Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today disappointed investors. I'm sure that geeks from Cambridge to Silicon Valley are wondering if the world has come to an end. Let be the first to say this isn't the end of the world. In fact, it's a good way to remind people that Google is mortal.

In fact, the company's earnings were still great even if they weren't as fantastic as some had expected. Net income soared to $925.1 million, or $2.93 per share. Revenue rose 58 percent to $3.87 billion. Excluding stock-based compensation costs, profit was $3.56, about three cents below expectations. Revenue excluding so-called traffic acquisition costs was $2.72 billion, below above the $2.68 billion, analysts had expected, according to MarketWatch.

Though I'm not sure where things went wrong in this quarter, it's worth remembering that Google itself has repeatedly said growth was slowing. Its repeatedly mentioned that it plans to pour big money into the busines and that it doesn't care much about meeting quarterly numbers.

I wonder if anyone listened.