Google today rolled out its full versions of Google Apps, which is essentially an online IT infrastructure managed by Google.

I mention this because our agency has been a beta tester since mid-November and I've found this to be a great service. It is something that may well be appropriate for PR agencies and communications organizations of all sizes -- but particularly small and midsize organizations.

Basically, Google gives you:

• a start page all your team members can access online, including customized content (such as links to outside services like media directories), and access to your email and calendar

The Wall Street Journal today features an extraordinary page one story on the mammoth PR campaign Edelman has conducted on behalf of Wal-Mart. 

I use the word extraordinary for two reasons. First, it is unusual to see a newspaper cover the PR industry at all.  I have always assumed this is because reporters really don't  want to acknowledge that some story ideas actually come from PR folks.

More interesting, however, is this nugget about just how Edelman won the account:

In its pitch for the account, Edelman had warned Wal-Mart that Google results for a "Wal-Mart" search yielded mostly unflattering material, potentially overshadowing the company's own sites.

If Google's 7% stock swoon Tuesday stuck you as deja vu, you're right.  But it wasn't a  Wall Street replay.

Think, Italy.  Torino, to be precise. 

Bode Miller's spectacular flop at the Winter Olympics was just as great a failure at the expectations game as Google's admission earlier this week that "growth will slow."  It was spectacular.  It was awful.  And it was reality.  The problem is this -- the expectations game is one that can't be won forever.  Eventually, it will eat up anyone who dares to play.

We live in a superstar society.  We expect greatness, again and again.  Whether we're talking about growth stocks like Microsoft, AOL and Home Depot or Olympians like Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz and Eric Heiden, we want to see gold.  Reasonable or not.

The truly great athletes always seem to find ways to deliver.  When they can't, they retire.