Google 'may focus' on display ads

24th July 2008

Google may be interested in capitalising on the potential of the display advertising sector, an executive from the search engine firm has implied.

CNET News reported that Eric Schmidt told Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference that he felt the "opportunity for display is pretty large", particularly as more firms look to shift offline budgets into the online sector.

He added that for many customers who already purchase text ads, display ads may be the next "logical" step and that the medium represents a "big space" in the advertising world.

The news source implied that Mr Schmidt's announcement may signal heightened competition between Google and Microsoft in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Google launched a new encyclopaedia product earlier this week.

Entitled Knol, the service operates in a similar way to Wikipedia, although it differs from the online encyclopaedia service in that it allows its users to attach their names to their entries on the site.