OverMatter

University of Phoenix Cardinals

"University of Phoenix Stadium.

It doesn't quite roll off the tongue like Cardinals Stadium. But the Arizona Cardinals welcomed a deal Tuesday that gives the nation's largest private university naming rights to the football team's new stadium in Glendale.

The University of Phoenix will pay the Cardinals $154.5 million over 20 years to plaster its name on the inside and outside of the venue...

Mueller said this was the first time a NFL venue has been named after an educational institution.

"The irony of this deal is not lost on us," he said.

That wasn't the only irony.

The Cardinals spent the past 17 years trying to rid themselves of the stigma of being the only NFL team to play in a college arena. Their glitzy new $455 million stadium is now named for a college.

And Glendale, which with its new stadium had just begun to emerge as more than a suburb of Phoenix, now sees its larger neighbor's name attached to its most prominent landmark."

(Stadium name deal: $154.5 mil over 20 years)

The virtuous cycle of search

"Google Earth has been downloaded more than 100 million times, and embedded in each download is a request from Google to place a toolbar, a Web gadget that includes a search box, permanently on a user's Web browser. That seemingly innocuous query is a gold mine for Google, because the ever present box increases the likelihood users will search on Google. The more people search on Google, the greater the chances someone will click on an advertiser's ads. "We know the lifetime value of a toolbar user," says Mayer, who offers the example to counter the notion that Google isn't trying to profit from its fancy doodads. "So we know how much value we're getting back out of somebody who downloads Google Earth and then subsequently downloads the toolbar." This virtuous cycle of more users conducting more searches benefiting more advertisers is precisely what makes Google so irresistible to business partners -- even those who feel threatened by it." (Fortune Magazine: Chaos by design)

Google does New York City

"By installing itself above Chelsea's broadband "fiber highway" at 111 Eighth Avenue, St. Arnaud explained, Google can bypass many of the major telecommunications firms and interface directly with Tier 2 service providers such as Level 3 Communications or XO Communications, which also are located in the building. This will significantly cut down the costs associated with reaching business customers on Wall Street and in the media and fashion worlds, and generally throughout the Northeast power corridor from D.C. to Boston. The arrangement also suits the Tier 2 providers, which are "thrilled because they can get content directly from Google and bypass" the major telecom and cable Tier 1 providers, St. Arnaud says.

But the advantages of Google's new space at 111 Eighth Avenue are not merely technological. Google's office will be highly efficient, because the lease covers nearly 300,000 square feet on just two floors, rather than the 10 or more floors that much space would take up in a traditional New York City office building, like, say, the Empire State Building, which was completed one year before 111 Eighth Avenue, in 1931. That means fewer bathrooms, fewer elevators, more efficient wiring, and less energy consumption, not to mention those large communal meeting spaces that Googlers love so much. In a way, the vast horizontal spaces afforded by 111 Eighth Avenue echo the sprawling, horizontal nature of Silicon Valley itself, perhaps best exemplified by Google's vast campus in California."

(village voice > Google: The New Port Authority by Sam Gustin)

Interview with Paul Graham

"What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don’t do that, it won’t matter how clever your business model is. Of course you have to have a business model eventually. But experience so far suggests that figuring out how to make money from something popular is a lot easier than making something popular." (Techcrunch - An interview with investor Paul Graham of Y Combinator)

Google Mutual Fund, Inc.

"Google Inc., owner of the most widely used Internet search engine, is facing a hurdle other companies would love to confront: how to get better returns from investing its cash hoard without being regulated as a mutual fund.

Companies whose securities comprise more than 40 percent of their assets can fall under restrictions that govern the mutual fund industry. So Google, which has increased its cash and securities to almost $10 billion since its 2004 initial public offering, asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission late last month for an exemption.

At stake for Mountain View, California-based Google is the chance to move more of its money from low-yielding U.S. government bonds to investment-grade municipal and corporate debt. That would help Google match the investment returns of rivals such as Microsoft Corp., which obtained a similar exemption in 1988."

(Bloomberg.com)