renouncing calibrations supplant copings enlightened impressment …

I’d also like to point out that Google is now rapidly moving into the software market. Just ask Microsoft. This wouldn’t fit the definition of a “pure” ad network. Like you said, Google is a business interested in the bottom line. I just don’t think that this is a contradictory goal from their nobler “mission statement”.

It takes a lot of money to organize the world’s data. It also takes putting your eggs in a lot of baskets. Google seems to have Green Eggs, and we’re enjoying the Ham.

So, to respond to your last comment, I would just say that there simply is no prioritization when it comes to Google’s philanthropic efforts : You gotta have the cash to do it in the first place.

You’re absolutely right, Google is an ad network. That does not mean, however, that it just gave-up the quest “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. It just means that the latter will take a bit more time.

“Wired: How should we think about Google today?

Schmidt: Think of it first as an advertising system. Then as an end-user system — Google Apps. A third way to think of Google is as a giant supercomputer. And a fourth way is to think of it as a social phenomenon involving the company, the people, the brand, the mission, the values — all that kind of stuff.”