Future Boy, a Business 2.0 newsletter, describes Google as much more than a search engine. It is a marketplace of keywords, similar in concept with eBay:
In a sense, Google is becoming a reverse eBay, where the customers are advertisers and the inventory is made up of consumers’ desires as expressed by their search terms. Google auctions off the search terms and connects businesses to consumers who are looking for what those businesses have to offer. Whoever bids the most for a term and receives the most clicks appears in a sponsored advertisement link either at the top or along the side of the search-results page.
