Google Says It Could Soon Be Serving Ads on Thermostats, Glasses, Watches, More

Google told the SEC that it could soon be serving ads on refrigerators, car dashboards, thermostats, glasses, and watches in a statement explaining why it shouldn't have to disclose revenue generated from mobile devices.

Google says the definition of 'mobile' is changing and soon there will be a host of smart devices in the market.


We expect the definition of “mobile” to continue to evolve as more and more “smart” devices gain traction in the market. For example, a few years from now, we and other companies could be serving ads and other content on refrigerators, car dashboards, thermostats, glasses, and watches, to name just a few possibilities.

Our expectation is that users will be using our services and viewing our ads on an increasingly wide diversity of devices in the future, and thus our advertising systems are becoming increasingly device-agnostic. Enhanced Campaigns was specifically designed to help advertisers become more efficient in a multi-device future; rather than writing unique desktop campaigns, handset campaigns, and tablet campaigns, etc., Enhanced Campaigns allows our advertisers to write one ad campaign, which we serve dynamically to the right user at the right time on whatever device makes the most sense. Because users will increasingly view ads and make purchase decisions on and across multiple devices, our view of revenue is similarly device-agnostic.

It's clear that Google is planning to expand its ads to as many devices as possible. While it's unlikely that you'll see ads on your Nest Thermostat anytime soon, devices such as Google Glass or Android smartwatches could easily serve ads especially through apps such as Google Maps.

Read More [via WSJ]