Everyone who uses the Internet knows what a powerful tool Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) search engine is. In fact, the ubiquity of Google searches has now put the company's name firmly in our verbal lexicon. Hey, you know you've made it big when your name becomes a verb, as in, "I Googled myself."

Fortunately for shareholders, Google is more than just a catchy verb.

Shares of the search engine firm have delivered an incredible 313% gain over the past five years, and year-to-date the shares are up a very solid 62%. I think that despite the near $500 share price, GOOG shares are still a bargain, and that means they are likely to search out some very nice gains for high-priced stock enthusiasts.

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With the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) Tablet, newspapers doing what they should have done: thinking about the possible impact to their business and trying to find ways to mitigate it. This comes 15 years after the industry ignored the internet and a decade after it disregarded Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). Of course, unwilling to admit its salient and severe fallibility, the newspaper folks are saying that they don't want the Tablet to destroy print the way the iPod destroyed the music industry.

The newspapers are apparently worried that circulation could plunge, driving profits through the floor and jeopardizing their abilities to operate. They are concerned that properties like the New York Times Co.'s (NYSE: NYT) Boston Globe could wind up selling for a single-digit percentage of the original purchase price.

Internet giant Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) sent out invitations to 100,000 developers to come in a test the waters of its newest creation, Google Wave.

Unfortunately, for most of us, since the service is being offered on an invitation only basis, we will have to wait a bit longer to see what Google Wave is all about, but it does seem to offer some really nice features that will probably become very popular with internet users.

All three of the major indexes finished Tuesday in the red, but there were several big names that moved up to new 52-week highs in Tuesday's trading.

Walgreen Co. (NYSE: WAG): The drugstore giant had a really good day on Wall Street after posting better than expected earnings in the morning before the market opened. The company posted earnings of 44 cents per share versus analyst estimates of 39 cents. The stock set a new 52-week high of $38.44 and closed the day up 9.2% at $37.35.

When it come to search engines, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) still rules the roost, but Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is hoping to capture as much of the pis as possible with its newly launched engine Bing.

Bing, which was launched in June of this year increased its share of online searches by 4.5% in August, capturing 9.3% of online search traffic. While this is good news for Microsoft, I doubt Google is too concerned right now, as it still holds a massive 64.6% share of the search market.

Kai-Fu Lee, head of Google's China operations, resigned on Friday. This brings to a close four years of controversy, as the search engine giant censored its search results in order to pick up some market share in the largest internet market in the world (by population).

The change follows fresh debate within Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) -- which claims to live by the motto "don't be evil" -- about whether to exit the Chinese market. The internal discussion is the result of another round of conflict with government authorities in China.

Online retailer Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is due to report its second quarter earnings Thursday following the market close, and investors are hoping for a repeat performance of the company's strong first quarter results.

Analysts are expecting the company to report earnings of 31 cents per share. Ironically, when the company was due to report earnings for its first quarter, analysts were also looking for 31 cents per share, but Amazon was able to easily beat out those estimates by posting 41 cents a share for the first quarter.

Venture capital funds found 612 companies in which to invest $3.67 billion in Q2. Of this, $1.5 billion (41%) was first-time financing, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. This is only slightly ahead of the action in Q1, in which 141 transactions were first-time, and far behind the pace we enjoyed earlier this decade.

The biotech sector was the big winner in a shrinking market, with funding up 54% to $888 million over 85 deals. The software business was flat quarter-over-quarter at 4644 million over 135 transactions. Investments in internet companies fell 15% to $524 million via 124 deals. Clean technology showed considerable growth, up 15% to $274 million, with 42 transactions closed.

Shares of online retailer Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) are trading a bit higher this afternoon after being upgraded today by Susquehanna Financial.

Susquehanna Financial analyst Marianne Wolk raised her rating on the stock this morning to a "positive" from a "neutral" rating and put a $100 price target on the company. The stock is currently trading up 1.7% on the day to $76.91, up $1.28.

Did you know that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to take bloggers to task for a new form of advertising? The FTC is in the process of updating its "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising" for the first time since 1980. What does this mean?

Well, the FTC is going to crack down on "word-of-mouth marketing." This type of marketing consists of advertisers paying bloggers to review their products. And by "pay" we mean the bloggers get free product samples, gift certificates for shopping sprees, cash, or a year's car loan. Yes, this is what some of the advertisers have paid bloggers for their "reviews."

Goldman Sachs has upped its share price estimate on Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) to $486, an increase of 17%. The analysts cite both search query growth and improvements in emerging markets coverage as the reasons for giving a nod to the dominant player in the online search business. The higher estimate implies that Google still has plenty of room to grow, which leaves plenty of upside for investors.

On a per-share basis, Goldman Sachs pushed its earnings forecast for the search giant 2% higher for this year – to $21.30. Per-share earnings estimates for 2010 were increased to by 8% to $23.36, and the 2011 estimate is now $27.02 (up 12%).

Last week it was announced that the long-anticipated separation of AOL from Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) is set to happen before the end of the year -- then what?

If all goes well, AOL will set its own course sustaining what's left of its internet prominence, after falling from what was once internet dominance before its merger with TWX, and the continuous contraction of its dial-up subscriptions.

AOL still attracts more than 100 million Internet users to its online content portal, which includes BloggingStocks, so the adventure will continue. And, an AD-venture it is sure to be.

The same is true for Time Warner, the world's largest media conglomerate with operations spanning film, television, cable TV, and publishing. It will have an AD-venture of its own.

Online auction giant eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) is going to be reporting its first quarter earnings today following the market close, and analysts are looking to see the company show 33 cents per share for the quarter.

eBay has been working hard to weather the current economic storm, but has a lot of work ahead of it.

The industry standard in journalism, The New York Times, is revisiting the issue of charging for online content.

New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Chairman Authur Sulzberger, Jr., told a Stony Brook (N.Y.) University audience Thursday that the company is considering "incremental" charges for website users, while keeping most of its site free, Bloomberg News reported.

Journalism in the United States is hurtling toward a new era. The trouble is, no one in the craft knows whether the new period will represent the start of a new golden age... or a brave new world.

There are breathtaking technologies, platforms, and distribution channels that hold the promise of bringing news, news analysis, information, and more, to countless new markets and to new audiences. This holds the promise of increasing knowledge, learning, public input and citizen awareness -- as well as publishers' online revenue streams.