Black Silhouette

What does Google do?

Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people find and use information. It maintains the world's largest online index of websites and other content and, via automated search technology, makes this information freely available, nearly instantly, to anyone with an Internet connection.

Google primarily generates revenue by delivering relevant, cost-effective online advertising. Businesses uses AdWords program to promote their products and services with targeted advertising. In addition, the thousands of third-party websites that comprise Google network uses Google AdSense program to deliver relevant AdWords ads that generate revenue and enhance the user experience.

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. The first step toward fulfilling that mission came when our founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, working out of a Stanford University dorm room, developed a new approach to online search that quickly spread to information seekers around the globe. Google is now widely recognized as the world's largest search engine -- a free service whose utility and ease of use have made it one of the world's best-known brands almost entirely through word of mouth from satisfied users.

Business model





“Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards,”


Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer allegedly said recently. His jealous remark is at least half true. What is it about Google that so mystifies every group that tries to analyze it? Google has a truly revolutionary business model, and are the most visible pioneers of the emerging 21st century Gift Economy. Microsoft, and the irresponsible brokers who keep flogging overpriced stocks based on unsustainable growth promises, and everyone else who owes their living to the Ponzi scheme that is the modern growth/market economy, should be very afraid.

Google’s foray into the wireless handset arena is creating a stir. Google is by far the biggest search engine destination, content provider and advertising destination in the world. It has launched a series of new programs such as Google Scholar, Wave and other applications, designed to influence its customers to use Google as its first source of multimedia content. Google’s primary business is advertising revenue. It is expanding into areas that it believes are important to maintaining that revenue stream. There is a hidden gem in this business model.


Traditionally customers have needs, wants, and nice-to-haves. Needs they will pay 'market' value for. Wants they will pay modestly for, especially if they're bundled with needs. Nice-to-haves they will not pay for at all, but they'll take them, and may make differential purchase decisions based on them (if the needs and wants of two vendors are indistinguishable). The market economy is focused on needs, since they are the corporation's bread and butter, the only source of reliable revenue and growth, and hence profit.


Now enter Google. They fulfill needs, wants, and nice-to-haves, all free. So those of us on the leading side of the digital divide gratefully take all three, and we don't even really differentiate between them (unless some of the nice-to-haves unduly complicate the application, in which case we don't want them). Those on the other side of the digital divide get none of them, widening the divide to a chasm. The market understands none of this behavior, since it doesn't conform to any accepted business model. Google doesn't really seem to care. They're too busy doing what they do so well -- delighting customers with valuable, intuitive, boldly innovative and expansive new products, on a scale that is the envy of every entrepreneur.


Some say Google doesn't improve its search results by removing spam pages because Google earns money from the ads that run on some of these pages. Others say their websites were removed from Google's index (or penalized) to buy AdWords ads.


But Google's co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, wrote something even harsher in The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine (1998):
"Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. For example, in our prototype search engine one of the top results for cellular phone is "The Effect of Cellular Phone Use Upon Driver Attention", a study which explains in great detail the distractions and risk associated with conversing on a cell phone while driving. This search result came up first because of its high importance as judged by the PageRank algorithm, an approximation of citation importance on the web. It is clear that a search engine which was taking money for showing cellular phone ads would have difficulty justifying the page that our system returned to its paying advertisers. For this type of reason and historical experience with other media, we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers."

Google doesn't accept money for a better ranking, the sponsored links are clearly labeled. But it's interesting to see that even Google's co-founders didn't trust the soon-to-be Google's business model.


Who are their competitors?


Google is one such name in the Technology arena that is well poised to rule. Talking of past decade, it’s been all the way up for Google and undoubtedly they have been ruling the internet economy. Google have had its impact in the industry with more than 150 products and will continue to grow with its ever increasing portfolio of products. This is likely to happen but for these 10 companies which have poised some serious competition to Google.

1. Apple

Being from partners to rivals, Apple is one of the stringent opponents for Google in the year 2010. Today, Apple and Google have been locking their horns in the field of Smartphone, Mobile App Store, OS, Mobile Ad, and Online Music and so on. Likewise, Apple is more than up to the task of battling Google in these areas as well as browsers, where Google Chrome competes against Apple Safari. But battle between will intensify, as the market for the digital music and SmartPhones is all set for growth in 2010. Google’s music search along with its partner MySpace and Pandora are looking to compete with Apple’s iTunes, which was the No 1 music retailer in United States in 2009. Further, Google’s Android will have tough time as Apple’s iPhones continues to grab hold of the market all round the globe.

2. Microsoft

Microsoft is a company that have had one of the most dominant impacts in the IT industry. So without a doubt it is Google’s biggest adversary in 2010 and these two giants will be locking their horns for market supremacy in areas such as search, collaboration tools and browsers. Talking of these two giants, Google has reigned as leaders in search, but with release of BING in May 2009, Microsoft has raised few questions amongst in Google’s management team. With features such as ranking search results based on relevancy to other users, Microsoft has inked Bing-related deals with Twitter, Facebook and Yahoo.

3. Amazon

In 2009, Google’s effort of scanning millions of out-of-print books and incorporating them in online search did gain up some momentum and helped themselves to publish over 500000 digital books for free to customers of Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble Nook, which is due in January. Further, there claims of opening up Google Editions, an e-book store, has opened up new rivalry with Amazon.

4. Facebook

Facebook, probably the most popular stuff in the internet right now, has attracted 350 million active users in just six years and is subject of interest for the guys at Google too. In 2010, Google and Facebook rivalry is likely to heat up based on question that where will people find there information in future in Search or Social Network? With ever increasing use of social networking and the rise of Facebook, Google’s worry seems to a viable one. So, in 2010 Google with its ORKUT will be in battle with Facebook.

5. Twitter

No doubt if Facebook is in rise, than it’s no difference with Twitter. If social networking is the way to go, then Google will certainly find Twitter in its way. Twitter, a micro-blogging site, has in a way revolutionized the way we communicate these days.

6. Mozilla

With release of Google Chrome, Google has stepped into ever so popular browse battle. Mozilla has been in the markets for years and now this step from Google is likely to create the conflict of interest between these two.

7. Yahoo

When it comes to search, one of Google’s biggest competitors besides Microsoft is Yahoo. Yahoo has been in the market with variety of products in areas of email, Messenger, News, Search and Analytics services. So without doubt it will be a fearsome competitor for Google. In 2009, Yahoo made some improvements in 2009 by integrating search with its rich content. Users can watch videos or stream music straight from the Yahoo search results page.


8. Cisco

Google definitely has a tough challenge against Cisco. With years of experience on web based collaborative platform, WebEx, and superior VOIP service, Cisco poses a threat to Google’s Wave and Voice. In addition to this, Cisco also is looking to enhance its video conferencing quality by focusing on collaboration through internet video, desktop video and consumer Telepresence.

9. IBM

By now it’s quite crystal clear that 2010 will the year where big internet giants will be trying to gain whole lot of market share that will be up for grab in areas of collaboration tools. So, 2010 is likely to reopen Google’s rivalry with IBM with the release of new collaboration tools such as Google Wave. Google has stepped into the battle field with its low cost hosted collaboration tools such as Google Apps. Google will compete against IBM’s Lotus Lives, which has attracted more than 2 million businesses in the last two years.

10. Nokia

Today, Nokia has had grab hold of the mobile phone market with 4 out of 10 mobiles sold. With increase in use of smart phones, means the IT giants Google will be in rivalry with Nokia in periphery of operating systems for Smartphones. Symbian Open source operating system will be competing with Google’s Android. Nokia with recent deals with Microsoft is all set to bring Office Mobile to Symbian devices. With claim of releasing improved version of Symbian in 2010 means Google Android will have to face off tough battle. But, Google’s Android is poised for major developments in 2010 and with commitments from Acer, Sony Ericcson, HTC and Motorola this will be a worthwhile battle to watch in 2010 and years to come.


Google's Competitive Advantages


1. Free SEO Labor

Google's work force is not limited to their PhDs and 15,000 talented employees in Mountain View, New York and Dublin. SEOs from all around the world can be considered a free labor force for Google. In order to get their sites promoted on the world's number one search engine, SEOs optimize their sites according to Google's rules, register their sitemaps and ping Google's services whenever a new page is created. This gives Google a huge advantage over the other search engines, because other engines don't have the same level of feedback. Google caters to this crowd very well too, because it offers SEO friendly tools and advise.

2. Extra data - Google Co-op, Image Labeler, etc

With its customized search service, Google Co-op, users don't only create vertical a search engine - they also give Google very valuable domain-specific information.

Also, by tagging images on Image Labeler and Picasa, you help perfect Google's Image Search.

3. Google knows everything about your site

Google made a very smart acquisition back in 2004. They bought Urchin and converted it to a free traffic analysis add-on for your site, Google Analytics. Today many sites use it to get a better understanding of their traffic. But a side effect of this tool is that it potentially gives Google access to important data about your site. Indeed if all sites had Urchin installed, Google would no longer need to compute pageranks, as it would have the most accurate access to site popularity possible! Obviously not all sites use Google Analytics, but still it is not an insignificant amount that do.
The recently acquired FeedBurner also serves the same purpose. It's not only a great advertising channel for Google, but yet another way of measuring site popularity.

4. Google knows a lot about you - Personalization

Gmail, Google Toolbar, Google Docs and others. They all give clues about your personality, your interests, likes and dislikes. Consequently, you end up with more personalized search results. For example: if you are the type of person who searches for programming info in Google Search, discuss KDE's latest bugs on GTalk and Gmail, visit Freshmeat and Sourceforge all day and long with your Google Toolbar-powered Firefox -- well then Google will not consider your Python, Tomcat, Apache queries as zoological, but programming related

5. Google offers UNIVERSAL search

Google does not only crawl the Web, blogosphere, press releases and books. It also crawls the real world with Google Earth. And Google Map's Street View lets you drive around big cities like New York and San Francisco, from your browser. Now with Universal Search, you can reach all of these services with a simple Google search.

6. Google has psychological dominance

The fact that Google is such a widely discussed topic makes you think that it is indispensable. Psychologically, you feel that you lack it when you try other search engines. Especially if your query is indefinitely motivated - e.g your purpose is more about researching than finding - then you always want to try your search on Google as well, even if you were already satisfied with other results elsewhere.

7. Google is everywhere

OK, let's say you decided to switch search engines. You still have obstacles, such as:
• If you use one of the Google network services, like Gmail, you always have Google top of mind;
• If you go to CNN.com, you have Google in the toolbar (on the US version at least); so why bother with entering a new URL for search?
• If you use Firefox, Safari or Opera, then Google is your default search provider, home page and feed subscriber.
I could go on, but the point is - there's no escape from Google. This is not merely the success of algorithms, but also the success of Omid Kordestani and the whole business development team.

8. Google has looooooots of ca$h

As of today, Google's market valuation is more than $150 Billion. They have lots of cash reserves (although not as much as Microsoft) and their profit margins are very high. In other words, Google is financially very healthy and they have the power to snap up any innovation developed externally. Just as they did with FeedBurner, Kaltix and Urchin.



The IT Strategy That Makes It Work

A unique mix of internally developed software, open source, made-to-order hardware, and people management is the secret behind the search engine.
Google is different. And it's different not only because its thinking is original and its applications unique--witness search queries morphed into a lobby display of bursting color--but because the company's unconventional IT strategy makes it so.

Commodity hardware and free software hardly seem like the seeds of an empire, yet Google has turned them into an unmatched distributed computing platform that supports its wildly popular search engine, plus a burgeoning number of applications. We used to call them consumer applications, but Google changed that. Businesses also use them because, well, Google is different.
Ten things we know to be true

"The perfect search engine," says co-founder Larry Page, "would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want." When Google began, you would have been pleasantly surprised to enter a search query and immediately find the right answer. Google became successful precisely because we were better and faster at finding the right answer than other search engines at the time.

But technology has come a long way since then, and the face of the web has changed. Recognizing that search is a problem that will never be solved, we continue to push the limits of existing technology to provide a fast, accurate and easy-to-use service that anyone seeking information can access, whether they're at a desk in Boston or on a phone in Bangkok. We've also taken the lessons we've learned from search to tackle even more challenges.
As we keep looking towards the future, these core principles guide our actions.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There's always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn't good enough.


New services

1. New Storage Service

Google Inc has announced its very own cloud-based online storage service which will allow Google Docs users to upload any type of file of up to 250 MB while they will have access to a total storage capacity of 1GB.
(14 January, 2010, by Desire Athow)

2. Google Nexus One
Yesterday Google wasn’t in the business of selling mobile phones. Today, they are. The Nexus One smartphone has arrived and on sale at Google.com/phone.
(January 5th 2010 by Michael Arrington)

3. Google Click-to-Call (Billing) in Ads on Mobile Devices
Google sent out notification to its AdWords advertisers that this month “your location-specific business phone number will display alongside your destination url in ads that appear on high-end mobile devices. Users will be able to click-to-call your business just as easily as they click to visit your website. You’ll be charged for clicks to call, same as you are for clicks to visit your website.”
(Jan 5, 2010 at 7:59am ET by Greg Sterling)

4. Google Goggles
A new service that promises to make searching the internet as easy as taking a photo. The application, which will premier on Android devices, will let a user snap a photo of anything and then Google will deliver search results based on that image.
(December 7th, 2009 by Stefan Constantinescu)

5. Free DNS Service
Google just released their newest service which is public DNS. DNS is one of the most important services when it comes to using the internet. The main reason to use the service is reliability, speed and increased security. Google has put in other measures to help with overall security.
(December 5th 2009 by serverguy)

What makes Google unique?

Since the beginning of Google Inc. in 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin's creation has grown to unreal proportions. Starting with over 10,000 daily searches during its beta stage, Google seemed a worthwhile investment. After only a few months, PC World named them one of the Top 100 Search Engines...and Google hadn't even taken the beta label away yet.

About one year after launching, the beta came off as they topped 3 million searches per day.
Although known mainly for being a popular search engine, Google has many other features that make it unique, such as Gmail, the web-based e-mail that offered 1 gigabyte of e-mail storage.

This limit has recently increased to over 2.6 Gb. The idea behind it is that people really don't need to delete their e-mails because it would take many e-mails to hit this limit, and users can search through their old e-mails through a special search feature.
Another Google application is GoogleMaps, which is similar to Mapquest. Users can search for places or get driving directions. Also, they can switch between "Map" view (simple drawings of streets), "Satellite" view (the pictures from the satellite but without roads labeled), or "Hybrid" view (satellite view with roads and road names drawn in).


Also, a new Google Video store offering movies for downloading and viewing on a Google Video Player has been released. Filmmakers can set the price of the movie and the "copy protection" level in order to give viewers more variety than was previously available.
What makes the Google search special is the unique advertising on each search page. After entering a search query, the AdWords program pops up relevant ads on the side of the results. For example, if someone searched "formal dresses," the right side of the results page would have a list of ads that contained the word "dress" in them to attract the user to their sponsors' sites.


All of these features have made Google one of, if not the most, popular and profitable search engine of our generation.

References:
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2005/10/16.html
http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html
http://www.programmersparadox.com/2008/03/17/googles-unique-advantage/
http://tl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google