rohitj - 10:14 pm on May 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

excuse me for my ignorance, but one of the thread posters said that maps, videos, earth, etc., are all show big fat zero revenue for google. If that were the case, they wouldn't be doing it. These things instill brand loyalty which brings more revenue--and last time I checked maps did show ads sometimes?

And the Maps are especially critical for pushing local sales. I've already seen google sales people walk into local stores and push their adwords program--they use examples like google maps to show how critical google is to local businesses.

What i am wondering is how Google hasn't commented on bandwidth. Getting tier-1 bandwidth even in volume can be costly.