Google innovation

Google has just announced the release of Google Sky, an astronomical version of Google Earth:

... with the new service - known as Sky - they can now fly through space, visiting more than 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies created from thousands of satellite photographs.

How come Google is innovating so rapidly, releasing new technologies faster than any other large organisation?

It's 20 percent time and Google Labs:

The 20 percent time is a well-known part of our philosophy here, enabling engineers to spend one day a week working on projects that aren't necessarily in our job descriptions. You can use the time to develop something new, or if you see something that's broken, you can use the time to fix it.

There's no better proof of the pragmatism of the free market. Leave people alone to innovate as they wish, and all kinds of wonderful things emerge.