Mike Bazeley of the Mercury News covers the expected new products from Google today.

Google Video…

The Mountain View company is expected to announce plans for an online video store where people can buy a wide array of sports, entertainment and news programming from partners such as CBS and the NBA, a knowledgeable source told the Mercury News.

Google Pack…

At the same time, Page is expected to announce the availability of Google Pack, a downloadable package of Google-branded and third-party software, such as a Web browser and a media player, considered essential for most computer users. The availability of the software, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, could diminish Microsoft’s control of the computer desktop, seen by many as a key tool for driving people to use online services.

Oh goody, more speculation and rumor.

This time, CNNMoney suggests that Google might consider acquiring Monster Worldwide, which runs the job site Monster.com.

…Google, with $7.6 billion in cash and a richly valued stock, could easily afford to buy Monster, which is valued at about $5 billion.

Online job listing companies like Monster are rapidly growing as they steal business from newspapers’ help-wanted sections…Allowing users to search for jobs is a natural extension for Google as it rolls out services such as personalized search, video search, and online mapping tools.

It’s certainly not outside the realms of reality but, as Google has already shown they like the strategy of buying just a stake in a large company (a la AOL), it wouldn’t make much sense to buy Monster outright and eat-up a large chunk of their war chest.

Danny and Gary manage to cover much the same topic via two separate posts.

Some interesting snippets…

Apparently in response to rumors of what Google will announce at CES, Gates said:

“I hear they’re coming out with a robot that will cook hamburgers, too. Let’s spread that rumor — there’s nothing they can’t do.”

Continuing on, Gates said:

“Whatever they announce, they announce. They’re in their honeymoon period, and anything they announce gets hype…. They will obviously branch out beyond internet search, but I think the expectations won’t live up to reality.”

Danny in particular appears to be fed-up with Microsoft trashing Google. He points out a few of Microsoft’s shortcomings in search.

Despite Google’s stock price getting close to $450 per share, CNet reports the company is not likely to consider a stock split.

Simply put, with demand for the search giant’s shares still going strong, Google executives have little reason to call for a split, and they may well be philosophically opposed to it.

[It's been almost two years since I first started chatting to technology innovators about the future of search. This article get's the ball rolling again.]

When Oodle burst on to the scene back in March of last year, it instantly became a hit among those looking for a more efficient way to search, scan and subscribe to classified ads. Oodle started life with coverage of just three major cities; Dallas, Chicago and Philadelphia. Today, Oodle serves more than one hundred cities and an equal number of colleges including Cal State campuses, Northwestern, Ohio State, Rutgers, Villanova, Kent State and Harvard.

I had a chance to interview Oodle’s CEO and co-founder, Craig Donato, and asked him about the role online classified search will play in the future and what plans Oodle has to lead the way.

Google Blogoscoped reports the guys over at Xooglers, might be feeling the heat from Google’s legal department.

I hope it works out for them, although I have been very surprised at how much information they have shared that you would think is confidential.

Next up on the “guess what Google will announce at CES this week” carousel, we have reports that they will announce pay-per-view video downloads and a “Google Pack” of bundled software.

Google video rental: Google will be partnering up with television stations like CBS and the NBA to allow people to download videos for a fee.

Google Pack: a software package including pretty much everything but an operating system and productivity suite.