Google Looks To Lure Advertisers To Orkut In 2009

You know a website is maturing when it starts looking for advertisers. We had reported earlier about Orkut looking to get aggressive with advertising on its site. And here is an article which confirms the same. Given that the IPL is round the corner the timing couldn’t have been better. Google is in discussion with IPL to create brand positioning campaigns and even an IPL profile page for Orkut users.

Google says its time to monetize orkut

Google India Managing Director Shailesh Rao said “Last year, we built a stronger base of marketers and invested in internet advertising. In 2009, we should make revenues from our social media platform”

Will advertisers bite the orkut bullet?

Advertisers in India haven’t used the Online medium for branding as much as they have used it for ROI. I believe adwords like ads wont work on orkut as they don’t work on facebook either. Simple logic is that the objective of surfing a social network is to keep yourself updated with friends and to interact with them. Hence one becomes immune to ads.

Social networks are better opportunities to create engagement and branded pages, groups etc might just be  better and more effective ways of spending marketing dollars on these platforms.

Lets Not Underestimate Google Power

If there is one online company that has a vast network of advertisers and access to advertisers its Google with its adwords programme. It can surely work with large advertisers and offer them customized solutions to leverage orkut for their brand. Unlike facebook where advertisers had no clue on what to expect with Google things would be much much more evolved.

Orkut might be out of the race when it comes to users but as far as monetization is concerned it could very well give facebook a run for its money when it comes to capturing a sizeable advertiser pie in India. India is ofcourse an emerging internet market and could become an important geography in the years to come.