While everybody else was pondering the ethics of Eliot Spitzer's now-infamous Google
Most of the press seemed to think this represented a wee conflict of interest. Spitzer agreed, blamed the problem on a low-level staffer, and had the ad buy pulled.
Today, when you Google "AIG," the second sponsored link you get is the New York Times'
Sure, there are other paid-search peddlers out there. You've got your FindWhat.com
So the herd has been culled, and Google's incredible brand presence makes it more and more the only player that matters, sort of like eBay
I still think Google the stock looks incredibly pricey, but I also wonder if it can't grow into its big britches, because everything it touches turns to gold. Can we just talk maps for a couple of seconds? Why is it that it we had to wait until Google came around to get a big, legible map right away, without four or five clicks?
In my opinion, Google's not really the innovator that many claim it to be. But it does things right. Every time. And figures out a way to make money off this advantage. Online Search. Online email. Desktop search. Newsgroups. News portal. Click-through ads. Blogging. Image browsers. These are all examples of computerized "stuff" that had been around for a long time before Google invented a better way to do it, or simply bought another company that had already figured it out.
There's incredible opportunity in simplicity, and Google seems to be harvesting it better than anyone else.
For related Foolishness:
- Is Google too generous?
- Can TiVo take a page from Google?
- Ooh, la la. Ze Google, she scares me.
Seth Jayson uses Google a lot, but at the time of publication, he had positions in no firm mentioned. View his stock holdings and Fool profile here. Fool rules are here.