The Message Behind Those Google Earnings

Kevin Maney peers through the looking glass: Most of the breathing adult population by now knows about Google's earnings -- it may be the only company on earth that can grow its earnings 35% and make investors feel cheated enough that they drive the stock down 10%. It's like listening to the "Let It Be" album and concluding that The Beatles suck.

But here's the thing that struck me: ALL of the conversation about revenue and profits on Google's conference call was about search and search-based advertising. Google has hammered relentlessly at other businesses the past few years: maps, health, applications, video, blogging, social networking (Orkut's big in Brazil -- like thongs and Ronaldo!), cloud computing, municipal Wi-Fi, radio advertising, cell phones (hey, where is this Android anyway?) and more. It famously bought YouTube, which remains wildly popular but essentially revenue-less. As CEO Eric Schmidt said: "I personall do not believe the perfect YouTube ad (mechanism) has been invented."

Basically, nothing Google has done outside of search and AdSense matters even a smidgen. And that's at least interesting. Google will be able to continue to suck advertising dollars out of old-line media for quite some time -- and it does pull in new ad dollars from small businesses that previously had no way to effectively advertise. That runway probably still has a lot of room left. But it will end someday. And Google so far doesn't have an answer for, "What's next?"

It does, however, have the money and talent to keep whacking at the problem until something breaks through. In that sense, Google seems to be employing the sperm-and-egg model of innovation: blast 100 million little guys out there, and one of them will grow up to be president.