C'mon. You can do better than this! Offer a little analyis or commentary. Fred doesn't understand Google's mission, which one can read on their website. He and his partner have drunk too much of Starbucks poor quality, high brand coffee.

Let's see - Google shouldn't launch new web services unless they're directly and obviously connected to the "core business." That's MBA 101. However, if they don't roll all that cool stuff out, do they get clobbered for having grown too big and too tied to their existing business model to innovate?

this is a bit of a silly comparison. Google have incredible foresight/playfulness. It's not all about business either, even if it ends up supporting their organization with some revenue stream later.(and even if their stockholders would hate me for saying it).

Maybe the problem is of brand wear and tear. Google this and that, might get some users pissed off. It's also funny that if you switch domains to let's say human rights or providing food for the hungry this brand-burn is not as extreme. With stuff like Googlezon being broadcast, there is a fear that rises of this networked creature on steriods that will swallow all our data now and forever and that we somehow will lose control. We feel rather fragile next to a brontosaurus (a friendly giant) or (unfriendly giant)tyranosaurus rex. i really have mixed feelings, but mainly positive. Love google to find stuff. google maps means so much more on multiple levels, beyond practical stuff like finding the nearest public pissoir or Starbucks.

j

Every single one of Google's services can be tied to an advertising revenue model eventually. Google Scholar will soon have links to purchase paper reprint rights, no doubt.

Anyone who doesn't see how Google Local and Maps will some day have contextual advertising doesn't have much business pontificating about the internet industry.

Google is not a 'search'company, it is a 'media' company with a very smart plan: instead of struggling to create media properties, use existing ones. Everything they are touching is another way to place ads in context: local, maps, search, social nets, gmail... they are all media. Search provides the audience, the rest provide the content, Google provides the advertising (and takes the lion's share of the proceeds).

This posting must have been a joke. Not seeing where GMAIL can be ad driven.It reads your e-mail and feeds you ads. You have been deleted from my RSS Feed