I was seriously considering signing up for their services as an alternative to the AdSense ads on the site. Since AdSense has been so crappy, I wanted to take another service for a spin. Now, I'm going to have to keep looking. Anyone have any ideas where I should be looking?
So, at what point are we allowed to start using "Google" and "monopoly" in the same sentance?
UPDATE: Steve Rubel, in a similarly titled post (apparently I'm not as original or funny as I thought), makes the observation that the purchase is just as much about their historical clickthrough data as it is for their current customer base. I wonder what kind of new services they'll kick out once they've assimilated all that data into their Collective. Resistance is futile.