Google Unveils Record Q3 Profits & eBook Store Plans Comments

Hmmm, I shall be watching them closely (for more insight as to why I will be doing so, please see the comments to the new Sony eBook reader review).

Just a short question if anyone knows - how does Google make its income (is it through search and advertising?) and why is it proving so resistant to the economic downturn?

@Pbryanw

That's a pretty massive question for a comments section! On a Friday! When we've all been drinking!

Short answer is Google makes its money through advertising, and their share of all advertising revenue everywhere is increasing proportionally faster than the total amount of advertising revenue everywhere is shrinking.

The pie may be getting smaller, but Googles piece of it is getting larger. They get more pie than they were getting before, even though there is less pie to go around.

As to WHY.. man. Lots of reasons. Easy one is: MASSIVE market domination in internet search + people increasingly spending online = profit! (Thankyou underpant gnomes.)

@Tim - Yep, a pretty loaded question (in retrospect) but you answered it very well. Thanks for the answer :thumbsup:

Will be interesting to see, hopefully the Sony Reader will support the paid store and Google will use industry standard DRM or go DRM free entirely, though I don't think it is necessarily a good idea yet for eBooks as anyone who is technically minded enough to buy an eBook reader will know enough about torrents and PDFs, unlike the millions of MP3 player owners who will pay for music online leaving only a minority of pirates.