Profit Rises Sevenfold at Google - New York Times
Safa Rashtchy, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Company, said one driver of the strong results was that Google had been able to convince major marketers that search engine advertisements - which are mostly short snippets of text - are good ways to promote brands rather than simply to consummate immediate sales."You see General Motors interested in being in front of users any time they type in anything automotive," he said, "rather than just for products they sell."
Mr. Schmidt said that Google was working to develop graphical advertising and had expanded ways for marketers to promote their brands.
Yet another good quarter from Google. The strength of their core advertising business is undeniable, and offers them the equivalent of Microsoft's Windows and Office revenue stream. This means that Google can play around in whatever ancillary markets they want, biding their time until they can move in for the kill.
This approach is pretty clearly sustainable since we're only at the beginning of the rise to dominance of Google (and Yahoo!, and MSN) over the advertising world (at the cost of the traditional channels). The money quote, on that front, from the Google conference call was that the shift "to accountable media" was underway.
