Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) invited the press and analysts yesterday to see just how well it is doing. Most people who attended were left with the impression that growth and innovation at the company are not slowing at all.

On the advertising front, according to Reuters, "Tim Armstrong, president of North American advertising sales, said every one of its top 100 advertising accounts was increasing spending with Google."

Google also said it was getting increased penetration of its Gmail and Apps products, both of them aimed at Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) desktop Windows franchise.

One interesting observation made by an analyst from Reuters is that Google did not show off many new products. What it did do was demonstrate improvements to current ones.

This may be a change of direction for the big search company, which has hit the market with everything from Google Earth to its own social network Orkut. Google still maintains its own Finance site for investors and an online retail shopping network.

With the ranks of its employees growing by more than 2,000 people a quarter, Google may have decided to pause and improve what it has. That could be a better way to make money than putting out a new product every week.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Expanding on a TechCrunch post last month, BusinessWeek has joined speculation that Google is planning an open-source debutante ball for its 67 million-user Orkut social networking site. Wait, what?

Yes indeed -- Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) runs its own Friendster/MySpace/Facebook. Orkut has been around since early 2004, though you'd have trouble finding any users among your own friends. However, the site does a mean, market-leading business in Asia and Latin America, particularly Brazil (Orkut's forums are nearly dominated by Portuguese). If you believe the chatter, Google will make Orkut's source code available to outside programmers, duplicating the third-party-widget blueprint largely fueling the ascension of privately-held Facebook.

Does this do anything to explain Google's recent run-up on the Nasdaq? GOOG crossed $600 yesterday, joining five other shares trading higher than $600 (which just equals six shares aching for splits) and climbed further today, trading in uncharted territory for the search giant.

Call me a party-pooper, or maybe just unimaginative, but GOOG's current climb seems uncalled for, particularly now when Facebook seems poised to change all the online rules, just as it apparently has changed Google's plans. I mean, Google is a dynamite search engine, but don't give it undue credit. Its history is one of acquisitions, tinkering and positioning, and lately it's playing a lot of catch-up, what with Orkut's speculated run at Facebook and all the hubbub about a Gphone platform.

Am I the only one baffled by Google's recent rise?

Last week I asked whether as an investor, a shareholder, you care about companies' business practices. I didn't get the feeling this was really a major concern to most shareholders, so let me ask a more specific question: As a Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) shareholder, would you care that Google serves ads on Orkut groups that are affiliated (at least in ideology) to terrorists group?

Last week this issue was buzzing all over the Internet, and Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal wrote a particularly interesting post about the subject. Baker posted several screen shots from the Al Qaida and JihadNet Orkut groups to name a few. Their ads can be clearly seen at the bottom of the page. Some of the advertisers include companies like eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), AbeBooks, Harvard, BuildASign.com, Stanford and Caravan.com. (I wonder if they know where their ads are being placed).

I've checked for myself, despite my aversion, and actually went to these sites (where lovely members post their pictures with a back-splash of swastikas and other such symbols). From what I've seen, it appears that Google has removed the ads.

This raises a few interesting questions though. Should Google post ads in these groups? Should Google allow such groups to even exist? If not, isn't that censorship? If yes, couldn't that facilitate terrorist activities? And I'll end with where I started, as an investor, do you even care about Google's practices as long as it increases shareholder value?

Google's Orkut social networking website -- hugely popular in Brazil -- is having yet another court battle with the Brazilian government, who wants Google to turn over information on certain Orkut users. Google, kind of like eBay in a way, does not want to release private information about any of it online customers due to the privacy aspect that customer expect when doing business with the web giant.

However, along with privacy comes criminal element that won't ever stop. There are apparently some Orkut users peddling in child pornography, hate speech against blacks, Jews, homosexuals and other atrocities. But, is Google "doing evil" by not giving information away to Brazilian authorities about Orkut users involved in these criminal activities?

Google's Debbie Frost said "It is and always has been our intention to be as cooperative in the investigation and prosecution of crimes as we possibly can, while being careful to balance the interests of our users and the request from the authorities." This is going to be a nice balancing act from this point forward of course, as Google tries to respect the privacy of its users, but while trying to assist in rooting out criminals at the same time.

In a possible sign of things to come, Google is facing public pressure in Brazil over the data it collects about users of its social networking site, Orkut. Google is not breaking its "don't be evil" corporate mantra. It has refused to give the Brazilian government any information on Orkut users at all.

Although the Brazilian government has stated that it believes Orkut users are using the social networking site to access or distribute child pornography, Google so far has refused to release user data on its customer's activities. And so goes this debate -- where is the line drawn between customer and user privacy when possible illegal activities are taking place on a network owned by a major -- or any -- network like Google, Yahoo! or MSN/Windows Live?

Google's defense is a sound one -- the data that the Brazilian government wants is located in servers here in the U.S. -- there are no physical Google property in Brazil at all. Therefore, Google argues, the Brazilian government must go through the U.S. court system to see if it can "win" information. Google's reasoning here is sound, but it does illustrate the "muddiness" that is the global Internet.

What can Brazil do -- block its citizens from the Internet (or from Orkut)? Doubtful, highly doubtful. Until then Google will keep hoarding user data -- for some purpose in the future I guess -- while some governments try to operate in a changed world.

With all the talk this week of MySpace being the most-visited web destination in the U.S. -- surpassing perennial leaders like Google and Yahoo! -- many commenters and industry pundits have said that Google is not into content providing, and therefore, does not really compete with MySpace on that level.

On the level of gaining web eyeballs, everyone competes with everyone else -- but there also has to be value attributed to those eyeballs. Kids looking for a quick date on MySpace probably are not as valuable as a Google web searcher looking for diesel engine specifications before he plonks down thousands of dollars for one. Perhaps both of these "customers" are equal, though?

Are incredibly popular web destinations like MySpace and Facebook a fashionable trend, all-out fad, or a web power to be reckoned with?

It's pretty clear what Google thinks. So far it is staying out of the business for now -- even though it was passed last week by MySpace as the most popular web destination in the U.S. MySpace garnered 4.5% of all web visitors from the U.S. last week. But Google, never one to chase a possible fad, is staying away for now from all social networking, except for the Orkut service it runs which is very popular in Brazil, but nowhere else.

Does the very nature of a social network mean that people's propensity for a little self-destruction (flaming, fighting, threats, etc.) -- especially in the teen set where attitudes are fueled -- mean that social networks really are fads? Yes and no, most likely. There is genuine advantage in having a place where people of like minds can connect and share things just like being in person.

eBay is a commerce-related example of this. But, when it comes right down to it, is Google making the smart, headstrong choice to stay farther away from the phenomenon of social networking? What do you think? And, if you're a GOOG shareholder, do you think this is a good choice from Google?

MySpace may be the space of the moment, receiving praise, aplomb and (most importantly) generating traffic to Google in ever-greater numbers, but it's not even the middle of the social network craze. Really, the whole social network effect, as a theory and a technological practicality, started with the personal web sites of the early nineties. Personal web sites beget blogs beget networking sites like Orkut and LinkedIn beget MySpace, AIM Pages, YouTube, and whatever's to come next.

Thanks to a effort by white shoe management consultancy McKinsey to get the great minds of YouTube, Yahoo! and the like together with the old garde of the gigantic media (and I'm asking myself, and Aaron Cohen of Bolt Media, who was interviewed as a person of knowledge for the Financial Times piece: whither side of the old/new divide does Time Warner fall?), social networking is now coming into the good graces of the giants of Wall Street and Hollywood and Madison Avenue and all those places where fashion and money meet the people.

Robert Young, writing for GigaOm, calls MySpace the "it girl," and describes the infatuation with "her" and her groupies this way: "nearly every media company and venture capital fund on the planet is out on the dance floor stumbling over one another to see if they can identify the next breathless social networking beauty."

You may not have heard of Orkut - Google's social networking website - but what makes it so popular in a single country where it has not taken off in others? Sure, MySpace.com and Facebook are getting all the attention these days in the social networking circle, with ridiculous sums of money being tossed around based on a "numbers game" - how many visitors come to the website each day, month, whatever. Never mind that the long-term advertising sustainability business model is completely unproven in this space. But, that's what market risks are defined as, according to the dot.com bubble of the late 90s.

What makes Orkut.com so special to Brazilians? Unknown. Can Google expand this service as a popular social online service outside of Brazil? Again, unknown - but how hard have they tried? Given the advertising model for Google that works - and incredibly well - they should try one would fathom. More users to a "sticky" social networking web property means more Google advertising, albeit in their low-key, unobtrusive and relevant way that just seems to work.