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January 15, 2008

“We are in the advertising business,” Eric Schmidt, Google’s C.E.O.

On one of the lists I subscribe to was a post about this Jan. 14, 2008 New Yorker article entitled "The Search Party: Google squares off with its Capitol Hill critics." by Ken Auletta. This article is fascinating on many levels but, I found the breakdown of how they budget their business especially interesting. I wonder if there are any libraries out there who can convince their boards to allocate 10% of their budget for innovation? The paragraph below seems to clearly layout Googles grand design and it is clear that libraries have to figure out how we fit in.

"In its 2004 annual report, Google, amending its basic corporate strategy, officially signalled its intent to be more than a search engine. The company announced that seventy per cent of its efforts would continue to be directed to its “core” mission, “our web search engine and our advertising network.” Another twenty per cent of its energies would be devoted to “adjacent areas such as Gmail”—the free e-mail accounts available to just about anyone who wants one—and the range of software that falls under the heading of “apps.” Finally, the report said, “the remaining 10 per cent is saved for anything else, giving us the freedom to innovate.” To other media companies, this sounded suspiciously like declaring, “We are in the search business, but we might be in your business.” ...Google has amassed one of the world’s largest databases—a resource that has helped in altering its mission. “We are in the advertising business,” Eric Schmidt, Google’s C.E.O., told me not long ago... MORE"

Posted by anna at January 15, 2008 10:38 AM

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