Google has extended its foray into selling print ads with a massive program to sell ads across 50 major newspapers. You’ve got to hand it to the company for thinking outside the square – very few online companies have thought about how to use technology to improve print media. It almost cuts against the grain.

But then again, this move shouldn’t be surprising. Google collected 25 per cent of all US online advertising money last year, according to Nielsen//Netratings analyst Megan Clarken who was speaking in Sydney last week. Why wouldn’t it want more? And why stop at just online ads? Check out this quote from Google’s print guy, quoted in the NYT:

Tom Phillips, who runs Google’s print operations, said the company was attracted by the $48 billion spent every year in the United States on newspaper advertising. Google, nonetheless, is trying to position itself as a friend of the newspapers.

“Print adds value the Internet doesn’t have,” he said. Mr. Phillips, the former publisher of Spy Magazine, was hired by Google earlier this year. “It is a different browse-able reading medium.”

If this news is bad for anyone, it’s print sales people & agencies who just got cut out of the loop.

And is it the saviour of print media? I don’t think so, because this deal doesn’t address the loss of audience attention.

The Boston Herald offers this very alarmist report about the predictions of Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley:

America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic “armageddon.”
Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that “we’ll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual armageddon.” The chance we’ll get through OK: one in 10. Maybe.

Read the article and make up your own mind. Meanwhile, I couldn’t help notice the banner ad directly above the story’s gloomy "Economic Armageddon" headline that reads: "Want to Work in the USA?" Ah, well, gee, let me think about that…

Australia’s venture capitalists have more than $4 billion in the kitty and are poised for a buying spree, with more than half expecting the economic climate to improve over the next six months.

SMH reports on Australia’s potential for a VC comeback. So, with all this money in the bank, what’s holding them up?

Google pundits and the dot-com cheer squad are reaching new heights today with news of the search titan’s jump into the IPO deep end.

When I searched for “Google IPO,” Google News returned 1,680 results. Yup, we’ve gone nuts on the subject.

Bloggers and news organizations are applauding the company’s engineering success, marveling at how Sergei and Larry will become instant billionaires, and hope it’s a sign of a return to Silicon Valley boom times.

Most significant to me is the fact that Google’s coming of age on Wall Street further validates the rise of web-only properties. Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, and Google are not just online companies, but businesses that act as platforms for a range of applications and services that extend well beyond the “core” product.

This chart from CNN Money puts the Google money hype in perspective, but it’s also a visual reminder that these companies represent the online utility model of computing that’s replaced the PC wave.

Some other links:

Wired has an easy to digest overview of the filing and Google’s intentions,

Forbes is one of the few media outlets to step outside the knee-jerk breathless reporting mould and focus on Google’s honesty about the risks facing the company, thanks to a Reuters report.

FT has the full text of Sergei and Larry’s letter.

Australian IT investors, marketers and pundits are fond of talking up the opportunities in China, and Shanghai specifically. Many here and in the US also like to talk about Shanghai as the Silicon Valley of the East. Perhaps that analogy is a blessing and curse.

Popular opinion regarding Shanghai seems to be swinging from straight out enthusiasm to caution. Put another way, China’s Shanghai-led “bubble” economy could be about to burst.

The Fin (subscription) has an interesting feature on the subject today. For non-subscribers, BusinessWeek’s International Cover Story for May 3 asks: “Can the new leaders rein in a runaway financial system?”

Congrats to Powerlan, an Australian company that started life as a reseller and is now making global deals as a software developer. I used to track these guys closely when I was Editor-in-Chief at ARN.

Larry Ellison-backed NetSuite – formerly NetLedger and locally marketed as NetReturn – today signed a deal with Telstra as its hosting provider. Computerworld reports the company reckons online response times will be up to five time faster than hosted-CRM services based offshore, eg. Salesforce.com, RightNow, Siebel CRM OnDemand.

I’d be interested to know if you think that online response time (which is generally not bad for US sites) is the biggest inhibitor to the uptake of hosted CRM in price-sensitive Australia.

Telstra was rumoured to be considering the acquisition of Fairfax. Instead they took the politically safe route and bought The Trading Post, a popular classified book. It’s a sign of healthy classified advertising, and another toe in the water for Telstra as it delicately pursues diversification into the media & content business. This ABC transcript offers a short overview, while Google has all the links to what is the biggest local ITC industry story of the day.