Publishers shouldn’t automatically give over everything to Google, said Moritz Wuttke, founder of NextMediaInitiatives, based in Switzerland and China, at a WAN-IFRA industry gathering today.

Wuttke, who advises media and advertising companies how to earn revenue online, suggested that newspaper publishers make advertisers work far too hard when it comes to buying adverts. It should be possible within three clicks, he said.

The New York Times’ self-service advertising model was a good development, but much more needed to be done by organisations, he said.

Who has tried to develop their own AdSense? Wuttke didn’t suggest that newspapers develop their own technology, but look to services outside of Google, he said. “Google is not bad – use them but don’t be abused,” he said. If Google offers to host everything for free, think twice, he advised.

“Work with Ad Clicks,” he said. “Start your own contextual advertising.”

Using evidence from Asia, he showed where profits were being made: the Chinese instant messaging service for example: QQ IM with its 70 per cent profit margin.

Newspaper site advertising needs to be more flexible, he said. Understand that 15 seconds might be too long for a user to watch a advertising video – five seconds might even be too long, he added. “The best thing is to meet user groups and find out what is annoying,” he said.

Finally, he said: “Don’t fire the young guys. Hire the young guys – who will even work for free. Suck their brains. Empower them.”