Two years ago, Google came in 4th.

“The Internet juggernaut takes the Best Companies crown for the fourth time, and not just for the 100,000 hours of subsidized massages it doled out in 2012. New this year are three wellness centers and a seven-acre sports complex, which includes a roller hockey rink; courts for basketball, bocce, and shuffle ball; and horseshoe pits,” says Fortune in their justification.

Last year, Fortune raved about the bowling alley, free eyebrow shaping, and 25 employee cafes.

So there are a lot of cool things to do at Google between work sessions, and that’s apparently what Fortune values when making this list.

The rest of the top five is as follows: SAS, CHG Healthcare Services, The Boston Consulting Group, and Wegmans Food Markets.

When it comes to just tech companies, we find some more as we move down the list. Qualcomm comes in at #11, for instance. Salesforce ranks #19 and Rackspace Hosting ranks #34. Microsoft comes in at #75 – but you wont see any of the other ‘big four’ on there. That’s right, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon are not ranked in Fortune’s top 100.

In 2011, Google came in fourth place on the annual list. The company had previously been declared #1 in 2008.

What’s so amazing about Google? Here’s what they say about the company:

Everything was up at Google last year — revenue, profits, share price, paid search clicks, hiring — and so, too, was employee love; the search giant climbed three slots in our ranking to reclaim the top spot.

The reason? Employees rave about their mission, the culture, and the famous perks of the Plex: bocce courts, a bowling alley, eyebrow shaping (for a fee) in the New York office. Then there’s the food: some 25 cafés companywide, all gratis.

Wrote one Googler: “Employees are never more than 150 feet away from a well-stocked pantry.”

And they didn’t even mention that rock climbing wall or the fact that all employees received a free Galaxy Nexus last Christmas.

Here’s the rest of the top 10:

1. Google
2. Boston Consulting Group
3. SAS Institute
4. Wegmans Food Markets
5. Edward Jones
6. NetAPP
7. Camden Property Trust
8. Recreational Equipment (REI)
9. CHG Healthcare Services
10. Quicken Loans

Boston Consulting group reclaimed the #2 spot, as last year’s #1, SAS, fell to #3 in 2012.

Other notable internet entries on the list: Zappos.com ranked 11th, Salesforce.com ranked 27th and Adobe came in at 41. After a tumultuous 2011 (bad elephant PR, SOPA drama), GoDaddy.com still made the list at #93.

Full List.

[Lead image from Google's London offices]

Image by Salon de Maria via Flickr

Andy Serwer is the managing editor over at Fortune magazine. Now, so you are aware I have a bias toward Fortune because I think that is just a good magazine. Simplistic? Yes, but I need it that way. In fact, that’s what Andy is alluding to in his Captain’s Blog post from May 20. He suggests that we communicate so much that maybe blogging is going to be replaced by Facebook and Twitter. I agree to a degree.

Serwer postulates that maybe blogging is too slow and clunky. After journalism was pronounced dead due to blogging now it may be time to pronounce blogging dead due to Twitter and Facebook and the new "140 character or less" culture. I was part of the "sound bite" generation that was introduced to MTV and the shortening of attention spans to a mere 30 seconds or so. Giving anything 30 seconds or more in today’s world is the equivalent of reading War and Peace "back in the day."

So is blogging going the way of the dinosaur? Is it too much to ask for someone to sit through 250-600 words? (Or more in some cases–many more words with me because I can’t seem to explain something unless it is battered, bleeding and near death, but that’s for another day.)

Here’s my take. The introduction of social media in short bursts has actually created more interest in blogging in some ways. It also, however, has fostered less tolerance. In other words, bad blogs and posts don’t stand up anymore (thankfully although that may hurt me a bit). A very well respected blogger in the Internet space, Lee Odden responded to me on Twitter today as follows

@FrankReed I agree, blogs are the social thing that Tweets and FB
content points to. However, many are blogging less, that’s for sure

So maybe the 140 character limit on conversations that is becoming de rigueur is helping to simply separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Maybe less blogging is simply due to the fact that it is easier to ‘"relate" to someone with 140 characters vs. putting together a cohesive line of thinking in a post.

As for you "real journalists," I suspect you are gagging at that last statement, since most bloggers, like myself, aren’t going to put together a newspaper-length report any time soon. No reason to, really. There are newspapers for that. Well, at least for now there are but don’t blink because the daily paper concept is quickly fading away.

I don’t think blogging is dying, but I do think it is evolving. Business evolution is quick to kill off the ineffective, until of course it is fashionable to bring it back. Blogging is very safe for now because it will attract the people that really want it. Others that can’t sit through a 15-second commercial without squirming can delude themselves that they are "relating" with and learning from others of their ilk in the fast-paced shallow pool of Twitter, Facebook and others.

There is a place for all of it. The one reality is though that no one is capable of doing all of it. We are at the point where we need to decide how we will use our time. Whether you tweet or blog or whatever, we all have one thing in common; we are only human. While we hate to admit it we all have limits. What are yours? Please let us know in 140 characters or less because there is so much to do.

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Sure, it’s easy to suggest that Google has become too big, too arrogant, and has lost its original focus, but Fortune’s (long) article does a great job digging down and explaining why many are saying just that.

There were two things that really stuck out to me.

First, even Google’s biggest partners are concerned that the company is a one-trick (AdWords) pony. Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff puts it perfectly:

"What they need to do is build a full portfolio of revenue, as Microsoft has," says Benioff. "They have a fantastic cash cow. They need a goat and a chicken."

Second, the company is having trouble retaining its top talent. It seems Googlers would rather leave the company and struggle with a start-up, than use their 20% time to help Google find new revenue channels. More concerning is the apparent nonchalance of CEO Eric Schmidt:

"We’ve been hiring on the order of 100 people a week," he says. "So in one week we hire more people than the people you just named."

Wow! Yeah, but the people you lost include your CIO, CFO, head of ad sales, and its head of PR. Doesn’t that concern you Eric?

Google faces the huge issue of scaling its business. At it grows, it becomes less able to retain the "start-up" attitude that made it so successful–which is why Googlers would rather go it alone.

Last word goes to "Dean" who sent me the Fortune link and has this to say…

"I use this as exhibit A in my argument that Google will never see $2,000/share…or anywhere close. They are a big boy company now whose biggest challenge might be itself. Unfettered growth along with an unstructured culture will ultimately lead to a whole lot of inefficiency – my own experience at [a start-up] showed that unmanaged growth is the pathway to failure. With the 20% rule they are practically begging top talent to incubate their own start-ups and leave. All of this will lead Wall Street to put their foot down and demand that Google fall in line. I.e. Contain costs, drive efficiency, and steer away from unprofitable ventures. Not sure when tat will happen, but it will be sooner rather than later."

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Fortune chose not to mention the company’s perks in a brief write-up; most of us are presumably pretty familiar with them already.  Instead, it notes, "In the past year, Google continued to mint millionaires as the stock cracked $700, a benefit that helped land Google in the top spot on FORTUNE’s list since the company gives stock options to 99% of employees."

We have to wonder, though: given that the stock has now sunk to $575 (and is likely to go down farther as the entire market more or less crashes), will anyone’s opinion of Google change?  Companies that don’t rely on stock incentives might seem more attractive in the current market conditions.

Of course, as we hinted earlier, Google’s masseuses, dog policies, and free food are all still in place, so no mass exodus from Mountain View should occur.  Still, next year’s list from Fortune may have a different company at the top.

MySpace? Nope. Facebook? Nope. Bebo? Now, let’s be serious. According to Nielsen Online (and Fortune), it’s . . . LinkedIn.

Yep, the all-business-no-fun-actually-used-for-networking-instead-of-popularity -contests social network is the fastest growing social network out there. Of course, that’s in large part due to the fact that it’s also quite small.

Compare these stats:

Source: Nielsen Online

versus these:

Source: Nielsen Online

So while LinkedIn has the best growth rate, it’s still pretty small when compared to Facebook and MySpace. Growing at a faster rate means adding more users relative to your current user base, and the bigger you are, the harder that is.

Perhaps even more impressive is the monthly data for the two giants: Fortune reports that Facebook’s “unique audience” growth trumps MySpace’s: Facebook added 1.5M new visitors in October, while MySpace added only 300,000. The YOY data shows that not only did Facebook grow at a faster rate than MySpace did, but it added more actual users (rather than just more users relative to its current user base): 125% growth rate (vs 19%) and 10.8M more “unique audience” members (vs 9.3M).

Despite the fact that we’re all getting tired of hearing about Facebook and its phenomenal growth, it looks like the social network is still growing quickly with lots more room to grow—unlike its larger competitor.

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He was at Business 2.0 magazine for quite awhile, and was editor when the whole shebang went down in flames not too long ago, and was an early convert to the blogs-as-media idea after Om Malik left. But the piece he just wrote for Fortune about how Facebook “has Google running scared” is pathetic.

I’m not saying that to be mean — but I hope the editors at Fortune (assuming there are any) really torqued his piece, because it’s just sad. It’s not just the odd part here or there either; it’s the whole thesis. Why is Google running scared of Facebook? Well, let’s see — it’s got lots of users, and it’s growing really fast, and several people have left Google and gone to work for Facebook.

I guess Larry and Sergey might as well close up shop and sell those planes then. Oooh, and one of the people who left was an engineer. They’re really hard to come by in Silicon Valley — and Google only has, well… about 3,000 more left.

But the biggest threat Quittner mentions (apart from the fact that Facebook “isn’t for sale,” which doesn’t seem like anything to be scared of really) is that Facebook is the leader in what Josh calls “the Innernet” — where people control who gets to see what information, and where the site protects you from all the bad stuff and bad people out in the Wild West of the Internet.

I remember another place that did pretty much the same thing, and it too seemed really big at the time: it was called America Online. In retrospect, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal any more.

Then Quittner says that Facebook is also a threat because of its widget platform, and that apps like Super Wall — which was created in a single weekend — have developed a “user base” of 10 million in no time at all. As he puts it:

“That’s a real economy (or could be, if someone figured out how to make money from it).”

Oh yeah — it’s a real economy. Except for the fact that, well, no one has figured out how to make money from it. Of course, making money is kind of central to most economies, but you know — whatever. Man, Google must really be quaking in their boots! They’d better buy Facebook for $10-billion or so right now.

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Almost six months ago, Viacom announced that MTV, VH1 and Comedy Central would have their own branded video channels, and progress continues on that front. Part of the launch for these video channels is Viacom’s own social networking site, Flux. Fortune says Flux was supposed to launch last night, but the site still says it’s “Coming Soon . . .”

Flux will be a social network that integrates many different websites, currently including the Pussycat Dolls’ site, sk8site.com and others. When Flux members visit a participating website, they’ll be able to add content from that site to their profile, including licensed music and videos.

In other words, rather than going to rapper 50 Cent’s MySpace page, you will want to go to his own website or one of the main fan sites devoted to him. And if it’s part of the Flux network, you can bring all your social network capabilities along with you.

“We’re not trying to own a social network, build one, or compete with one,” says MTV Networks CEO Judy McGrath. “We’re embracing them all.”

Flux is just one of several tactics Viacom is developing to try to win back the hearts and minds of their core audience. But since they’ve burned their bridges with Google, they’ve also begun partnering with Yahoo.

In April, Viacom announced an ad partnership with Yahoo, but now it appears their relationship has grown. The New York Post reports that Yahoo music has struck a deal with MTV to get its original content onto the other small screen.

Yahoo! Music has entered into a deal to distribute “Nissan Live Sets,” an original online music performance series it produces, through MTV’s high definition channel MHD, The Post has learned.

“Live Sets,” the product of a multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal inked a year ago between Yahoo! and Nissan North America, comprises seven to eight songs from a featured artist, taped in high definition in front of a live studio audience of about 300 fans.

I don’t know if reusing content that’s already become popular on the Internet is the best way to be seen as innovative, but it’s probably a pretty safe bet.

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Since then, IBM and Yahoo have added a few partners to sweeten the appeal of the lengthily-named IBM OmniFind Yahoo Edition. Some prominent tech names have signed on with the project.

Cognos does various business intelligence applications. The company integrated its GO! Search from Cognos 8 with OmniFind Yahoo to enable users to sift through both Cognos and unstructured document repositories.

The SEM crowd who work with Fortune Interactive and OmniFind Yahoo have a new add-on available. Called Feature Match, part of Fortune Interactive’s SEMLogic product, the add-on extends the featured links capability within OmniFind Yahoo.

“Not only will your featured links appear above the search results, but other results found by the OmniFind algorithm will be given more importance when they are found to be thematically similar to the featured links,” Fortune Interactive noted on their site.

The OmniFind Yahoo product may be downloaded at no charge. It is supported on Windows XP/2003, and RedHat and SuSE Linux Enterprise distributions.

They reviewed Google search results for the companies that make up the Fortune 100 list and found that 29 of them have search listings that could hurt their brand.

While it’s not a shock to see Walmart, Exxon Mobile and Dell on the list, others are surprising, such as:

5.) State Farm Insurance – Two Sites one is “Consumer Affairs” has consumer complaints about the company. The other is “Law Cornell .edu” it is information about a major Law Suit.

19.) Duke Energy – One site “Duke Energy Employee Advocate” which is very negative about how the employees are lied to and treated poorly.

26.) Coca-Cola – One site “Killer Coke” this is taken from the site, “We need your help to stop a gruesome cycle of murders, kidnappings and torture of SINALTRAINAL (National Union of Food Industry Workers) union leaders and organizers involved in daily life-and-death struggles at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia.”

Ok, I may be gone a while, I have 29 new prospective clients that need to hear about reputation management.

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