GOOGLE FINANCE--ANOTHER GOOD FIRST STEP

Being already hooked on Google, it was a pleasure to see my Personalized Google Web Page Portfolio automatically load to Google Finance. The new siteis a nice clean first step. Not a lot of bells and whistles but a decent chart, good summary information and of course a well organized list of links to more information. Of course, when I type in a symbol to get a quote, Google remembers and offers the click opportunity to add the stock to my portfolio. I am sure multiple portfolios will be added later.

A few months ago, I unloaded many of my (family and friends) Google shares. The price above $400 did seem relatively rich and some of these shares had been owned from day one. The average gain on shares sold was around 180%. The move out of Googlehas worked out incredibly well as the CAL shares purchased with the Google money have more than doubled. We continue to hold our CAL but in several of the accounts we are using margin power to reacquire the Google shares. Why?

The reason is that the Google potential is still huge. Google Financeis one more illustration that Google can add services that will be adopted quickly by millions if not billions of consumers and that will offer Google future revenue streams.

Most folks do not have a clue as to the computing power, transmission bandwidth and storage capacity that Google is making available to all comers, "free of charge". In addition to offering unlimited storage and computing, Google provides software structured for the convenient use of consumers without the hassles of traditional software. The Microsoft Office system is a great system but only a small fraction of the computing power is used by the average owner. Every day I spend more and more of my time using Google services.

One of the services that I crave is Google Calendar. I have wasted countless hours on the MSFT Office Calendar. On more than one occasion, our office has used the MSFT calendar to schedule resources and appointments. We always find that we spent more time setting up and maintaining the servers and systems than would have been required by sticking with a manual system.

Google maintains the servers. Individuals, small businesses and even medium sized businesses and organizations will gradually find that they don't need IT departments. Google has only just begun to find ways to serve the public.

GoogleFinance is nothing more than a subset of Google News. It is just a focus of business news around a search box designed for stocks. On my cell phone, I find that Googleworks closely with CBS MarketWatch. Google Financeseems to be more open to links from all over. CBS MarketWatch. has done a great job of building revenue streams off financial information. Google is now in a prime location to assist CBS MarketWatch. and others in helping consumers find the products that are available. Of course, Google should pick up a few paid clicks while providing this service.

The bottom line here is Google Financeis a good service that will add to Google's growing click revenue.