Google investing in expanding advertising, search businesses

• Web search leader Google Inc. is focusing investment on expanding advertising services and improving Internet search, the Web search leader said on Wednesday at its first analyst day as a public company.
• Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Google's current advertising services are most popular with medium-sized companies and that it is working on products to serve the largest and smallest advertisers.
• Google's mid-market advertising business is highly automated and low cost.
• Very small advertisers are more likely to not have Web sites or be unfamiliar with Internet search advertising that drives virtually all of Google's revenue.
• The company recently increased the number of people devoted to direct sales and to helping large advertising customers track the performance of their Web search ad dollars.
• New Web search entrant Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has not said whether it will build its own Web search advertising services.
• It currently partners with Overture Services, Yahoo's Web search advertising provider.
• In all, Google said it would put about 70 percent of its investment toward its core Web search and advertising businesses.
• Schmidt said the business side of the company is run in a traditional way while the product development side is more creative.
• "We're in this to make money," said co-founder Larry Page, although he added that Google will not try to drive revenue with each of its products -- which range from local, news and image search to free online e-mail and photo management services.
• Google shares closed down 3.6 percent at $191.58 on the Nasdaq, ahead of IPO-related lock-ups expirations that are slated to expire on nearly 177 million shares early next week.