A decade on: Google's internet economy

It's the success story to beat all internet success stories.

Ten years ago, on 7 September 1998, two young graduate students at Stanford University incorporated a company with the (then) odd-sounding name "Google".

Today, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are billionaires. Their company is hugely profitable; between April and June this year alone, it reported a turnover of $5.7bn (£3.2bn) and generated a net profit of $1.25bn (the first quarter was even more profitable).

Not bad for a company that makes its money being a broker for and publisher of online advertising.