CS Elective 4 (Google)

Google is a highly successful internet business. Recently they have broaden their scope
with a multitude of new tools. Research Google business model and answer the ff.
questions below. You may add additional information not included in this question.

1. Who are they're competitors?

According to (http://websearch.about.com)Google has attained the ranking of the #1 search engine on the Web, and consistently stayed there. It was invented by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Google face competition from:

SEARCH ENGINE such as Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corporation’s Bing.

E-COMMERCE SITES, such as WebMD (for health queries), Kayak (travel queries), Monster.com (job queries), and Amazon.com and eBay (commerce). They compete with these sites because they are trying to attract users to their web sites to search for product or service information, and some users will navigate directly to those sites rather than go through Google.

SOCIAL NETWORKS, such as Facebook, Yelp, Twitter or Friendster. Some users are relying more on social networks for product or service referrals, rather than seeking information through traditional search engines.

They also compete with the traditional forms of advertising—such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, and yellow pages—for ad dollars.


2. How have they used information technology to their advantage?


Google provides the fastest, most accurate results required a new kind of server setup. Whereas most search engines ran off a handful of large servers that often slowed under peak loads, ours employed linked PCs to quickly find each query's answer. The innovation paid off in faster response times, greater scalability and lower costs. It's an idea that others have since copied, while we have continued to refine our back-end technology to make it even more efficient.

Google provides:

* Better and quicker search results
* Advanced search features, including searching for videos and audio content as well as PDF, .doc and .ppt files
* Easy and powerful search administration
* Easy integration into web sites

Google continues to think about ways in which technology can improve upon existing ways of doing business. New areas are explored, ideas prototyped and budding services nurtured to make them more useful to advertisers and publishers. However, no matter how distant Google's business model grows from its origins, the root remains providing useful and relevant information to those who are the most important part of the ecosystem – the millions of individuals around the world who rely on Google search to provide the answers they are seeking.

According to (http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html)
The software behind our search technology conducts a series of simultaneous calculations requiring only a fraction of a second. Traditional search engines rely heavily on how often a word appears on a web page. We use more than 200 signals, including our patented PageRank™ algorithm, to examine the entire link structure of the web and determine which pages are most important. We then conduct hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, we're able to put the most relevant and reliable results first.



3. How competitive are they in the market?

Google also provide a number of online products and services, including Gmail, YouTube, and Google Docs, that compete directly with new and established companies that offer communication, information, and entertainment services integrated into their products or media properties.

Google designed AdWords for advertisers who want to reach a qualified audience as efficiently as possible. Advertisers select their own target keywords and only pay when customers click on their ads. It's easy to create ad text and manage online advertising accounts with no large upfront payment required.

Google spread from one satisfied user to another. With superior search technology and a high volume of traffic at its Google.com site, Google's managers identified two initial opportunities for generating revenue: search services and advertising.

According to (http://news.cnet.com/Googles-market-lead-widens/2100-1030_3-6054990.html)
Google is increasing its lead over Yahoo and Microsoft in the U.S. Web search market while a rebranded Ask.com is inching up, according to the latest statistics from ComScore Networks.

Google's domestic market share rose to 42.3 percent in February, up from 36.3 percent a year earlier, ComScore said.

Yahoo's search market share in the United States fell to 27.6 percent from 31.1 percent a year ago, while Microsoft's MSN fell to 13.5 percent from 16.3 percent and Time Warner's America Online fell to 8 percent from 8.9 percent.

IAC Search & Media's Ask.com, which unveiled a new brand and interface last month, rose to 6 percent from 5.3 percent.

It means that Google leads in the market today.


4. What new services do they offer?


Google offers different services such as:

*Google Earth
*Gmail
*Google Maps
*YouTube
* 3D Warehouse
* Ad Manager
* AdWords
* AdSense
* Google Alerts
* Google Analytics
* Google Answers
* Google Questions and Answers
* Google App Engine
* Google Apps
* Google Audio Indexing
* Google Base
* Blogger (service)
* Google Books
* Google Books Library Project
* Google Bookmarks
* Google Browser Sync
* Google Calendar
* Google Chart API
* Google Checkout
* Google Chrome
* Chrome Web Store
* Chromium (web browser)
* Google Web Toolkit
* Google Code
* Google Code Search
* Google Current
* Google Dashboard
* Google Desktop
* Google Quick Search Box
* Google Dictionary
* History of Google Docs
* Google Docs
* Dodgeball (service)
* Google Fast Flip
* Google Finance
* Google Friend Connect
* Google Gadgets
* Google Gadgets API
* Gears (software)
* Gizmo5
* Gmail
* Gmail interface
* Google Business Solutions
* Google Buzz
* Google Editions
* Google Sidewiki
* Google Wave extensions
* Google translator toolkit
* Google Groups
* Google Health
* IGoogle
* Google Image Labeler
* Google Images
* Google Image Swirl
* Google Insights for Search
* Jaiku
* Joga Bonito (social network)
* Google Labs
* List of Google products
* Google Lively
* Living stories
* Google Map Maker
* Google Maps
* Google Mars
* Google Moderator
* Google Moon
* Google News
* Google News Archive
* Google Notebook
* Orkut
* Google Pack
* Picasa
* Google Product Search
* Google Public DNS
* Google Reader
* Satellite map images with missing or unclear data
* Google Scholar
* Google Scholar and academic libraries
* Sitemaps
* Sitemap index
* Google Sites
* SketchUp
* Google Squared
* Google Street View
* Supplemental Result
* Google Talk
* Google Toolbar
* Google Translate
* Google Trends
* V8 (JavaScript engine)
* Vevo
* Google Videos
* Google Wave
* Google Web Accelerator
* Google Webmaster Tools
* Google WiFi
* Google X


5. What makes them so unique?

List of what Google makes unique:

One word, PageRank. ‘PageRank' is to Google, as the ‘secret formula' to Coke Cola. Named after its co-founder, Larry Page, PageRank is essentially an algorithmic formula that examines the entire link structure of the web and subsequently determines which pages are more important.



Page's theory was based on the notion that ‘all links were not created equal'. Some mattered more than others; greater influence would be granted to incoming links from important sites. Page decided that sites with more links pointing to them were more important than sites with fewer links.


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).

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.


6. How competitive are they in the international market?


Having studied Google abroad somewhat significantly, I believe this article provides a very naïve view on Google’s success abroad. Absolutely, Google, as any American company, needs to be extremely aware of the impression they make when entering foreign grounds, as the risk as being seen as arrogant – the ugly American – is omnipresent. And, yes, Google should continue to grow their in-country teams significantly in order to best overcome cultural and sales hurdles and take advantage of unique opportunities and the gigantic world market that is growing at a quicker pace than the U.S. market. Recent stats point to European e-commerce in a position to surge past U.S. e-commerce.

Yet, don’t attempt to fool anyone here: Google has enormous international market share. Though I’m on a plane and not able to access these stats immediately, I believe that Google has approximately a 10-point higher share of search in Europe than they do in the States. I attended an online and multi-channel retail conference in London earlier this year, and Google was constantly mentioned, and never in a bad light. I am attempting to arrange a dinner in Paris later this year or early next with top French e-commerce companies, and Google is the likely sponsor, due to their relationship with the French agency that I am in contact with and their relationship with the likely invitees. Google is dominant in most countries, with their distant following to Baidu in China and the Russian example in the article notable exceptions.

In the UK, Amazon.com and eBay have also taken off after some early slips and command a dominant share of the market. Of course, they face hurdles, most notably eBay’s fraud and trust problem, but these American brands have also experienced tremendous success abroad. And there are other huge hurdles across Europe, such as Germany’s reliance on non-credit card payments and their language and cultural barriers. The European Union is still quite segmented, and pan-European plays will rarely be successful. Yet, the world continues to flatten, and American brands can have success abroad with fewer hurdles as can international brands have success in the States.

Google has had success with other products abroad, most notably its Orkut social network which has bombed domestically to its MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn brethren, yet has taken off in huge countries such as India and Brazil. So, sure, Google should be sensitive to cultural sensitivities and will face different regulatory environments abroad, but the truth is that Google has been remarkably successful internationally in large part due to the international word-of-mouth generated by their product and feature set.