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The rumors have been buzzing in the blogosphere that, before the end of the year, Google will release an AdSense-like service for podcasts and streaming audio. Right now there’s more speculation than details.

This probably means:

1. Google will allow you to insert audio ads into your podcast.
2. Ads will be based on an audio-to-text contextual analysis of the podcast content. That is to say, they convert your audio to text, analyze it to determine the subject matter and then insert relevant ads
3. Google will need to push dynamically generated versions of the audio file to your web server or only use it on content offered from their own servers.

I’m left wondering/thinking several things:

• If Google is dynamically inserting relevant ads, how often is the audio file regenerated? Once a day? Every X requests?
• Will Google also base the type of ads on the text content of the page or feed that the podcast is requested from?
• Or will this only be used initially on audio/video served up from GoogleTube and other such Google services?
• If the real power of this medium is in the relationship the podcaster has built with a targeted audience and his ability to create/curate the content he shares, how will the audience respond to the less personal approach of ads chosen by an algorithm?
• When it comes to “ads as content”, there’s a big difference between an “old time radio” sponsorship where the host suggests or talks about a product and the insertion of an ad chosen by a Google.
• The people who make the most money with text AdSense ads on their site are those that integrate the ads seamlessly into the content (i.e. ad placement, ad colors, etc.). You can’t do this nearly as well with audio. You can’t automatically match the ad to the voice and audio production of the podcast. How will they deal with the consistency of listening volume coming into and out of the ads?

OK. So I raised more questions than I can answer on the matter (since I have no answers). But it’s interesting food for thought. It will also be very intriguing to see how things pan out by the end of Q4.

One thing is for sure…the scalable and automatic nature of Google’s contextual advertising is irresistible to advertisers and content creators looking to make money.

UPDATE: Here is another post I did about the issue of measuring AdSense for audio.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 30th, 2006 and is filed under Podcast Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.