Indeed, the search king even upset Wall Street's highest expectations when it announced its first quarter results on Thursday. Google's $1 billion income during the first three months of the year marks a 69 percent increase that surpassed analyst expectations by 38 cents per share. Google wound up with net income of $592.3 million, or $1.95 per share, in the year-ago period.

Google continued to expand its worldwide footprint in the first quarter of 2007, adding new partners and growing its platform to increase its ability to delver targeted and measurable ads, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

"The global growth of our core search and ads business and our focus on building our partnerships drove our strong results in the quarter," he said in a statement.

Can Google Three-peat?

In summary, Google reported revenue of $3.66 billion for the quarter, an increase of 63 percent compared to the year-ago period and an increase of 14 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2006. Traffic-acquisitions costs totaled $1.3 billion, or 31 percent of advertising.

Some of Google's growth came at Yahoo's expense. Despite inking some significant deals in the past month, Yahoo's first-quarter profit fell 11 percent, missing analyst expectations. Of course, Google has a clear advantage as the starting point for many Internet searches. Research firm Hitwise said Google accounted for 64 percent of all U.S. searches for the four weeks ended March 31, 2007. Yahoo, meanwhile, won only 21.2 percent.

The question now is whether Google can extend its billion-dollar earnings streak to a third consecutive quarter. Google might not be able do it merely by relying on organic growth, according to Mark Pado, a securities analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald, but the company is making strategic moves that are bound to lead to additional revenue streams.

"Google wants to be a major part of every avenue of the Internet, just as Microsoft was for the operating systems for computers," Pado said, noting that Google's business is growing in several new directions. Indeed, Google bought into the viral video trend with its YouTube acquisition and, more recently, plugged a hole in its advertising strategy with the DoubleClick buy.

Monopolizing the Internet

The YouTube acquisition led to a billion-dollar lawsuit initiated by Viacom for copyright infringement, while the DoubleClick acquisition led to antitrust accusations. Both are to be expected as Google becomes a larger threat, Pado said, noting that the company has yet to post a major loss and has in fact exceeded analyst expectations in all but one of its 11 quarters as a public company.

When it comes to accusations of monopolizing the Internet, Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, downplayed the notion. "There's a certain irony in Microsoft calling for Google to be scrutinized by the Justice Department," he said. "But at the same time, Microsoft is voicing a thought that has been on people's lips but not spoken."

It's difficult to monopolize a medium that's growing so quickly that few could predict its next direction, Pado insisted. Three years ago, the prospects of video on the Internet were sketchy, for example. But today, major media conglomerates are rushing to get content online. "The Internet could go in many different directions in the next 20 years," he concluded. "Google doesn't own them all."