“Why?” is the main one.  Granted, Google’s expanding just about everywhere, but the company’s series of moves in New York have been especially unexpected.  “To put this expansion in perspective, Google’s Manhattan presence in 2002 was limited to 23,000 square feet at 1440 Broadway,” noted Mark Wellborn for The New York Observer.  “Today, five years later, the company has just south of 500,000 square feet of space in Manhattan.”

That’s an increase of about 2000 percent over the course of five years, in case you were wondering.

So, back to the matter of “why.”  Wellborn stated “that the property sits on a massive fiber-optic network, extremely valuable for a company like Google, which depends on the rapid relay of information.”  Seems reasonable enough.

Another possibility, as suggested (somewhat facetiously, I expect) by Valleywag’s Owen Thomas, is that Google’s making room for Marcy Simon, a woman who may or may not be Eric Schmidt’s girlfriend, but is definitely joining the company.

In any event, Google just got a lot bigger.  Again.  Realtors must go into frenzies over meeting these guys.

Let’s face it, even the news of Yahoo’s latest reorganization just isn’t that compelling. They won’t be real interesting until the next earnings announcement.

So instead of searching for search, let’s search for something a lot more interesting to those of us enjoying the last days of a sizzling hot August in the United States. Football, the gridiron variety, not the version where Chelsea goes out and buys all the good players.

We’ll give Yahoo a hat tip for building out a search shortcut for NFL players. Here’s a joke for you: what does Yahoo’s Greg Coleman have in common with a lot of NFL players this week? He’s just been cut, too.

Our friends at Resource Shelf must be ready for the NFL too. Their latest post cherry-picks some nice links from the NFL’s official site for online reading.

The link to the Record & Fact Book shows good organization of information for a league with a lot of data people want to find. As a Giants fan, I can remind myself that Tiki Barber isn’t going to add to any of his rushing records now that he’s retired.

The league’s History page also gives a lesson on providing timely information. A site’s content won’t feel out of date if something current is on a page. "This Date in NFL History" features a timely mention about the league; today they note Kentucky product Shaun Alexander celebrates his 30th birthday.

Just as in many things in life, there are little things to learn just about everywhere you go. Organization and timeliness of content provide value to the multi-billion dollar NFL empire. If the NFL thinks that much of their web efforts, web entrepreneurs in other fields should always pay such attention to the little things on their sites.

This led The New York Observer’s John Koblin to ask, “Is Google about to create a city-based campus in Chelsea, much like the one it created in Mountain View, Calif.?”  Koblin then pointed to a lot of evidence that suggests things are heading in that direction.

“The California-based Internet giant has expanded its city headquarters at 76 Ninth Avenue by 49,000 square feet, increasing its total presence in the building to 360,000 square feet,” he wrote.  “At the same time, across the street, there’s a major lease agreement for more than 100,000 square feet at Chelsea Market at 75 Ninth Avenue with a deal close to being finalized . . .”

There’s also the DoubleClick acquisition to consider – if it goes through, Google will presumably inherit the agency’s New York offices (and they’re located on Eighth Avenue).

So what’ll it be: Goo York?  New Google?  Both seem appropriate, and judging from Koblin’s evidence, the existence of the place is inevitable – all that’s left to do is pick a name.

“Video is universal and allows people around the world to communicate and exchange ideas,” explained Chad Hurley, a YouTube co-founder, to the BBC.  “Our mission is to entertain, inform and empower the world through video.”

And it appears that Hurley and YouTube have a lot of new friends to help them achieve that goal; the BBC reports, “YouTube has also unveiled content partners . . . including deals with France 24, Antena 3 in Spain, European football clubs such as AC Milan, Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid, as well as organisations such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.”

Of course, YouTube has long been available in the countries in which it’s now launching new sites, and the service has won a sizeable audience.  But this latest set of developments should help the video-sharing site gain even more traction, and as Steve Chen, YouTube’s other co-founder, said, “It’s not just about translating, it also about creating content unique to certain countries.”

For YouTube’s sake, it’s hopefully about avoiding lawsuits, as well.  The site’s legal troubles in the US are beginning to look insurmountable (at least in terms of the sheer volume of them), and the service has already encountered issues in Brazil.  A video filtering tool is supposedly on its way, and this expansion is interesting regardless of other circumstances, but the potential for problems has to make one wonder if it’s a wise move.