Google chief on online advertising and new trends

Google is researching ways to make money from the popularity of its video sharing website YouTube, according to chief executive Eric Schmidt (right).

Schmidt, who was in Australia to launch the new Google Transit service for Perth, said: “I think we are in an experimentation phase [with online advertising]…YouTube’s traffic is exploding globally…and there should be a way to use targeted advertising to make some money out of that.”

Schmidt said that Google, which got EU regulator approval to acquire display ad company DoubleClick last week, is opposed to Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo on competition grounds.

But he can’t see an end to the consolidation going on in the sector. “The reason is that it’s relatively hard to go public right now… so you have all of these companies that need liquidity [so] they’ll probably sell.”

Schmidt told the Sydney Morning Herald that Google is planning a service that will tell you what you need to do tomorrow. He called it “information understanding”.

“Computers are better at remembering things and people are better at reasoning…You’re going to have a more interesting life if you have the computer do the stuff the computer is good at and you do the stuff you’re good at.”

He also identified two other trends that are Google works-in-progress.

One is the shift from desk-based computing to mobile computing. Later this year, a number of mobile phone makers will launch devices based on Google’s new Android mobile operating system.

The other is the “ubiquity of location-based data” – information that can placed on a map. Google Transit is making use of this.