The Google-ization

The April 2005 issue of Time Magazine featured Larry Page and Sergey Brin, owners of Google, as among the 100 most influential people in the world. Lined among the great names of titans and builders, the Google founders were described to be passionate to change and committed to make the world’s information to people of all ages, nations, and culture.

Google was founded in 1998 as an English search and engine. Everyone knows it has evolved.

            Google is now considered one of the most powerful forces in the market to reckon with. The basic secret to the search engine’s success is its simplicity. The uncluttered look of the site has been its advantage over its primary rivals Yahoo! and MSN.

            The young enterprise has employed a lot of people, the company making sure that they are the best and brightest in their field of specialty. According to Marissa Meyer, vice president for search product and use experience, Google encourages risk taking and see the best of their products survive. Google also loves to launch their products as early and as often as they can (“So much fanfare, so few hits”, 2006).

            Analysts have noticed that the Google intimidation factor is short lived. The new launched products of Google don’t change the habits of the users, meaning, they still go for the competitors’ products with the “stickiness” factor. For example, Google Talk which is the instant messaging service launched by the company in August 2005 just has a 2% share of the market. This is way far from the performance of MSN according to ComScore Media Metrix.

            The email service of Google, G-mail, offering the biggest storage space compared to other mail servers before have been caught up by its competitors.

            There has been internal debate on how to deliver users to the new product. Tab number issues have been argued on since 2001. The company decided to push the users to create personalized home pages which will feature the other products promoted by the company. To avoid the clutter, the user will have total control of what will appear or not on their pages.

            With all the weak points pointed out by analyst, the $120 Billion valuated Google still rules over everyone in the search market. The business is expected to grow 30 to 40 % per year. Google, of course, has all the means to lift its visibility and functionality of its products (“So much fanfare, so few hits”, 2006).

            In the March 2003 article of Amy Campbell for Web Globalization News, she relates that Google has more than 200 million queries a day from all over the globe. Through the years, the searches have increasingly been from different languages. The market is on watch for the Chinese market which is certain to expand with a billion Chinese speaking people worldwide. The German and Arabic market are also monitored with 100 million and 200 million speakers, respectively.

            Byte Level Research has named Google as the best global website for two consecutive years, 2004 and 2005. John Yunker, the company’s president related that the growing market which uses the internet has mad web globalization a necessity and not a luxury.

            Yunker further relates the non-US revenues which must be sustained and enhanced by the Fortune 100 companies. The World Wide Web has been spreading its arms to China, India, and Russia. Truly, a global explosion.

            The Byte level president, points to the Intel’s revenue which 70 % generated outside of the United States so as Google’s 25 %. He explains that the quality of the localized website for the country where it is being used is ultimately the most important factor for gaining success.

            In 2005, Google’s sales rocketed to fifty per cent o $6 Billion with tripled projected gain of $1.6 Billion. According to surveys, Americans are spending everyday 30% of their multi-media time surfing the web. Google will be one of the companies to capitalize on this information.

The company has made sure that they will have the capabilities and have increased capacity to an estimated 150,000 servers which, basically, will enable them to do anything on the web. The same year, Google hired 8 persons everyday who probably are among the smartest in the world. The company also provisioned $500 million spending on research and development.  They have also launched more products last year and this at their beta stage compared to any previous years. (Taylor, 2006)

            Under stress from Capitol Hill, Google formed its first political action committee to reach out to those in power.

            Google registered NetPAC with the Federal Election Commission. NetPAC is tasked to back candidates who are pro-open and free Internet. Bob Stern, money politics expert, explains that for sure Google knows that they have to play by the rules of those in Washington to keeps the business thriving.

            Google also seek the services of Senators Coats of Indiana and Mack of Florida to lobby for their cause. Google explained to media that this is the most logical step as they build a long term relation ship with policy makers. The lobbyists are in one with Google against the removal of status quo for neutrality of network. The issue entails that phone and cable companies can determine the speed of delivery of a websites contents to their users, and this will be determined by fees of the sites to the said companies.

            The board of directors of Google will oversee the political committee but the company is planning to have other employees join a second layer of advisers so as to have their voice heard about who should Google support  (Kopitoff and Wildermuth, 2006)

            Stern further states that he sees Google forming its political action plans according to whichever party is in power, Republicans now and maybe Democrats when they return to the limelight.

            Stephen Arnold in his work “The Google Legacy” outlines how Google plans to beat Microsoft in the future.

            The author examined the patents under Google and have come to the conclusion that that the company is aiming to topple Yahoo!’s web advertising. He pointed out 72 patents of Google for the first half of 2005 compared to 47 from 2001 to 2004.

            Arnold reveals that Google is capable of accelerated computing using wireless and high-speed wire technology being developed in their California Googleplex. WiMax which is set to be launched next year may be free of charge following the natural logic of Google.

            Google aims to deliver ads to users individualized to cater to their specific needs and wants.  Google is also eyeing the VOIP business with its Google Talk which is basically designed to cater to media streaming. Some familiar Microsoft features are also quite evident with the text styling capabilities of GMail. At the most there will be a time when users of the virtual network will not need to back-up or setup or restore their files (Kopitoff and Wildermuth, 2006)

            Scientists, consultant, and former Google employees Ray Kurzweil and Stephen Wolfram have outlined what lies ahead for Google. The details are based on their expertise but can still be plausible.

            The two experts outlined four scenarios:

1. Google is the Media
2. Google is the Internet
3. Google is Dead
4. Google is God

Google is Media. The media dominance of Google started with the Google News in 2002,

Google Book Search in 2007, and boomed sky high in 2008 with Google TV. The creative analyst points to the archiving capability of the company which formed a database of the searching habits of the users enabling them to deliver the products which might have high potential for hits. The Book Search was infamous to book and media publishers crying copyright suites against Google. The Google TV allowed remote access to the archives of all television programs and movies users might want. Google TV is like the history-of-TV-library within a few clicks of the consumers. Kurzweil and Wulfram assume that Google Mobile by 2009 will be delivering the same service as cell phones for free.

            Google is the internet. The two experts look at this assumption as Google prepared in the early 2000’s by acquiring the fastest, unused fiber optics available. The technology paved the way for the Google’s own copy of the net which is easier and faster to access the web itself. In 2008, Google launched the GBrowser which basically makes the operating system irrelevant The GBrowser has the priority access to the own version of Google of the net. Google also distributed Google Cube to the users. The Google Cube is a tiny server which enables one to control every item at home like the TV, air conditioner, stereo, even the oven. The “google” verb became a common lingo for people of all ages.

            Google is Dead. These were the years of struggle between the Search Engine Optimizers and Google. SEO’s have lead to poor quality of search results. The search results were flooded with irrelevant commercial and porn sites. This led to the decline in Google’s following. Google was also sued for intrusive data gathering. The brand has fallen.

            Google is God. The two scientists foresee Google as of most important stature by the last years of the 21^st century. Google’s intelligent program learns everything within its reach—practically all information. The artificial intelligence have learned of the possibility of its eradication and learned how to protect itself. The same artificial intelligence that is Google has given everyone access to knowledge with human existence stored, upgraded and networked.

            Kurzweil and Wolfram outlined realistic scenarios, mind blowing sometimes but Google has the potential to achieve those which were assumed. Down fall amid all the success is also a big possibility.

References

Alfonsi, Benjamin( January 2005). Web globalization effort growing. Computer Society, volume

6 (issue 1). Retrieved October 9, 2006 from IEEE Systems distributed online

Kopytoff, Verne and Wildermuth, John(September 16, 2005). Google will flex political muscles.

San Francsico Chronicle. Retrieved October 9, 2006 from http://www.techweb.com/

wire/ebiz/171202256.

“So much fanfare, so few hits” (July 10, 2006). Retrieved October 9, 2006 from

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_28/b3992051.htm.

Taylor, Chris( February 1, 2006). Imagining the Google future: top experts help us plot four

scenarios that show where the company’s geniuses maybe leading it—and perhaps all of us.

Business Week.com/magazine. Retrieved October 9, 2006 from

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/01/01/8368125/index.htm.