Google and its Ccompetitors - Essay Example

Google standing tall among its competitors Google is a household of the world's market leader of search engines. DurinG 2007, Google has crossed every media company in terms of market share and advertising whether its online or offline. Henry Blodget, a former Wall Street analyst, has compared the advertising revenues of 17 media firms in his recently published report in which about his findings he has quoted that, "Google's growth of revenue in 2007 stood at $2.6 billion, with all the offline media properties in the report only making $1 billion collectively, meaning that Google outdoes them by more than twice as much.

" The list of the other media companies included News Corp, Time Warner Cable, Viacom, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, the New York Times, and CBS Radio where Google stood tall; by registering a year on year growth of 44% in its revenues. Keeping in view this report, the recent findings portray that the combined online ad revenues of AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo accounts to 15% year on year basis when compared to the 44% growth posted by Google during 2007. Even News Corp with the 2nd uppermost ad revenues of US$ 915 mn for 2007 falls a long way following Google.

The study also showed how Google had managed to increase its revenues by 44 per cent since 2006, bringing their total yearly revenue in the US alone to a staggering $8.7 billion. This figure is even more incredible when put into the following perspective: the total online ad revenues for all 17 companies only grew by 9 per cent last year, with online revenues growing by only 28 percent. Even by combining the online ad revenues of AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo together, the percentage of growth remains at 15 percent, compared to Google's whopping 44 percent.

Even the company with the 2nd highest ad revenues for 2007 falls a long way behind the search engine giant. News Corp only managed to pull in gains of $915 million. Google claims a dominating 56% market share in search (Nielsen/NetRatings, May 2007), once the internet's largest search engine, and Yahoo still controls a registered 21.5% of searches worldwide. Yahoo's much awaited however, belated Panama system for text ads has ultimately gone live, with primitive results indicating to improved click through rates.

Furthermore, hearsays about Microsoft which is planning to acquire Yahoo have persevered (and been rejected in the same fashion), the company's Live Search product stood at number three. As the coronet gemstone of the IAC network, Ask.com has received blether reviews, which includes Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal declaring, "Google deserves credit for universal search, which I'm sure will get better. But Ask's new design is much more compelling and well worth a try." the list of search engines goes on by where Google is the leading player.

However, one should keep this in mind that less than a decade ago; Yahoo was the market leader across the board. Competition from both big search engines and well-funded beginners will compel Google to remain determined and focused on developing state of the art innovations in search. Acceptance of the mobile Internet in the USA, now tracks Europe and Asia, leaving a wide open space. Yahoo has brought this in the market while expertise of companies like InfoSpace and the VoIP (value-added service companies) understand the market dynamics better than anyone.

However, GOOG411 and Google SMS proffer a convincing user experience that is just right for advertising. The original dominant portal, Yahoo can still assert the most extensively used start page on the World Wide Web. The company has been trying to upgrade its service in optimism of retaining its users, by integrating Yahoo services like mail, weather, and finance, subscribe to RSS feeds and by adding the facility to drag and drop content items.With Google's acquisition of Writely, which has been merged into Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and the commencement of a PowerPoint competitor looming, version 1 of the Google office suite is near completion.

Though the company has a long way to meet and match the standards of Microsoft Office, it has Redmond stirring swift to market web-based versions of its mainstay products. Several start-ups are also working on word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software to compete with Microsoft. But we still feel that this will take time to catch up the ever dominant MS Office of Microsoft. Every move taken by Google's is scrutinized and viewed by its peers and other competitors whether big and small.

Its swift expansion into the areas ahead of search and apparently unquenchable craving for acquisitions has the company strappingly positioned to control various key parts of the Internet. However, the failure of Google Answers and the relegation of Froogle should be kept in mind that not everything Google taps turns to gold. The world of internet is growing day by day and is full of innovations where any peer company viz. Yahoo, Microsoft or any other company can get the share in any continent outside the USAREFERENCES:2008 Annual Google, Communications Intelligence Report, A Google white paper, February 2008What Media Company Gained the Most Market Share in 2007 By Erick Schonfeld http://www.

techcrunch.com/wp-content/ad-marketshare-barchart-large.png'Google crushes competition by Sylvie Barak: March, 2008Nielsen Net Ratings, Searchengineland.com