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Another great question - this time about Maps! Maps is one of most interesting products and continues to evolve. Since buying a company called Keyhole several years ago that allowed you to see satellite imagery, we've now incorporated alot of community aspects into the product. Google Maps API is the key to this (www.code.google.com/apis/maps). We are allowing developer, users and businesses to overlay local information -- from MyMaps, the Starbucks locations to StreetView mapping down to the individual streets! The power is in the depth and breadth of information we have access to and in the community feedback and features we've launched! Our transit information (public transportation) overlay was particularily impressive ...

For a business, it's important to make sure, through the API also, that Google has the most up-to-date information about your business. Often times, to generate natural search results, we use a third-party information provider (Yellow Page type of providers) who may or may not have the most updated info. It's best if you take a little time to update that info yourself. The ratings and reviews you mention don't measure into the natural search results, but is important as users consider transacting with your business -- think of it as CitySearch for Businesses.

I could go on - but check out www.googlemapsmania.com to see all of the interesting 'mash-ups' that have been created using Google Maps. The open API is fully in effect on this product!

No problem - happy to do it! One of the most interesting areas of development for small businesses is in our applications. Recently, Google changed our 2 core areas of focus (Search and Ads) to 3 areas of focus (Search, Ads and Applications). Over the last several years, we have been busy buying companies and partnering with companies that can help us with this mission. Today, we offer a suite of productivity software that is either free or nearly free (depending on the program you select) and that allows you to focus on running your business -- not running your IT department! We offer corporate versions of GMail; spreadsheets, word processing and presentation software that allows you to collaborate online w/ multiple people working on a doc at one time; Google Calendar and Google Talk. All of this, plus a website creator, free analytics and a free website optimizer that I mentioned previously. It's very compelling to a small business owner who doesn't want to spend a ton of dough, but wants world-class technology along with security and support from Google. Of course, all of this is accessible over the internet, so no need for costly software installs on your decktop -- and your information/software is accessible from anywhere and with any device! It's really exciting ... lots of small businesses are signing up daily.

Check it out at: www.google.com/a

A great question to end my session on! The future looks bright and Google is preparing for the next generation of advertising and information. Front and center is the mobile revolution and what potential that has for both users and advertiser. There will be roughly 3 times as many phones sold in the world than computers in 2008 -- and in many countries around the world (including Japan and South Korea), more people access the internet from there mobile phone than from their computer. In fact, 80% of web traffic in South Korea comes over the phone! So Google is not thinking about information wrt computers, but rather device agnostic.

From an advertiser POV, you can see how mobile phones could revolutionize advertising. Most new phones are GPS enabled, which allows us (and anyone on the network) to know exactly where someone physically is. Imagine a scenerio where, if you opted in (of course), Google could serve you a targeted, geo-specific ad on you mobile phone when you started walking towards a particular business. Let's say I opt in for restaurant information and ads. If I'm walking down the street in NYC and approaching a top-rated pizza place - that happens to also advertise with Google Mobile - that business could serve an ad when I'm approaching 100 feet of their location for instance ... and then send me a text alerting me to that fact with a $1 off coupon! Talk about precision marketing! That's the power of mobile ....

It's going to be fun watching how this plays out, but rest assured, Google will always do it's best to be relevant to users and a must-buy for advertisers -- by providing precision, scale and accountability.

Thanks for having me today and best of luck with your businesses!!