Virtually all of the biggest newspaper publishers in the country have signed up to participate in Google's upcoming second go at selling print ad space. Hearst, Tribune, Gannett, New York Times Company and the Washington Post Company are all on board. That's because it gives them what they most need right now, which is ad revenue. Later this month, 100 advertisers will be placed through Google's automated system, a test that will net no profits for Google. They're waiting until the system actually goes live sometime next year to take their usual percentage of revenue.

Because of the automated system, these are largely what could be called new advertisers to the world of print. That's because it allows companies that are located outside the sphere of influence of a print title, a group that has done little print advertising, to have their ads placed in papers. The system allows for the papers to essentially have a backup pool of advertisers from which to draw after they see how much ad space they have available in a particular day's edition, which again is just found money for them and not cannibalized revenue from existing advertisers.

Advertisers can manage their print ad bids through the same AdWords interface they currently use for their online advertising.