The Google hype, is it madness, marketing or money?

First, Google is easy. One click gets me to a quickly loaded search page. One more click and my search type is selected. Clean, fast and easy is what attracts me first (I'm talking about web searches here). When I attempt the same thing with the other big three search engines, my first click takes three times as long to load and then the first page arrived at contains alternate distractions. The other engines are good systems, don't get me wrong. Each has its own uses for me. But when it comes to a easy quick search for most applications I use Google at a ratio of about 5 to 1. Google wins hands down.

In just the last year I have watched Google launch project after test after initiative. There's no stopping it. I'm sure as I write this there's some Google star gazer hatching its next never-before-thought-of idea. I am an options oriented, concept visualizer myself. I can't help the high level of respect that I have for people who dare to bring wild imaginings into reality. That's the type of thinking that goes on at Google. If I had my way, their mission statement would read simply, "Don't tell us it can't be done." I tend to live by that credo.

Google makes money, tons and tons and tons of it. Anyone who works in investments must have at least a bit of respect for that. Google does it (I believe) with a minimum of depreciable capital outlay. There must be a formula to review net income versus capital investment, how does Google score on that? It makes its money on the presentation of ad copy. How cool is that? If I'm not mistaken isn't that basically the same way that Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) became such a behemoth? Advertising is the goldmine of the ages. Google lives in that world. Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), the number two player, has been struggling in it.

I can't really speak factually regarding the technically calculated value of Google stock. Yes, I could easily learn and apply all the formulas and equations needed to form that analytical data picture, but that's not my focus ... at least not yet. What I can tell you is the simplistic version: People buy Google stock because they like it. They like the company and the way it does business. They like the fact that when Google runs up against a problem or makes a mistake it "nip it in the bud" like Barney Fife on a jaywalker. They respect the Google boys and they way they have risen from obscurity to stardom. Google is an American Cinderella story. We like those.

Personally, I think the only reason that Google hasn't risen above $500 and stayed there is because it still feels like taboo to go there. Remember, it felt that same way when the DJIA was bumping 12,000 and just look where we are now. Google will break $500 again. I can't say if it will be soon. I won't hazard a guess when. But it's going to happen if the company makes no major mistakes. I'll be here to applaud it then.

Is Google a revolution or a company? Is its position a fluke or is it madness? Is it real? Is it long term? Is it viable? Can you depend on it? Well, if you expect that the Internet is going to be around a while and you like it and you use it, I feel pretty safe in telling you that Google is going to be here also. It'll be cutting a wide swath, giving you what you ask for and making a boat load of money doing it.

But that's just my opinion... and I don't own Google shares.