Although I think the Google IPO is cool, I would wait a couple of weeks before getting it, so that the price has time to stabilize.
If you're really interested in getting into investing, the best way would be to look at an
index fund, which is a mutual fund that includes every stock in an entire index, for example, the S&P 500. If they on a whole do well, you do well. Becuase it's not a "special picked crop" of stocks like most mutual funds are, there's less overhead cost because there's much less work involved for a broker. A fairly equivalent type of investment is through
a spider, a relatively new way of investing that works a little like indexes.
-Jessica B, who gets a check for about $.20 every quarter in dividends for her one share of stock, because she thought it would be cool.
