Dr Mumbo

Google’s Fairfax takeover

There’s a fascinating move happening in Pyrmont’s media quarter with the ‘death star’ of the ad industry Google taking yet another floor of Fairfax’s headquarters.

Fairfax's Sydney HQ. Source: wiki commons

Fairfax’s Sydney HQ. Source: Wiki Commons

It takes the search giant’s room in the building to three of the five floors there.

And whilst you may be right to think of this as a sign of the times – traditional media being annexed by new online platforms – the reason for the move is actually more interesting…

Rather than pinning the blame on redundancies Dr Mumbo has heard it is actually because Fairfax has moved its Domain operations into a separate building – creating a village or to use the management’s term a Fairfax “precinct”.

Now is it just Dr Mumbo or does that scream preparation for a stock market float for what is by far the fastest growing and most profitable part of the Fairfax empire?

Apparently the move takes place in the middle of next year – so Fairfax staff will have more scooter toting geeks to contend with.

Dr Mumbo also wonders which floor the Google sponsored Fairfax journo will sit on.

And what other piece of outsider art it can pick up to beat the monorail carriages it adorned its offices with in 2013.

SMH digital editor Ben Grubb's tweet from 2013 when Google brought in a monorail carriage

SMH digital editor Ben Grubb’s tweet from 2013 when Google brought in a monorail carriage

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