[djehuty]

"Why does Google give away products like its browser, its apps, and the Android operating system for mobile phones? Anything that increases Internet use ultimately enriches Google, Varian says. And since using the Web without using Google is like dining at In-N-Out without ordering a hamburger, more eyeballs on the Web lead inexorably to more ad sales for Google."

Very silly. Google's browser generates searches in the title bar for free which Google pays Firefox and the others for. Mail, Talk and the apps are vehicles for showing ads to people. The extra internet use is just not the primary purpose of these things. What confuses people, even Wired, who should know better, is that not everything Google does has an immediate payoff every time. They're willing to develop something, like maybe Android, which can make them money later, maybe.

[neilk]

No, the primary reason for these apps isn't advertising. I don't know if they have finally given up or what, but people reading email or composing documents just aren't that distractible.

Google likes the idea of putting your documents on the web because (a) it's a potential business, especially at the enterprise level; (b) they want more structured data on the web to mine; (c) they want a better way to profile you.

Android I don't know enough about, but it's more like an attempt to make phones work more like the PC -- an open-ish standard, rather than specialized, incompatible devices under the control of carriers. I assume Google feels they will do much better in that kind of market.

[djehuty]

There's no doubt you're right about the profiling. I don't know how much they generate from the ads but they're context sensitive. Is it better or worse than ads next to a search? It would be interesting to know.