On a segment of 60 minutes, Lesley Stahl is talking to Google executive Marissa Mayer about how Google makes money.
"People always ask us how Google makes money," Mayer says, as she does a Google search for flowers. The left side of the screen displays the top 10 Web sites Google found related to flowers. Appearing on the right side are what Google calls sponsored links. This, she explains, is where the money comes from. When someone clicks on a sponsored link, say in this case it's an ad for FTD flowers, the company pays Google.
It shows Marissa clicking on the FTD ad and other ads as she explains that "this is the way Google makes money".
Now true, FTD probably paid Google a whopping 50 cents for that click, and they got some national publicity out of the deal, but still... You know those two weren't really looking for flowers.
Link to summary of the story,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004...ain664063.shtml
-Allan
