Digital Envoy Inc., v. Google Inc.,

Filing 295

Case 5:04-cv-01497-RS

Document 295-10

Filed 09/01/2005

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EXHIBIT I

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C - Case Study Google AdSensease 5:04-cv-01497-RS

Document 295-10

Filed 09/01/2005 w.gPageo2 /of s3nse /ourhometow n ttps ://w w oogle . c m ad e

How Our-Hometown . com's local newspaper publishers profit from Google AdSense . Case study : Our-Hometown .com : www.our-hometown .com Busines s For centuries, community newspapers have chronicled events and personalities rarely featured in any other medium . Today, these papers are going online in greater numbers to serve their readers in two ways : by providing the convenience local readers demand, and by serving natives who have moved away and want to keep up online with hometown news . Based in the Finger Lakes region of New York state, O ur-Hometown .co m serves as a complete' turnkey business solution for more than 45 community newspapers that want to publish their co tent online . Through the services of this entrepreneurial service, community papers can easily placetheir entire newspaper including news stories and classed ads on a website individually branded for their paper . Since 1996, founder Steve Larson has steadily built this online publishing business model base+i 3 on weekly fees for such services as file conversion, domain hosting, disk space, email capabilities and advertising . Our-Hometown .coms database currently houses more than 200,000 articles, and tt~ ie site posts 2,000 new stories each week for its growing stable of local papers . Approac h Citing recent findings that between 25 and 50 percent of people visiting community newspaper sites are outside the local market, Larson emphasizes how impo rtant it is for such papers to have a n

"These are entirel

online presence. Publications like The Baker County Standard
(Maccienny, FL), The Wave of Long Island (Far Rockaway, NY), and Atlanticville (Long Branch, NJ) extend their publishing reach

ew ads that supplement each
apers display ads

well beyond the local area . One of Larson's tenets is to provide additional money-making oppo rt unities to his clients . Our-Hometown .co m enables its community publisher clients to sell print subscriptions, take orders
for classifieds, and sell (paper edition) display ads for the online

nd as a result we!
ave an entirely new ource of revenue . ;
Steve Larson

version . Seeking to add more value to the business, Larson says,
"I wanted another way to share revenue, and to do it in a way that would benefit my clients and their readers, as well as attract new community publishers."

ounder ,

The site overall sees half a million unique visitors each month, who O ur-Hometown .co m generate millions of page views across O ur-Hometown .com . Effectively monetizing all of those pages presents a substantial challenge . When Larson heard about Google AdSense, a program designed for web publishers ; to run AdWords ads related to the content on their pages, he was excited to try it . Results Larson spent less than an hour implementing AdSense for all 45 of his publishers. "it took no time at all to copy and paste the code on

individual pages," he says, "and it fits well with our content
management system, and with the look and feel of all of our

"

utting

pages ." Even on sites with long scrollable pages, Larson quickly saw a good revenue stream. Good enough, he says, to replace a n

oogle ads on virtually all of our

existing skyscraper ad format in favor of running four Google ads c l ients' pages . We re in the same area 'The placements are great," Larson says . on vi n ced that thi "Relevant ads appear on relevant pages . And, he adds, "The rog ram ill rod ce advertising information is so unique . We're seeing ads that are geographically appropriate, or that relate to the news stories on the significant income fo r

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Document 295-10

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oth us and our

In the first month of running Google ads, our-Hometown .com ubl ishers ." papers ea rned over $6,000, which represents a significant ne w source of income for the company and its clients, with whom it shares revenue . "These are entirely new ads that supplement each paper's display ads," says Larson, "and as a result we have an entirely new source of revenue," says Larson . As a result, e has expanded the AdSense offe ring to more of his publishers . "Now we 're putting Google ads of I virtually all of our clients' pages . We're convinced that this program will produce significant inco a for both us and our publishers." As he notes, "Google has always been an impo rt ant way for reads to find our site. Now it's important to us in yet another way: earning revenue . " About Google AdSens e Google AdSenseTm is a program for online businesses, enabling them to earn revenue from serving ads precisely targeted to specific web content and search pages . A broad universe of sites profit from AdSense, with service levels ranging from online sign-up to dedicated suppo rt management. Googie's thousands of advert isers also benefit from AdSense by gaining exposure on sites acr4 s the Google Network, including AOL, Ask Jeeves, Lycos and Earthlink .

© 2005 Google - AdSense Home - Contact Us - Privacy Polic y

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