Amazing Facts and Figures about Google - Assignment Example

HP GOOGLE [Type the document sub [Pick the Introduction Whenever the word web search is used, the next word that comes to mind is Google. Whether it is a general question or a literary one; an assignment, or a scholarly article; a simple glimpse of the entertainment world, or a more thorough news check, all can be answered and done by simply “Googling” it. So, what is google? Google search or google web search is a web based search engine. It is owned by Google Inc., and is available in 123 languages. Google.com was launched on September 15, 1997. It was incorporated as google inc. on September 4, 1998. A company that started as a research project by two students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, has since travelled a long way. With products and websites other than just google.com, it has become a brand of sorts on the World Wide Web. According to ComScore, Google is leading the web search industry with 4,717,000,000 average searches per day and 1,722,071,000,000 average searches annually, in 2011. Other than google search, google has many famous products and services under its banner. YouTube, g-mail, Blogger, Orkut, Google earth, and Google Chrome, to name a few. Google search provides its services free of charge, and many other services and products are also mostly free. Google Name: Google got its name from the misspelling of the mathematical term googol, which refers to the digit one followed by a hundred zeros. As Brin says in his paper, "We chose our systems name, Google, because it is a common spelling of googol, or 10100 and fits well with our goal of building very large-scale search engines." Google Logo The Official google logo was designed by Ruth Kedar. Google keeps changing its logo according to important anniversaries, birthdays, and significant events. These logos are referred to as Google Doodles. From Back Rub to Google Google started as a research project by two students at Stanford University. Larry Page was working on a research project for the Stanford Digital library Project in 1996. At that time the research project was named as “BackRub”. It was called BackRub because it used backlinks to determine the popularity of a web page. Page was soon joined by Sergey Brin, who was a PhD student at Stanford University. Initially google used the Stanford university domain to operate and registered the domain, google.com, in 1997. Google turned into a corporation in the September of 1998, and received its first ever investment of $100,000. Although at this time Google only had 60 million indexed pages, still its search results were believed to be better than HotBot or excite.com, the leading search engines of the time . Craig Silverstein was hired as the first employee of Google Inc. He is now the technology director at Google. Google Inc. was a company of 3 located in a garage. In 1999, due to their growing number they had to move to offices in Palo Alto. In 2003, the offices were moved to their current complex, known as the google complex. Although Google received funding from investors like Andy Bechtolsheim, and firms like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital, yet it was in need of more money. Money from the public sector could have easily solved their financial problems, but Page and Brin were reluctant to publicize Google. Google hired their first CEO, Eric Schmidt, in 2001. Google went public in 2004. At the time of its IPO, google shares were priced at $85. In 2010, this price had reached $535 (Dylan). Pyra Labs, which was a pioneer in blog-hosting website, was bought by Google in 2003. Pyra Labs also created blogger. 270, 000 words are written per minute on blogger (Bullas). In 2005, Google partnered with Sun Microsystems, to share and distribute technologies with one another. In 2006, Google bought You Tube, which had only been in service for about 2 years. Now 60 hours of videos are uploaded to you tube every minute (Bullas). On the 17th of January, 2006, Google announced its purchase of the radio advertising company, dMarc. This allowed Google to target its consumers with internet and radio advertising (Dylan). In the June of 2006, the word google was added to the Oxford Dictionary as a verb (Dylan). With such a step google seemed a step closer to their mission statement: "To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." In April 2011, Larry Page again took up as the CEO of Google. Eric Schmidt took up the post of Executive Chairman. Google inc. has expanded over time, offering a wide and innovative range of products and services, online and offline. 1. Blogger: Blogger, launched in 1999 is almost as old as Google. Blogger is a free web-log creating tool. Web-logs are like online personal journals. Blogger offer mostly free, and many paid features. Blogger hosts blogs free on their domain blogger.com. Blogger is the 9th most popular website in the world. It is estimated that by 2008, 6% of all adults in the United States have a blog (Bullas). 2. Google Search Appliance: In February of 2002, Google released their first hardware. The yellow box could be used by businesses to be plugged into their own computers to browse and search through their own data and documents (Dylan) 3. Froogle: Froogle which was later named as “Google product search” was launched in 2002. Consumers can surf for products and compare their prices to choose the best product for themselves. 4. Orkut: Launched in the January of 2004, Orkut is a social networking site owned by google. It allows you to meet new people, add old friends. People can chat, talk and share stuff. 5. Google Earth: Google Earth is a web based mapping service that uses images from satellites. It combines 3D buildings and terrain and google search. After the 40th anniversary of landing on the moon, moon was also added to google Earth (Dylan). 6. Google TV: It has been built on android and allows easy navigation through TV channels, websites, movies and shows. 7. Google Talk: Google talk is a free service launched in the August of 2005. It is a downloadable application. It allows to chat and IM with friends and family just using an internet connection. 8. Google Analytics: It was launched in the November of 2005. It was initially known as Urchin. It is software that allows monitoring website traffic to a particular site and keeping track of its visitors. Google analytics is being used by almost 57% of the top 10,000 websites around the world (Dylan). 9. Google Art Project: This application allows you to virtually visit 17 best museums of the world, including Van Gogh and Louvre. It provides high resolution images of more than a 1000 pieces of art. 10. Gmail: Gmail was launched in 2004. After the February of 2007, it was open for anyone to use and sign up for a free account; previously it was only available through invitation (Goodwin). Gmail is known for high storage capacity and user friendliness. 11. You Tube: Google purchased You Tube in 2006. You Tube was a very young and unprofitable site at that time. But by 2008 ComScore reported that each month You Tube had nearly 100 million unique visitors, and every person was viewing an average of 55 hours of videos. 12. Android: Android is a smart phone application leading the world market. 400,000 devices are activated daily. 700,000 Android applications are available (Tibken). Apart from these, Google also offers numerous web applications to facilitate in the daily experience of web surfing. Google chrome, Google Phone, Google Calendar, Google Groups, Google Translate, Google Books, Google sites, Google Videos, Google Images, Google blogs, Google Translate, and Google Maps are a part of the services provided by google. Innovative and Steady Wins the Race: Competition is the essence of progress. Google has also had its fair share of competitiveness from other market giants, some have stayed in the race and some have fallen out, but its steady and innovative approach towards the internet has helped it maintain its place. Google is still the leading the world market as a search engine by 66.7 % (Heller). The leading google competitors are: 1. Amazon Amazon is a multinational e-commerce company, which started as an online book store in 1995. Amazon is now the largest online retailer in the world. It also produces its own products, like, Amazon kindle, which is an e-book reader. It also provides computer cloud services. Amazon also powers AOL. Google also launched froogle, but still one third online users start their online product search through Amazon (Forrester). ComScore also showed statistics that product searched on Amazon have grown by 73 percent during the year 2012 while product searches on google have been close to nothing. Amazon kindle e book reader has had a sale of 143 books to 100 books in hardcover (Bullas). Amazon has a customer base of 30 million people. 2. Microsoft According to the ComScore statistics, 15.9 searches are conducted on Microsoft sites. Microsoft released Bing in 2009, a leading name in search engines. Microsoft have also added image search and mapping to Bing. Google responded by enhancing their search engine by adding real time search, photo search, and a translator (Dylan). 3. Apple Google and Apple started as partners and supporters of each other’s technology. Now Google and Apple are competing with each other head on in smart phone industry. Apple safari also stands as a competition for Google chrome. Apple’s smart phone gadgets set a competition for Android powered by google (Farfan). 4. Yahoo Yahoo owns search engines AltaVista, All the Web, and Overture. According to the ComScore statistics, 15.9% searches are conducted on yahoo search engine. Yahoo also has other services like messenger and analytics. Google launched Google Answers in competition to Yahoo answers (Dylan). Yahoo helps searchers find and compare travel deals and also prices of products. It also allows viewers to view videos directly on its search page. IV. SWOT Analysis Google as a brand has maintained its uniqueness and public demand for more than a decade. But before investing in any company it is always good to take into account its SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis enables you to monitor the growth factor of the company (Heller). Strengths: Google displays strengths that make it a sound investment for years to come. 1. Leading Search Engine: Google is a leader in search engine industry with a search engine domination of 66.9% of the total searches conducted in the US (Goodwin). 2. Share Market Value: Google has a value of 3.1% market share. 3. Low Operating Cost: Google’s products and services have a low operating cost, making them accessible to the majority of public. 4. Powerful Advertising: The Average conversion rate for adwords for all industries through the search network was 5.6% (Kim) and through the display network was4.68%. 5. Income and Profit Growth: Google has a net income increase of 14.5% every year and a growth rate that averages around 25% each year (Google). The gross profit of google is an increase of 30.7% per year. 53% of the revenue generated by google is a result of international market (Google). 6. Reliable and Consistent Service: The ease of services and products provided by google are reliable, and have maintained a consistency of quality over the years. 7. Infrastructure Base: Google has a very strong infrastructure base that also enables it to launch new and innovative products and stay ahead in the market. 8. Brand and yet household name: Google is a brand in the internet market, and yet as opposed to general brand trends, it is accessible to every household. 9. Strong Social Network: Google has a strong social networking share in the market when it comes to Orkut. 10. You Tube: You tube is a video giant, that served 13.7 billion videos in the US alone for the month of august (Heller). 11. Smartphone Giant: Android is used by more than 52% of all Smartphone users in the United States (Heller). Weaknesses: Even a giant like google is not without its weaknesses. Following is an analysis of the potential weaknesses. 1. Motorola Drag: Motorola has been losing money since its acquisition, an operating loss of $527 million was reported recently (Heller). 2. Advertising Dependant: The revenues generated by Google are too dependent on advertising, 97% of the income is dependent on advertising and 3% on the other google products and services (Page). 3. Integration Disadvantage: Google products do not provide an integrated experience; competitors like yahoo have put google at a back step by providing such services and experience to the user. Their services as opposed to google are all in one compatible and complement each other. 4. Click Fraud: Google lost revenue of $1 billion due to click fraud in 2007. It is a growing problem with google and google doesn’t seem to be doing too much about it. Opportunities: 1. Products and Services: Products and services relating to android applications and google TV, present a wide range of opportunities, to be grasped. 2. Near Field Communications: NFC’s offer a great opportunity in the upcoming years. Integration in the apple i-phone 5 will definitely be a boost. This will allow people to carry out transactions without carrying data cards with them. 3. You Tube Advertising: You tube is a huge market and presents a wide margin for video advertisements. You tube due to its reach and accessibility is a house hold name and can be used as a perfect marketing tool. 4. Google Wallet: Google Wallet offers a unique use of technology and in a growing world of extreme ease and technology dependency, an android phone with all your credit cards fed in, has a huge margin of success. 5. Self-Driving Car: Google’s self-driving car already has permission to roam the streets of California, Nevada and Florida. Google is bettering its driverless technology and there will be a time when these artificially intelligent cars will be able to drive better than humans, and most probably it won’t even be permissible for humans to drive their own cars (Marcus). 6. Google Glass: A Google glass is actually your computer right on the top of your head, in the form of goggles. It has a tiny computer installed in the goggles frame. It presents a whole new field of development and innovation. It has also been declared the ne of the best inventions of 2012 by Time magazine (Yeung). 7. Google Giga Bit Fiber: Google fiber net uses fiber-optic communications to deliver 1000 mbps high speed internet. Now only available in Kansas city, it proposes a huge market in the upcoming years. Threats: In the developing world of innovative technology, Google Inc. is not without competition and threats. 1. Mozilla Firefox: Firefox and google do not share compatibility anymore, due to which Firefox crashes. If problems persist, Mozilla might be forced to remove fire fox as its home page, which could really harm google. 2. Hacking and security issues: recurring security and hacking issues are a persistent problem and damaging for overall reputation. 3. Apple Removing Google from Products: Initially apple removed you tube from its I OS 6 beta 4. It has also included its own mapping service in i-phone 5 rather than google maps. Apple has also rid itself of google “hooks” and has removed the term google from its search options (Hill). 4. Content Privacy Issues: Google’s privacy policy lets it scan consumer’s data and content for its own purposes. When people do not feel secure about their data, it results in reluctance to use the service (Hardy and Perlroth). A careful SWOT analysis highlights the great potential that google has, to be a great investment in the upcoming years. Its knack for innovation and love for technology makes it a strong contender for overcoming all threats and hurdles and maintain its spot in the world of internet. As Sergey Brin puts it “It’s clear that there’s a lot of room for improvement, there’s no inherent ceiling we’re hitting up on”. Works Cited “10 Toughest Competitors of Google in 2010”. Buzzom. 24 January, 2010. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. “Apple Vs Google”. Moreintelligentlife. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Bullas, J. “50 Amazing Facts and Figures About Google”. Jeffbullas.com. Dec, 2010. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. “ComScore Releases September 2012 U.S. Search Engine Rankings”. ComScore. 11 Oct, 2012. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Dylan. “How Google Impacts everything and is Dominating Target Markets”. Desertgraphicsinc.net. 15 Sep 2011. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Farfan, B. “Google Profile - Mission Statement, History, Founders, Name, Culture & Quotes”. Retailindustry.about.com. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Goodwin, D. “Google Smashes US Search Market Share Record, Closes in on 70%”. Searchenginewatch.com. 21 Nov, 2012. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. “Google Annual Search Statistics”. StaticBrain. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. Google. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Hardy, Q. & Perlroth, N. “Companies Raise Concerns Over Google Drive’s Privacy Protections”. bits.blogs.nytimes.com. 25 April 2012. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Heller, S. “Here’s What Google’s SWOT Analysis Revealed”. Beta.fool.com. 31 Oct, 2012. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Hill, Brandon. “Apple Continues Its “Google Cleansing” by Removing YouTube App in iOS 6 Beta 4”. Dailytech.com. 6 Aug, 2012. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Kim, Larry. “Google Flops & Failures - The Failed Google Graveyard”. Wordstream. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Kim, Larry. “What’s a Good Conversion Rate on Google AdWords? Average Conversion Rates by Industry”. business2community.com. 4 Nov, 2012. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Landley, Rob. “Google History”. Landley.net. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Lidskey, David. “The Brief But Impactful History of YouTube”. Fastcompany. 1 Feb, 2012. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Marcus, Gary. “Moral Machines”. Newyorker.com. 27 Nov, 2012. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. “Market Segmentation - Meaning, Basis and Types of Segmentation”. Managementstudyguide. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Singer, Hal. “Who Competes With Google Search? Just Amazon, Apple And Facebook”. Forbes. 18 Sep, 2012. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. “The History of Google: From Garage-based Business to #1 Search Engine”. Submittoday. Web. 6 Dec, 2012 Yeung, K. “TIME names Google Glass one of 2012′s best inventions alongside MakerBot and the Mars rover”. Thenextweb.com. 2 Nov, 2012. Web. 6 Dec, 2012. Read More