Per the parent's comment, Google needs to market their internships because there is little value to them, because as interns his friends felt insignificant.
I would say in my day, a Google Internship would have been amazing experience, even if I wasn't special and unique, however, Google wasn't really a the massive behemoth in 2001 (I first started using Google at my internship when the head of IT told me about it).
The world has changed a lot.
When I was in college, I sought an internship specifically to have real-world experience on my resume to get a leg up when it came time to find a job.