A year of Google acquisitions that points towards the future

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s recent spate of acquisitions is nothing to sneeze at -- the web search giant (and internet advertising colossus) seems to be getting bigger in size, breadth and depth by the second, to the fear of Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and many established industries from newspaper to radio. Google's intention, as I've said many times, is to become the largest advertising network on the planet, and the company is not leaving a single stone unturned in its quest to get there. With the billions Google has in the bank, along with marketable securities that it has ready to spend, the acquisition trail has not been light to the company. In fact, it's acquiring companies left and right -- some are high-profile deals while others are significant but small.

While not all of Google's acquisitions directly point to its goal of an all-powerful advertising behemoth, there are peripheral industries that produce acquisitions that are meant to help Google keep its stranglehold on the web browser and access to it where it can display its advertising, help connect buyers and sellers and take its traditional cut of the transaction. In fact, two of Google's largest acquisitions to date -- YouTube and DoubleClick -- are directly related to allowing the company to maintain its advertising grip while it expands its tentacles into any area that it can to allow for sustainable control over the face of advertising. One thing still slips past many: Google still makes virtually all of its money from web advertising. Make no mistake: protecting that is Google's #1 priority.

While it does that, though, Google's 11 company or technology purchases in the last year have helped the company fill gaps in its product portfolio for customers from offering web-based documents to integrating as many neat features into Google Earth as possible (which still makes a pittance in "pro" subscriptions). Interestingly, though, competitor Microsoft has made about 13 acquisitions during the same time period, with the most recent being aQuantive (a pure-play response to Google's huge advertising threat on the web).