Google Gears Down for Tougher Times

Revenue growth at Google has slowed dramatically over the past year. Google's years of rapid growth were fueled almost entirely by a single business: sales of search ads, the small text ads that appear next to search results cranked out by its Internet search engine. The company realized that the torrid growth couldn't continue forever. So far, it hasn't come up with any big new revenue streams. Products such as Google Checkout, a Web payment service, and Google TV Ads, which sells television advertising time, haven't generated significant revenue, leaving online ads still accounting for 97% of revenue. So with the U.S. economy in a recession, Google is ratcheting back spending and cutting new projects.