A few months ago Google began a pilot program that put 100 advertisers in 66 daily newspapers and their unsold ad space. Much like brokers who buy and resell ad space to last-minute advertisers, Google is allowing businesses to bid online for a paper’s excess ad inventory.

“The volume [of ads sold] is tripling where we thought it would be,” said Tom Phillips, director of print ads at Google. “I think we’ll have real impact next year” on newspapers’ bottom lines, he said. “We open the medium to a whole new class of advertisers.”

The idea is to give small advertisers a chance to get into the daily newspapers, that generally price ad space to larger companies. Google is looking in good form to expand the program.

With a huge directory of online advertisers, many of whom would be more than interested in beginning an affordable print campaign, the system is in place to allow newspapers to boost their revenue.

Advertisers choose the newspaper, it’s section, then where and when they want the ad to run and bid on the spot. Then the newspapers would review the bids and choose the ads they want.

At the moment Google isn’t taking a cut but plans to in the future. Right now the logistics of the business relationship between Google and the newspapers needs to be fine tuned. One thing is for sure, they aren’t sticking to the net; radio and television ads are also in the works.

Is it win-win or overkill?

Read [Washington Post]