America

Google's search engine goes universal

(AP)
Updated: 2007-05-17 10:04

Last year alone, Google's capital expenditures totaled $1.9 billion, and the company is on a pace to spend even more this year as it builds more data centers to handle heavy-duty computing jobs. Google executives said it took two years to lay the groundwork for the switch to universal search.

The change realizes one of the visions that drove Google's $1.76 billion acquisition of the video-sharing site YouTube. Just days before announcing that deal last October, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page lamented their inability to show videos on the main results page and said they were working hard to address the weakness.

Now that Google is showing videos in the search results, it may not be much longer before the company begins airing video ads in addition to the short text ads that have accounted for nearly all of its profits so far.

"I do think this opens the door for a richer medium on the search results page," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience. "For us, ads are answers as well."

Since all videos from YouTube and the company's database will be streamed on a player embedded on the main results page, the change also could mean people stay longer on Google's Web site - another factor that could boost profits. Although Google also distributes ads to thousands of other Web sites, it makes more money from messages on its own property because it doesn't have to share the commissions.

"Our goal is not to have people spend more time on Google," Brin said Wednesday. "It's for people to accomplish more on Google."

By creating another major channel to show YouTube videos, Google also could be courting more copyright trouble. Since its inception, YouTube has regularly shown pirated videos posted by its users, a problem that has spurred several copyright infringement lawsuits, including a $1 billion damage claim by Viacom Inc.

Both Google and YouTube say they have adhered to the law by removing pirated videos after receiving a request from a copyright holder.