Now that’s an immune system
Google’s pursuit of all things media remains relentless. In recent weeks it announced its Android operating system for mobile phones, its OpenSocial standard to link applications across major social-networking sites, and filed a patent application for a magazine of sorts that would allow users to collate Web content around which Google would wrap targeted ads. Additionally, Google has accelerated its push into traditional media with a jobs-ads initiative as well as a digital, auction-based platform for buying and selling to TV and print publications. All of which multiplies the arenas into which Google can sell advertising, from which it derives 99% of its revenue. The formula is familiar: Sell ads around content it doesn’t own; return some of that revenue to the owner of the content; repeat. Good strategy. Google’s revenues almost tripled, to $11.8 billion, in the first nine months of ’07 and its stock price approached $700 a share. Allergic to owning content, Google sneezes money
