Google Empowering the Digital World
Google, officially known as Google LLC and previously as Google Inc. from 1998 to 2017, is an American search engine company. Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded it in 1998.
but Google is currently a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., a holding company.
Google handles the majority of online search requests worldwide, making it a central part of most Internet users’ online experiences. It is considered to be one of the most prominent brands in the world. The headquarters of the company are located in Mountain View, California.
Google started out as an online search company, but it has since expanded its offerings to include over 50 internet services and products. These range from email and online document creation to software designed for mobile phones and tablet computers. Furthermore, the acquisition of Motorola Mobility in 2012 positioned the company to venture into the sale of hardware, specifically mobile phones.
Google is considered one of the most influential companies in the high-tech marketplace, alongside Apple, IBM, and Microsoft. This is due to its extensive product portfolio and large size. Despite the wide range of products available, the original search tool continues to be the key factor contributing to its success. In 2016, the majority of Alphabet’s revenue came from Google advertising, which was primarily generated through users’ search requests.
Google LLC /Searching for business
The idea of deriving significance from the enormous amount of data amassing on the Internet captivated Brin and Page, who first met as graduate students at Stanford University.
They started working on a new type of search technology called BackRub in Page’s dormitory room at Stanford. The crucial strategy was to utilize the ranking capabilities of Web users by monitoring the “backing links” of each website, which refers to the number of other pages that are linked to them. In the past, search engines would typically provide a list of websites based on the frequency of a search phrase appearing on them. Brin and Page integrated the number of links that each website had into the search function.
In other words, a website with a large number of links would be considered more valuable than one with only a few links. As a result, the search engine would prioritize the heavily linked site by placing it higher on the list of potential results. Additionally, a backlink from a highly linked website holds more value as a “vote” compared to one from a less well-known website.
In the middle of 1998, Brin and Page started to secure external funding. One of their initial investors was Andy Bechtolsheim, who co-founded Sun Microsystems, Inc. After successfully securing approximately $1 million in funding from investors, family, and friends, they established their headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
The company was named Google, which originated from a slight misspelling of Page’s initial choice, “googol,” a mathematical term representing the number one followed by 100 zeroes. In mid-1999, Google had reached a significant milestone of processing 500,000 queries per day when it secured a $25 million round of venture capital funding. Activity started to skyrocket in 2000, when Google became the primary search engine for Yahoo!, one of the most popular websites on the internet. In 2004, Yahoo! stopped using Google’s services, and at that time, users were conducting 200 million searches on Google every day.
The growth of Google’s search volume continued, reaching a milestone by the end of 2011, when it was handling approximately three billion searches per day. The company’s name became so widely recognized that it became a verb in everyday language, and “Google” became a commonly used term for searching the Internet.
To handle this immense amount of data
Google has constructed 11 data centers worldwide. These data centers consist of numerous servers, which are essentially multiprocessor personal computers and hard drives arranged in custom racks. Google likely has several million interconnected computers.
Google’s operation revolves around three proprietary pieces of computer code: Google File System (GFS), Bigtable, and MapReduce, which form the core of their operations. GFS is responsible for storing data in “chunks” across multiple machines. Bigtable is a database program developed by the company. Google uses Map Reduce to process data and generate higher-level information, such as creating an index of web pages that include the words “Chicago,” “theatre,” and “participatory.”
The remarkable expansion of Google resulted in internal management issues. From the very beginning, investors recognized the need for Brin and Page to have an experienced manager leading the company. In 2001, they decided to hire Eric Schmidt as the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the company. Schmidt, who had previously served in the same positions at the software company Novell Inc., possessed a doctorate in computer science and seamlessly aligned with the technocratic inclinations of the founders.
During Schmidt’s tenure as CEO, Page held the position of President of Products, while Brin served as President of Technology. The three individuals managed the company collectively, known as a “triumvirate,” until Page assumed the position of CEO in 2011. Schmidt transitioned to the role of executive chairman, while Brin took on the title of director of special projects.
Google listed on the stock market
In 2004, the company successfully conducted its initial public offering (IPO), which resulted in raising $1.66 billion for the company. This significant milestone also led to Brin and Page becoming billionaires overnight. The initial public offering (IPO) resulted in the emergence of seven billionaires and 900 millionaires among the early stockholders.
The stock offering garnered attention due to its unconventional handling. Shares were sold in a public auction with the aim of providing the average investor with the same opportunities as financial industry professionals. In 2006, Google was included in the Standard and Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) stock index. In 2012, Google’s market capitalization positioned it as one of the largest American companies, despite not being included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Goggle and Sundar Pichai
Sundar Pichai is a well-known figure in the tech industry.
In August 2015, Google underwent a reorganization and became a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., a holding company. Google continued to oversee various aspects of the internet, including internet search, advertising, apps, and maps. Additionally, they maintained control over the mobile operating system Android and the popular video-sharing site YouTube.
Various Google ventures, including Calico, a longevity research company; Nest, a home-products company; and Google X, a research lab, have transitioned into independent firms under the umbrella of Alphabet.
Page assumed the role of CEO at Alphabet, with Brin taking on the position of president and Schmidt serving as the executive chairman. Sundar Pichai, who was previously the senior vice president of products at Google, has now taken on the role of CEO. In 2017, Alphabet underwent a reorganization to establish an intermediate holding company called XXVI Holdings.
Additionally, Google was converted into a limited liability company (LLC). Schmidt resigned as executive chairman in 2018. In 2019, there were further changes as Brin and Page stepped down from their roles as president and CEO, respectively. However, both of them continued to serve on Alphabet’s board of directors. Pichai assumed the role of CEO at the holding company while also maintaining his position as CEO of Google.
Google/ growth of advertising
Google’s robust financial results are a testament to the rapid expansion of Internet advertising as a whole, with Google’s own popularity playing a significant role in this success.
Analysts credited a portion of that success to a change in advertising expenditure, with a shift towards the Internet and a decrease in spending on traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, and television. An illustration of this is the decline in American newspaper advertising, which dropped from its highest point of $64 billion in 2000 to $20.7 billion in 2011. In contrast, global online advertising experienced significant growth, increasing from around $6 billion in 2000 to over $72 billion in 2011.
Google and Google AdSens
Google has invested significant amounts of money in order to obtain what it considers to be valuable advantages in Internet marketing since its establishment. In 2003, Google invested $102 million to acquire Applied Semantics, the creators of AdSense.
AdSense is a service that enables website owners to display different types of advertisements on their web pages. In 2006, Google acquired dMarc Broadcasting, a Web advertisement business, for $102 million. Additionally, during the same year, Google announced its agreement to pay $900 million over three and a half years for the exclusive rights to sell ads on MySpace.com.
In 2007, Google made its largest acquisition to date by purchasing online advertising firm DoubleClick for a staggering $3.1 billion. After two years, the company made a significant move in response to the rapid growth of the mobile application market. They decided to acquire the mobile advertising network AdMob for a whopping $750 million.
Google made these purchases as part of its strategy to expand beyond its search engine business and venture into advertising. This was achieved by integrating the data from different companies.
Other services offered by Google
Video and YouTube. Google’s expansion, which was primarily driven by keyword-based Web advertising, gave the company a strong foundation to vie for supremacy in emerging Web services. One example of this was the delivery of video content.
Google launched Google Video in January 2005, allowing individuals to search for close-captioned text from television broadcasts. Several months later, Google introduced a feature that allowed users to submit their own videos.
This feature also allowed submitters to determine the prices for others who wished to download and view these videos. The Google Video Store opened in January 2006, offering premium content from well-known media companies like CBS Corporation for television shows and Sony Corporation for movies. In June 2006, Google started providing premium content at no cost, albeit with advertisements.
Despite its marketing advantages, Google was unable to surpass YouTube, the emerging leader in online videos. After its launch in 2005, YouTube rapidly gained popularity as the go-to platform for users to upload and share short video files, with several of them garnering millions of views. In 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock due to its inability to generate a comparable number of uploads and viewers. Instead of merging the websites, Google chose to keep YouTube as a separate entity.
In 2012, Google made the decision to shut down Google Video and subsequently transferred all the videos from that platform to YouTube. In that particular year, Google stated that YouTube, despite generating estimated revenues of over $1 billion, was still considered an “investment.” However, Google did not disclose whether the division was profitable.
The Gmail service provided by Google.
In 2004, Google introduced a free Web-based email account to a limited group of “beta” testers. A beta product refers to a product that is still in its developmental stage and not yet finalized. Gmail,
the service, was made available to the general public in 2007, even though it was still officially in its beta stage. One of the main advantages of Gmail is that it provides users with an email address that is not tied to any specific internet service provider (ISP). This feature makes it more convenient to have a permanent email address.
Furthermore, the service provided an exceptional one gigabyte (equivalent to one billion bytes) of complimentary email storage space. However, users were also exposed to advertisements that were tailored based on keywords identified by the Google search engine within their messages.
Google later increased the amount of free storage space provided to users to seven gigabytes and also introduced the option for users to rent additional space. In 2007, Google acquired Postini, an e-mail services firm, for $625 million. This acquisition aimed to enhance the security of Gmail, particularly in Google’s endeavors to attract businesses as users. Google removed Gmail’s beta status in 2009, which significantly increased its appeal to business users.
In January 2010, Google made an announcement regarding the detection of a series of highly advanced hacking attacks. These attacks were traced back to China and specifically targeted the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists and foreign journalists operating within China. In certain instances, the accounts were reconfigured to redirect all incoming and outgoing emails to unfamiliar addresses.
Google quickly responded by changing Gmail’s protocol from the standard HTTP to the more secure HTTPS. This change enhanced security, although it did come at the cost of some speed.
The attacks also prompted Google to reconsider its position, which had previously allowed the Chinese government to censor its Google.cn site and provide Chinese users with filtered search results. This situation led to a conflict between the company and the Chinese government, and there was a possibility of Google completely withdrawing from the Chinese market.
In March, Google skillfully managed to avoid direct conflict by automatically redirecting Chinese users of Google.cn to its unfiltered Hong Kong site, Google.com.hk. The arrangement remained in place until the time came for Google to renew its government-issued license to operate in China at the end of June.
During that period, Google made modifications to Google.cn, allowing users to choose between accessing the censored Chinese site for services like music searches or manually clicking on a link to Google.com.hk for web searches. This action satisfied the Chinese government, resulting in the renewal of Google’s license in July 2010.
Google Books
Before the establishment of Google as a company, its founders had already been involved in digital book projects at Stanford. They had always held a vision of a future where users could search for content within books on the Internet. In 2004, the company made an announcement about Google Print, a project in collaboration with several major libraries worldwide.
The project aimed to make their collections accessible to the public for free on the Internet. The company initially started its operations by utilizing advanced equipment to scan books from the libraries’ collections that were in the public domain. The digital files were converted into portable document files (PDFs) that were fully searchable, downloadable, and printable.
Works that are still under copyright protection are only available in fragmented “snippet” form. In 2005, the company rebranded the project as Google Books. During its early years, approximately one million books were scanned annually. By 2012, Google had scanned over 15 million books.
In the meantime, various groups of authors and publishers have filed a lawsuit in an attempt to prevent the company from making copyrighted book excerpts accessible on the Internet.
In 2008, Google reached a legal settlement in which the company agreed to pay $125 million to the groups involved as compensation for past transgressions. However, users were still allowed to read up to 20 percent of each work scanned by Google without any charges. Authors and publishers would receive 63 percent of the advertising revenue generated by page views of their material on Google’s website in return for allowing parts of their works to be read online.
Google Earth
In 2004, Google acquired Keyhole Inc., a company that had received partial funding from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency. Keyhole developed an online mapping service, which was later rebranded by Google in 2005 as Google Earth. This service allows users to access detailed satellite images of almost any location on Earth. Additionally, users can create combinations, known as “mashups,” by integrating various other databases with Google Earth maps.
These mashups can include additional information such as street names, weather patterns, crime statistics, coffee shop locations, real estate prices, and population densities. While some of these mashups were developed for convenience or mere novelty, others proved to be essential lifesaving tools. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
Google Earth played a crucial role by offering interactive satellite overlays of the affected area. This technology helped rescuers gain a clearer understanding of the extent of the damage caused by the hurricane. Google Earth has since become an essential tool in numerous disaster recovery efforts.
Google’s commitment to privacy came under scrutiny when it launched Street View, a mapping service that displayed street-level photographs. Initially featuring locations in the United States, it later expanded to include other countries, allowing users to search for specific addresses. Some photographs depicted views through house windows or captured people sunbathing.
Google defended the service by stating that the images displayed were limited to what a person would observe while walking down the street. In 2010, Google addressed privacy concerns in Germany by giving people the option to exclude their homes and businesses from being featured in Street View.
As a result, approximately 244,000 individuals, which accounted for 3 percent of the country’s population, chose to exercise this option. In 2011, a German court ruled that Street View was legal. However, despite this ruling, Google made an announcement stating that it would not be adding any new photographs to the service.
Google Apps and Chrome
In 2006, Google made a significant move in its competition with Microsoft by introducing Google Apps. Users can access this software through their web browsers and it consists of applications that Google hosts. The initial set of free programs offered by Google included Google Calendar, a scheduling program; Google Talk, an instant messaging program;
and Google Page Creator, a web page creation program. Users were required to view advertisements and store their data on Google’s equipment in order to utilize these free programs. Cloud computing refers to a deployment model where both data and programs are hosted on the Internet.
From 2006 to 2007, Google acquired or created several conventional business programs, including word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation software. These programs were later consolidated and given the collective name Google Docs. Similar to Google Apps, Google Docs is accessed through a web browser, which connects to the data stored on Google’s servers.
In 2007, Google launched the Premier Edition of Google Apps. This upgraded version offered users 25 gigabytes of email storage, enhanced security features from the newly acquired Postini software, and an ad-free experience. The components of Google Docs were added to both the free, ad-supported Google Apps and the Premier Edition as they became available. Google Docs was specifically marketed as a direct competitor to Microsoft’s Office Suite, which includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Google released Chrome in 2008, which is a web browser equipped with an advanced JavaScript engine that is more suitable for running programs directly within the browser. In the subsequent year,
the company made an announcement regarding its intentions to develop an open-source operating system called Chrome OS. Chrome OS was first introduced in 2011 with the release of Chromebooks, which were a type of netbook. Chrome OS, which operates on a Linux kernel, is designed to utilize cloud computing, resulting in lower system resource requirements compared to other operating systems.
On a Chrome OS device, the Chrome browser is the only software that runs. Google Apps is the provider of all other software. In 2012, Chrome became the most popular web browser, surpassing Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE).
Since then, Chrome has consistently maintained its lead over IE, as well as Microsoft’s Edge (which replaced IE), Mozilla Corporation’s Firefox, and Apple Inc.’s Safari. As of 2020, Chrome remains the top choice among web users.
Operating system based on Android
Google entered the highly profitable mobile operating system market by acquiring Android Inc. in 2005. At the time of the acquisition, Android Inc. had not yet launched any products. In 2007, Google made an announcement about the establishment of the Open Handset Alliance.
This alliance consisted of numerous technology and mobile telephone companies, such as Intel Corporation, Motorola, Inc., NVIDIA Corporation, Texas Instruments Incorporated, LG Electronics, Inc., Samsung Electronics, Sprint Nextel Corporation, and T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom). This collaboration aimed to bring together industry leaders in order to advance mobile technology.
The consortium was established with the purpose of developing and promoting Android, an open-source operating system that is based on Linux and available for free. The T-Mobile G1 was the first phone to introduce the new operating system. It was released in October 2008. However, in order to fully utilize all the features of Android-based phones, such as one-touch Google searches, Google Docs, Google Earth, and Google Street View, it was necessary to have more advanced third-generation (3G) wireless networks.
In 2010, Google introduced the Nexus One smartphone, directly competing with Apple’s iPhone. The Nexus One, also known as the “Google Phone,” utilized the most recent iteration of Android. It boasted a sizable and visually striking display screen, along with an attractive design. Additionally, it incorporated a voice-to-text messaging system that relied on cutting-edge voice recognition software.
However, the phone’s lack of native support for multi-touch, a typing and navigation feature introduced by Apple that provided users with more flexibility in interacting with touchscreens, was considered a disadvantage in comparison to other smartphones in its category.
Despite the perceived drawbacks of Android compared to Apple’s iOS for smartphones, Android managed to dominate the mobile phone industry by the end of 2011. It held a global market share of 52 percent, which was more than triple the market share of iOS.
In 2010, Google’s hardware partners started releasing tablet computers that were based on the Android operating system. Although the initial product received criticism due to its poor performance, Android-based tablets managed to gain significant traction and catch up to the immensely popular Apple iPad by the end of 2011. Out of the estimated 68 million tablets that were shipped in that year, approximately 39 percent were running on the Android operating system, while nearly 60 percent were iPads.
Google was compelled to engage in legal battles with competitors both in the courts and in the marketplace in relation to Android. In 2010, Oracle Corporation filed a lawsuit against Google, seeking $6.1 billion in damages. The lawsuit alleged that Android had infringed upon multiple patents associated with Oracle’s Java programming language.
After a two-year legal battle, Google emerged victorious in the lawsuit. Rather than directly attacking Google, Apple Inc. filed lawsuits against manufacturers of Android smartphones, including HTC, Motorola Mobility, and Samsung, claiming patent infringements. According to reports, Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, was quoted as saying, “I intend to challenge Android because I believe it infringes upon our intellectual property.” I am prepared to engage in a thermonuclear war over this matter.
The ongoing patent disputes surrounding mobile operating systems appeared to be unsolvable, with lawsuits and counterclaims being filed
Google+ and other social media
Google was slow to acknowledge the growing popularity and advertising opportunities presented by social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Google Buzz, their initial foray into the realm of social networking, was launched in 2010 but unfortunately had to be shut down within a span of less than two years. The network had a few issues.
Firstly, it was only accessible to users with Gmail accounts. Additionally, there were privacy concerns due to a default setting that displayed a user’s profile to everyone. Google Buzz was shut down before the launch of Google+ in June 2011.
Initially, Google+ was introduced to a select group of users and later made available to the general public. Within just one year of its launch, the social networking service had already amassed an impressive user base of over 170 million individuals. In contrast, it took Facebook five years to reach 150 million users.
However, Google+ encountered a strong competitor in the form of Facebook, which had approximately 900 million users by mid-2012. Facebook users spend significantly more time on the site, with an average of six to seven hours per month. In contrast, Google+ users only spend a little over three minutes per month on the platform.
Due to Facebook’s refusal to allow Google’s Web indexing software access to its servers, Google was unable to include the popular social network in its search results. As a result, Google missed out on potentially valuable data from one of the most widely visited networks on the Internet. However, the company seemed to be fully supportive of Google+.
Recognizing the importance of games in keeping users engaged on social networks, the company promptly introduced a dedicated games section for its service. Additionally, it developed unique features that were not accessible on Facebook. For instance, by using Hangouts, users have the ability to instantly create free video conferences with a maximum capacity of 10 people.
Additionally, the company has introduced Google+ pages specifically designed for businesses to effectively promote their products and brands. However, Google+ failed to replace Facebook and ultimately got discontinued in 2019.
Google Voice
Google, Inc. introduced a telecommunications service in 2009.
In 2007, Google acquired GrandCentral, a start-up subscription service that aimed to provide users with a convenient solution called “one telephone number to rule them all.”
This concept involved a single number that users could share with their family, friends, and business contacts. Additionally, the service offered a system that allowed users to set up rules determining which of their telephones (work, home, or mobile) would ring based on the caller’s identity (telephone caller ID or the recipient’s address book).
Furthermore, users have the option to call the system in order to access their voicemail. Google relaunched GrandCentral as Google Voice on March 12, 2009.
This telecommunications service was initially available only to existing GrandCentral subscribers. Google Voice introduced a text messaging system and the capability to make free VoIP calls between any Internet service provider (ISP) within the United States. Google Voice can also be used to make international calls, although this service is not free.
Google Voice not only challenged traditional business models for long-distance telephone service but also competed with eBay’s Skype, which is another free VoIP service. However, in order to make calls on Skype, customers were required to have either a computer or a special telephone connected to a computer. Additionally, it is important to note that only domestic calls to other Skype customers were free.