Can Google Survive a Downturn? Experts Are Divided
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Google's dependence on ad revenue makes it particularly vulnerable to an economic recession, some experts say -- but others point out that the nature of its advertising may insulate Google from any downturn.
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By Tony Glover Technology Editor  YAHOO's profits warning last week sent shock waves through the entire internet  sector, leading some investors wondering if the glory days of search-orientated internet companies like Yahoo and Google are nearing their end.
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Google Inc.'s  strong revenue growth prompted analysts to raise targets for the share on Thursday, but a drop in the stock showed that some investors question its potential for further rises in the near term.
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(InfoWorld) - It's hard to imagine the online ad market cooling off, but when it eventually does, companies that make their living from it would do well to have a back-up plan. Asked at a press conference Tuesday if Google is thinking about an alternative business plan for 5 to 10 years out, Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt didn't miss a beat: "We are, and that's why we have Google Enterprise," he said. Best known for consumer services, Google has several products for businesses, including search appliances, a paid version of Google Apps, and a service that provides Web site hosting and online storage. "That business is likely to become, over the period you are describing, a very significant business because it utilizes our infrastructure and it utilizes our scale," Schmidt said, answering questions at Google's first "international press day" in Paris. It will have to iron out some teething problems first, however. Google has faced complaints from customers that it was unable to meet service-level agreements for Google Apps. For now, search remains at the core. "Search was, and is, and perhaps will be for many years, the killer app," Schmidt said. "We have more engineers on it than anything else." Personalized search, which uses people's search history, location, and other factors to deliver better results, is "perhaps the next big phenomenon," according to Schmidt. "The best search is personal search," he said. "This is going to become a more and more fundamental theme of Google as we go forward.... If I say 'Paris is very hot,' am I talking about Paris the city or Paris the young lady in jail in California? It's very difficult for us to know unless we know things about you, like where you are." Collecting such information raises privacy concerns, however, and Schmidt fielded several questions about Google's growing hoard of user data. "There's a general concern about privacy in the online world, and it's largely legitimate," Schmidt said. "If people start to not trust Google because of personal privacy, then we've got a problem. So everything we do is guided by that." He also faced questions about censorship. At one point he boasted that the Venezuelan TV station RCTV, which was banned recently by the government, had "survived by being on YouTube." He was asked later if RCTV would stay on YouTube if President Hugo Chavez asked Google to remove it. "Every case is different," he replied. "We must operate under the national law." The company also announced that it will be "carbon neutral" by 2008, which involves reducing its energy consumption as much as possible, then "canceling out" its carbon-dioxide emissions by funding projects that help the environment. Google has reduced the energy consumption at its giant data centers by more than 50 percent compared with "standard" data centers, using evaporative cooling for its servers and other means, said Urs Hoelzle, a senior vice president of operations. At the same time, he admitted, Google is growing so fast that its energy consumption each year is actually increasing. "We're still in a period of rapid growth, so we're probably growing, for the foreseeable future, in a double-digit percentage per year," he said.
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Is now the time to own a piece of the dominant search giant?
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Even a big first-day jump in shares of Google (GOOG) couldn't quiet debate over whether the Internet search engine's contentious auction was a hit or a flop.
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CAMBRIDGE -- A favorite parlor game in Greater Boston technology circles has been guessing which area company will grow up to be the next Google Inc., the Silicon Valley search provider that has become the behemoth of the Internet economy.
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Google drops its price and shares offered. Its magic: turning the hottest IPO in history into a disaster.
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Google's valuation isn't just fair -- it's downright cheap.
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I&#8217;m playing the devil&#8217;s advocate here, so keep that in mind in case I end up trampling all over anything you hold dear :) Google has taken a lot of flak on a lot of issues in the past few years - it&#8217;s a price an industry leader invariably has to pay.  Apart from Blogger spam [...]
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Google Inc.'s fourth-quarter profit fell below analyst expectations, signaling the crumbling U.S. economy has dented the Internet search leader's moneymaking machine.
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After rocky road to public offering, search engine proceeds--but what will it do with its windfall?
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With Yahoo reluctant, Microsoft aggressive and Google determined, the battle over one of the Internet's pioneers has quickly become a full-on brawl. But with so many (theoretical) outcomes, how will the battle play out? The Deal Professor on Monday outlined Yahoo's five stages of grieving. Now, Mark S. Mahaney, a Citigroup analyst, has described five possible [...].
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Contrary to some published views, the Dutch auction process of Google&#39;s initial public offering (IPO) last week was a success for the internet search engine and its investors despite being undertaken in a &quot;horrendous&quot; market, a legal commentator has
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Google will do better, but don't look for the company to dominate the market anytime soon, says the company's top exec.
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Don't you dare say that Google is overvalued.
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The initial public offering of Internet search engine Google Inc. (GOOG.O) was billed as a bonanza for millions of U.S. investors -- but the little guy, with check in hand, was left out of the party.