What's Up At Google--Besides The Stock Price?

This will be a short, quick post. I'm doing a presentation Monday evening at 7:00 PM for the Irving Writers Connection, and I still have work to do to get ready.

I'll be presenting helpful information for writers on the publishing industry. It's a talk I've given before, and I enjoy doing it.

On Thursday Google reported their third quarter results and the announcement was an impressive one. Quarterly revenue for the period ending September 30, 2007 was $4.2 billion, up from $2.7 billion for the same period in 2006--an increase of 57%.

According to USA Today, "[n]et income of $1.1 billion, or
$3.38 a share, rose from $733 million, or $2.36 a share, a year ago."

Google's stock price closed at $644.71 on Thursday evening.

To put this in perspective, Google's stock price on the date of its initial offering (August 19, 2004) was $100.34. Two months later, on October 19th, the stock was at $150.50. A year later on October 19, 2005, it had risen to $303.96 (at which point I tried to convince the men in my life to purchase the stock--without success). Last year on October 19, 2006, the stock was at $426.06. So, it's risen more than $200 a share over the last year.

The Washington Post reported on Friday:

More than half of all U.S. search queries in August were conducted through Google, according to Nielsen Online. While users don't pay Google anything for its search service, the popularity of its search engine has helped make it the leader in online advertising, particularly through its text ads based on search terms. Google owns 28.9 percent of the Internet ad market, nearly twice the share of its next-biggest rival, Yahoo, according to estimates from market research firm eMarketer. Yahoo reported a year-over-year quarterly earnings decline of
5 percent on Tuesday.

Still...there are a lot of rumors flying around about Google. USA Today says "[t]here are signs that Google is up to something. The company hired 2,130 employees during the quarter, for a total workforce of 15,916. (Rival Yahoo has about 13,600 employees.) . . . 'They're continuing to hire like drunken sailors,' says equity analyst Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray. 'They have a bigger plan in play'."

USA Today wondered whether it could be a GPhone while the Washington Post speculated on new ways to make money from videos on YouTube.

Stay tuned . . .