All Things Digital

Veteran executive Sheryl Sandberg wasn’t the only thing Google (GOOG) lost today. It lost a fair bit of value in share price as well.

Google’s stock fell as low as $435.78 at one point, slipping below the company’s 52-week low of $437, set nearly one year ago on March 5, 2007.

Wonder if falling to your 52-week low is psychologically as important a milestone as passing the $700-a-share mark?

The Nasdaq started off the new year much as it ended the last–flaccid and frail.

The tech-heavy index fell 33 points to 2,619, a two-week low. This despite the release of a report from JPMorgan today that offered a very bullish tech sector outlook for 2008.

While the research outfit predicts revenue growth for the overall Internet sector to decelerate to 21.2% this year from 25.6% last year, it says we can expect the earnings of the Internet companies it covers to grow by 34% in 2008. That’s more than four times faster than the S&P 500.

Among the biggest drivers of that growth: search. JPMorgan says worldwide search revenue will reach $30.5 billion this year, up from $26.2 billion last year. What’s more, it says it will go on to grow at an annual rate of 28% over the next four years, hitting $60 billion by 2011.

Looks like 2008 is going to be quite a year for Google. As will the years that follow.

Seven hundred dollars. What a nice, big, round number that is. Nicer still if you happen to be a Google shareholder. Because this morning Google’s stock passed the $700 milestone for the first time, hitting $707.

Astonishing. Since mid-September, Google’s market cap has increased more than 30%, reaching $220.68 billion. Which, as Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget notes, makes it the fifth most valuable company in the U.S. How long until it’s the fourth? Or the first? How long until GOOG is trading at $2,000 a share?

Perhaps not that long at all. Dinosaur Research’s David Garrity put a fresh $985 target on the company this morning, figuring 48 times 2008 earnings. His justification? The mobile ad market. “To the extent that advertising media distribution channels are being transformed by emerging technologies with the possibility that mobile advertising may ultimately become more significant than the current broadcast channel in spending terms,” Garrity writes, “GOOG, in effectively penetrating the walled garden that wireless communications services have been until now, is securing a strategic technology provider role that will allow it to meaningfully shape the progression of development in the space.”

Perhaps it’s time for Google to change the navigation at the foot of its search-return pages from ‘Goooooooooogle >‘ to ‘Moooooooooola >.’
Shares of the company hit an all-time high of $560.70 today before dropping a bit to close at $559.98.

The reason for the spike? New comScore search-engine rankings that show Google dominating the market, with a 56.5% share and analyst speculation that the company may one day reach $100 billion in annual revenue. “Google is poised to make ‘big plays’ that could help the company reach $100 billion in revenue,” said Stephen E. Arnold, author of Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator. “Most companies neither understand Google’s capabilities nor grasp the significance of the 9-year-old company’s technology. … Google is perceived as a Web search and advertising company. This is the conventional wisdom, and it is too narrow. Search and advertising lubricate Google’s business model. The technical infrastructure and Google-proprietary technology revealed in patent applications give it a significant advantage in today’s marketplace.”

OK. But advantage enough to generate $100 billion in revenue? Sounds crazy. But then again, who ever thought shares in the company would trade at $560 or that co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page would tie for fifth place on Forbes’s annual list of the 10 richest Americans?