For anyone fascinated/obsessed by Google's to-the-moon stock price, stop what you're doing right now and read Henry Blodget's post on how the shares could fall down to earth again. He's definitely a voice in the wilderness for now but Blodget touches upon a variety of issues that could easily puncture Google's momentum. First and foremost is the reality that Google is a one-trick pony gets 99% of its revenue from paid-search - despite the introduction of new services such as GMail, Okrut, Froogle, etc. What happens, Blogdet asks, is click fraud starts to take the lustre off paid-search? What happens if the prices paid per click decline, and advertisers take some of their online spending back to traditional media? Blodget also put the spotlight on Google's fixed costs such as Googleplexes, server farms and product development. If the business starts to stall or lose momentum, what happens to margins? Amid the new stock price targets being thrown out and Caris & Co. analyst Mark Stahlman's $2000 implied price, Blodget throws some much-needed cold water on the Google flames. He may be proved wrong about the threat of click fraud and the growth of the paid-search market but it's always a good thing to have against-the-grain thoughts when everyone else is running so hard and fast in the opposite direction.
For more on Mr. Blodget's thesis, Clickety Clack has some deep thoughts.

SiliconBeat reports Riya has raised $15-million of private equity from Bay Partners, which may put to rest - at least temporarily - speculation it will be acquired by Google. In some ways, it's reassuring Riya has gone to the VC well again rather than sell out early in the business-building process. One of the more discouraging aspects of the Web 2.0 pheomena has been the willingness by entrepreneurs to embrace buy-out opportunities rather than staying the course and building a larger business. Of course, many of the these Web 2.0 "businesses" are being built to be sold so striking when the iron is hot is just part of the game/end game. Riya's decision to take more money suggests its software isn't ready for prime-time yet and/or the business is not quite to attract a suitor and/or its founders believe that they would leave a lot of money on the table if they accepted a take-over offer sooner rather than later.
Update: Looking at Bay Partners' portfolio, Riya appears to be an out of the box move given the VC has a strong focus on enterprise software and hardware. Bay's Internet plays are data management companies as opposed to consumer-oriented companies.
As well, here's Riya's blog post on the latest financing round. The company said the money will be used to hire some "absolute rockstars" with finance, business development and advertising skills.

I took Google Video for a test run, and it's pretty good - at least the look, feel and e-commerce process. In typical Google fashion, the interface is clean and user-friendly. Before buying a video, you can watch a 30-second clip of a show/episode or check out other shows/episodes. A Brady Brunch episode - I probably spent way too much time in the 1970s watching bad TV! - was also available on DVD from CBS. For the time being, Google Video's major  downside is the limited content portfolio. For all the buzz about the service, I'm far from convinced many people are going to buy classic NBA games. That said, it will only be a matter of time before Google adds more content partners. From a more important big picture perspective, Google Video (and Apple iVideo) illustrates how the delivery and consumption of TV is rapidly changing. I truly believe 2006 will be the year of video with video downloads, the growing popularity of PVRs and Tivo, the emergence of IP-TV, etc. Truth be told, there is a world of TV beyond the couch potato.
Michael Mace at Mobile Opportunity has a good take on Google Video's debut as a fee-based service, as does SeachEngineWatch and Traffick.