The Latest "Clicks" at Google

In the last few weeks, search king Google has been busy...in fact, it seems as if almost every day brings news of some new service offering, a blockbuster acquisition, or more rivalry between the star search engine and major media outlets. Corporate feuds aside, let's take a look at some of the latest developments to come out of Mountain View, CA's ever-expanding Googleplex.

DoubleClick Acquisition
Late afternoon on Friday, April 13 (after the close of the stock market), Google announced that it had acquired Internet advertising leader DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash. For a brief second, indulge me by putting aside the tremendous business value of such a deal to realize that this is Google's second major acquisition in the past six months (after the YouTube purchase for $1.6 billion), meaning that the company has spent nearly $5 billion shopping around (that rivals the operating budgets of most major American metropolises!) According to InformationWeek, the purchase grants Google access to "valuable demographic data, ad management technology, and advertising clients." CEO Eric Schmidt claims that this acquisition will accelerate Google's display advertising business, and more importantly, it stymies Microsoft and Yahoo in the race for search advertising supremacy.

Google 4-1-1
One of Google Labs' most publicized debuts is the new 4-1-1 service. Currently in experimental stage, the service lets callers search for business listings from a landline or mobile phone by dialing 1-800-GOOG-411. Google will even connect the call and text the number to the user's cell phone - all free of charge. According to BusinessWeek, the search leader is one of several tech players that are swarming the $8 billion-a-year directory assistance business. Free information services are made possible by short paid advertisements, and may be a boon for search engines like Google looking to expand its presence in the mobile phone market. For example, once they've texted you a number, why not have them shoot over driving directions, or maybe a sponsored ad, such as a coupon? The system isn't perfect yet, as it relies on voice-recognition software that sometimes fails to complete calls, but if it comes to having to redial the free service or forking over $1.57 for directory assistance on my cell phone, I'll take my chances with the computer voice.

Google is the New #1 Brand
According to a study conducted by market research firm Millward Brown and published in India's Financial Express, Google is the world's new top-ranked brand. Beating out long-time stalwarts such as GE, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, and IBM, the study attributes the brand recognition success to corporate responsibility, as well as serving customers in emerging markets like Brazil and India. The rankings were based on publicly available financial data along with primary research, including interviews with a million consumers worldwide. For Google, which ranked #7 a year ago, the jump to the top underscores how quickly the Web search leader has become an everyday name....prove them right by going to google something!