google and news ink a new deal

this is todays news about Google and NEWS are cemeting closer ties with their operations.

NOTE

there is and was a ramper of LOOK who is posting everywhere LOOK will be bought by NEWS.

I will let the facts illuminate that line.


Google and News map out web deal

Michael Sainsbury
February 06, 2007
INTERNET powerhouse Google will today launch its long-awaited push into Australia's booming local online search market via a partnership with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

The latest competitor to the established players, to be known as Google Maps, will directly target customers of Telstra's highly profitable Yellow Pages directory business. It will include map and satellite images, Australian business listings, driving directions and support for Google Maps for mobile phones.
Senior product manager Carl Sjogreen told The Australian that Google Maps had been in development for two years to expand the functionality for search.

In a landmark local deal, Google will mine data from the Truelocal service launched last year by News Limited, publisher of The Australian.

Truelocal has struggled to gain a foothold and News Digital Media chief Richard Freudenstein recently announced that information technology veteran Gary Ox would step in as the company's first chief executive.

"We are putting our entire database of business, paid and unpaid, into the Google database," NDM operations chief Nick Leeder said. "We also provide Yahoo Local with data for their local search product but ideally we would like to see people use Truelocal."

The tie-up between Google and News follows a deal last year between the two groups for Google to provide search technology for News's social networking phenomenon MySpace.

"Google's launch introduces yet another cashed-up media player to the local search market and further highlights the increased level of risk that Telstra will face as search revenues migrate from print to online," Macquarie Equities analyst Andrew Levy said.

The majority of Sensis revenue and profits come from Yellow Pages but Mr Levy added that there would be little impact on Sensis in the near term.

"The move by the two media powerhouses highlights the increased level of competition Sensis will face online and in mobile advertising, compared to the near monopoly it has enjoyed in print," Mr Levy said.

"Given Telstra's earnings growth is highly leveraged to growth at Sensis, and particularly to growth in online/mobile revenues, this is a clear area of risk."

The deal with News is understood to have been signed more than six months ago but Google was prepared to wait until it had its product right, people familiar with the project said.