A while ago, if somebody had even suggested that the future of the Internet was offline, most would have laughed at the thought, while the remainder of the audience wouldn't have understood the concept and, because of it, remained quiet. Google is actually heading towards this in full gear, after understanding that a symbiosis of both online and offline work is the key to going forward.

It's been dabbling in offline media for quite a while now, and if its first printed attempts at advertising weren't all that successful, the Mountain View turned to other media such as the TV (Dish TV, one of the US' two satellite pay-TV providers) to tend to its wounds, only to try again after a while. And so it did, it advertised its Maps service via flyers and posters, and now it is considering introducing printed barcodes in newspaper that would target only the people interested in a certain advertisement.

Google has decided to give agencies a chance to further their ads exposure and, thus, is sending to the United Kingdom engineers to improve agency relations. The staff of the two parties will collaborate and, if possible, work on several tools to make planning and buying in the online space more efficient. In Mark Howe's words, the drive has started because "Agencies aren't using online as much as they can because their systems aren't up to it. We want to use engineering in Europe to build tools for agencies."

If these offline techniques turn to be effective, that would spur some unbelievable interest with media buyers in quantifiable data for offline and online campaigns alike. Gowe, Google UK's country sales director for agencies, delivered the punch line of the deal, according to Brand Republic: "If we can build tools to link information from Donovan Data Systems and plug into other systems to measure the effectiveness of online, then that is the Holy Grail. It won't happen this year, but that is the Holy Grail." Amen!