Another 16 more years to go.

Google’s top three executives made an informal pledge ahead of its IPO in 2004 to work together for 20 years, Fortune reports.

Co-founders Larry Page, Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt tells the magazine, which also rated the company as the No. 1 best company to work for this year.

Something to think about as Wall Street hammers the company for its anticipated big cash outlays to potentially compete with U.S. wireless operators.

(Fortune)

Keep an eye on:

• Fox is expected to rake in $225 million in ad sales on Super Bowl Sunday, at an average of $2.7 million per spot. (Mediaweek)
• Don Imus’s morning radio show may soon return to television in Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, among other big cities, under a deal in the works involving Comcast. (NY Times )
• Demand for Amazon’s Kindle remains strong. (Seeking Alpha)
• Fox Business could exploit a loophole in WSJ’s contract with CNBC and begin using WSJ reporters on air. (Silicon Alley Insider)

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman on what he sees coming in Internet investments. This footage was captured by Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, who is contributing to the Reuters/Nokia mobile journalism project in Davos.

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Ariel Yarnitsky, CEO of SpeedBit, catches up with Guy Rolnik, editor of Israeli newspaper, The Marker, on the Davos experience.  Yarnitsky filed this post and is contributing to the Reuters/Nokia mobile journalism project in Davos.

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The former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger records a video on YouTube as part of the Davos Conversation. This footage was captured by journalism professor and blogger Jeff Jarvis, who is contributing to the Reuters/Nokia mobile journalism project in Davos.

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Sam Zell may be leaving editorial decisions to his direct reports at the newly bought Tribune, but he was sure quick to unfetter his new employees from the tyranny of IT restrictions.

Zell learned that some of Tribune’s newspapers were keeping personnel on a pretty short leash when it comes to surfing the Internet. It seems the real estate tycoon can’t see the sense in getting in the way of reporters getting to the Web.

But it’s also not a trivial issue, since we can all think of companies that limit entry not just to porn sites, but even the more innocuous places to waste time during a work day.

Here’s how Zell put it, from a memo to employees:

I do not see how a member of the Fourth Estate, dedicated to protecting the First Amendment, can censor what its own employees and partners can see. I have instructed that all content filters be removed. You are now exposed to the dangers of YouTube and Facebook. Please use your best judgment.

(Photo: Reuters)

From our London media correspondent
Gavin Haycock

Whether you love or loathe celebrity news stories, spare a thought for executives trying to figure out what sells best.

During a Q&A session with British law lords investigating media ownership issues, details about what News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch thinks about the volume of celebrity copy came from Rebekah Wade, editor of the Sun, Britain’s top-selling paper. (The Sun is published by News International, part of News Corp.)

Wade says Murdoch calls her regularly and often discusses her love of celebrity coverage that sometimes leaves him scratching his head and wondering what all the fuss is about.

“Mr Murdoch is often dismayed by the amount of celebrity coverage I put in the paper and particularly on ‘Big Brother‘ (the reality television show),” she says. “He can’t understand why I devote so much space to ‘Big Brother’.”

Murdoch is not alone. During his session with the British law lords, Pierre Lesourd, general manager for the UK and Ireland at AFP, which was founded in 1835, says that whether or not to pursue celebrity content is a divisive issue.

“Inside the AFP it is a big debate,” he says. Given France’s strict privacy rules and the possibility that the country’s president Nicolas Sarkozy may have married his new
girlfriend and former model Carla Bruni, it is not surprising that such dilemmas are in the spotlight. The trouble is, clients simply want more and more celebrity content, says Lesourd.

“Sometimes it is difficult to fix a limit of what is news and what is not news and that throws us back onto the PR’s turf,” he said.

To underscore his point, Lesourd said that although AFP generates millions of photographs, the most downloaded image for the agency in 2007 was …. you guessed it, one of Britain’s Prince William and his girlfriend Kate Middleton.

(Reuters file photo)

From our Washington antitrust correspondent Diane Bartz

There’s Google culture (toys, massages, free snacks) and Washington culture (cubicles, working, more working).

So which will prevail when Google opens its new Washington office? Let’s see: 

First, reporters on a press tour of the new facility are asked to agree to an electronic non-disclosure agreement. Er, no. Reporters decline. (Washington 1, Google 0). 

There are big, cool screens showing actual Google searches from around the world. Fascinating. (Washington 1, Google 1) 

Then, we’re told of the efforts to make the office environmentally friendly: glueless, partially recycled carpet; rainwater collected on the roof; and donations to charity for employees who do not drive. Cool. (Washington 1, Google 2) 

There’s a massage chair facing a big window. But there’s no one in it since, let’s face it, this is Washington. We hate relaxation. It makes us tense. (Washington 2, Google 2). 

But now let’s go to the Mother’s Room, for women who need to use a breast pump during the work day. Yeah, it’s better than going to a bathroom stall like most Washington moms, but the stuffed animals should be replaced by magazines with articles about avoiding the mommy track. No employees are nursing, however. So, score unchanged.

There’s loud, fun rock music blasting from the cafeteria. We go there and find, huh, it’s empty! There’s no one having a snack. Only an employee of the catering company, washing up. In fact, the only food we see anyone take is a cup of coffee. Very Washington. (Washington 3, Google 2).

Then there’s the playroom, with a ping pong table, foosball table (the sides marked “Democrats” and “Republicans”), yoga mats and the video game Guitar Hero. The room is empty. Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich picks up the guitar to demonstrate it. But he’s quickly stymied. “How do you turn this on?” he asks an assistant, who is also puzzled. They give up. (Washington 79, Google 2).    

(Photo: Reuters)

Pity the poor lawmaker.

Lobbyists from America’s richest and most influential companies are walking the halls of Congress arguing for the need to preserve American innovation.

Lobbyists for high-tech firms like Intel and Cisco say the best way to do that would be for senators to pass a patent bill that will reduce the number of bad patents. But pharmaceutical companies and smaller tech firms say the bill itself weakens patent protection and poses a major threat to American competitiveness.

The debate quickly deteriorates into arcane talk of offshore patent trolls, inequitable conduct, prior art and obviousness.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of the patent reform on Sept. 7, and the Senate is supposed to take it up “in the next few weeks,” according to Cisco’s General Counsel Mark Chandler.

The push for reform aims to address high tech’s irritation at patent trolls — a reference to lawyers who buy patents and file infringement lawsuits, often against high tech companies whose products can use hundreds of patented gadgets.

Cisco’s Chandler says his company has even seen patent trolls move offshore, a sort of outsourcing of patent trolling.

How will the Senate vote? Your best bet is look at which companies are in a senator’s home state for a clue.
—by Diane Bartz

(Photo: Reuters)

Britain’s Guardian Media Group, which owns the Guardian and Observer newspapers in the UK, is launching a U.S.-focused news and commentary Web site in the coming weeks called Guardian America.

The site will be run by former American Prospect editor Michael Tomasky, who was appointed in May. GMG has targeted the U.S. because six million of the 16 million unique users on the Guardian’s UK Web site are based in the United States and it wants to take advantage of American’s hunger for news about their country with a different perspective. The new site will be underpinned by the Guardian’s UK-generated content, bolstered by its own U.S.-based correspondents and columnists and carry links to the Guardian’s collective group blog, comment is free.

Reuters correspondent Gavin Haycock speaks with GMG Chief Executive Carolyn McCall, who discusses strategy, rivals and liberalism with a small ‘l’. She expects the new site will compete for readers of the New York Times and Washington Post.
 
On why now:
This is a content-led strategy. It did surprise us in the past the amount of traction we have in America where we have done no promotion, no roadshows … what has really appealed to the American audience, the six million uniques out there is our content and the distinctiveness of our UK-driven content.
 
On differentiation:
I have always said the strongest thing about the Guardian is that it has this content which is quite hard to replicate. It is independent journalism, it is very well resourced, it has got resources all over the world but it has a liberal with a small ‘l’ outlook on the world. So it is a different outlook to the norm or to the mainstream and that has had a huge resonance.

I think it is important to define what liberal with a small ‘l’ is, especially when you are going into America with that positioning. It means something very significant in America. It is not something we would be talking about in our marketing strategy for instance. Liberal to us means fairness, openness, transparency, plurality, it is a range of views … We would always have this plurarity, this range of views and depth. I think that is quite unusual. I think it is particularly unusual in America.

I think the brilliant thing about (the new U.S. Web site) is that we have more users than the LA Times and the Houston Chronicle online in America. That is quite good, it gives us something to sell.
 
On the rollout plan:
I am a great believer in really firming up your content strategy, going for reach and then going for revenue. I think that is really the only way to do it. It has stood us in very good stead on GuardianUnlimited.”
 
We will start with news and comment and then we will go from there into looking at areas that we can develop that play to our strengths. What we need to do first and foremost is monetise the traffic that we have got through our core.
 
On why Americans will care:
What really fascinated me when I was in the States is how many people want to know in America what the rest of the world thinks about them. They are interested in what Europeans are saying about America, about Bush, about policy, about Iraq, about Iran. They are fascinated because some of them are not comfortable with how they are portrayed in the world. That is I think where we will do well because we have a very opinionated view of the world, a lot of resources to cover the world well and we also spend a lot of time talking about America for obvious reasons.

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