History of Google: Mission and Vision, Products, Strategic Management Goals, Privacy and Ethical Challenges, Markets & Competitive Advantages, (Essay Sample)

History of Google
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History of Google
Larry Page and Sergey Brin are a household name when it comes to the world of computing and search engines. By 1996, they had begun their Google project as they were both PhD students at the Stanford University, California. Search engines by then were known to rank results by counting the amount of times a given searched item or term did appear on a given web page, they came with a better solution. This was through theorizing the analysis of relationship between websites. They named this revolutionizing technology page rank. Here, they determined how relevant a website was by determining the number of pages and the significance of those pages as they linked them back to the original site.
At their discovery of that technology, there was an undersized search engine named “RankDex” who were exploring the same strategy. The search engine was from IDD an information service that was designed back in 1996 by Robin Li. Their strategy was exploring site scoring and page ranking. They patented this technology and were to be later used in China as Baidu. Larry and Sergey had initially named their search engine as BackRub. The main reason behind this name was because their system functioned by checking the back links and thus estimating the value of the site.
Ultimately, they were to change the name to Google. This originated from misspelling the word “googol”. This name represented the digit one and followed by a hundred of zero. This name was chosen to symbolize that the search engine was there for the long run and was to provide large quantities of information to its users. In the beginning, Google ran under the Stanford University website. The first domain was thus, google.stanford.edu. By 15th September of 1997, Larry and Sergey registered the domain name Google. As of 4th September 1998, the company was incorporated. It is worth pointing that an old friend of theirs, Susan, provided a garage that was to host Google for the first time. Susan was thus the first employee of Google. By mid 2011, Google had surpassed the 1 billion numbers of unique visitors. It is therefore the most visited website in the world (La Monica, 2004).
Management
Google has a very strategic management that over time has ensured the success of Google all over the world. It is made up of: Executive Chairman (Eric Schmidt), Director (Sergey Brin) who is also the technology president and cofounder of Google, CEO and the other cofounder (Larry Page). The other directors include; Ann Mather, John Doer, John Hennessy, Paul Otellini, Ram Shriram, and Shirley Tilghman. They are all in charge of specific products of Google. In the end list of management is concluded by the Senior Adviosor. He is Al Gore.
Products
To start our list of products under Google, we will begin with the search tools that they offer. Google search is the first product. This is the web search engine and the heart of Google products. This was the first innovation of the company. It came out as a beta product in the 21st September of 1999. It still remains their most popular and prominent service. Currently, it does receive over a billion requests per day and is the most known and used search engine on the internet. Google has gone to the extent of offering a regional search by providing regional domains. There are estimated to be over 190 regional domains all over the world (David, 2005).
The next product is the Google Alerts and Google Books. Google alerts are an email notification service. It will send an alert support based on a chosen search term and this is specifically during when there are new results. The alerts are mostly web results, group results and their news, and video. Under Google books, this is a search engine that functions for the full text prints of books, Google scans and it therefore stores them in their digital database. They only display their contents depending on arrangement made by the publishers. This will range from short pages extracts to at times the entire book.
Google have been able to offer a product known as Google Groups. This is an internet and email based discussion like forum and service. It falls under their Usenet archive. Here, Google users can create and join groups. From there they have the ability to publish pots and track the progress of their favorite topics. They can also write a set of web pages whereby the group members have the ability to update the files. Google have moved the extra mile by providing an image based service. The Google image search functions by uploading an image to the search engine and it will text point to the image location or whereby it was taken. This functions under public available images in the internet.
Google is one the few companies that have provided its user’s with an option of language tools. The language tool is a compilation of linguistic tools and applications that allow the user of this service to translate a text or a web page form one given language to another. It also allows a person to search in the search engine with their language of their choice. Google News is an automatic compilation of news service that is provided depending on your location and the Google domain one is using. There are different versions for the aggregator and offer services in over 20 different languages. This happens while the selection procedure for the news is completely automated. But, sites are/ have always been include by editors (human). They have gone a further step in offering a product known as the Google News Archive. This feature for the Google new will allow a user to access articles from over a hundred years ago.
Google Scholar and SMS is one of their recent and best products. Under the search engines Google scholar, it provides a scholarly literature from arrays of publishing arrangements and different fields. They are helpful when it comes to research and literature reviews. Currently, their search index will virtually include all peer reviewed journals and they are available online. Their SMS service is available in several countries all over the world. This service allows the user to send text messages directly to a phone user’s mobile phone.
The next products that the Google Company provides are in form of advertising services. Adverts are known to be the main source of Google’s income. Their most widely used product is the Google Ad Sense. This service provides a contextual advertising solution to publishers on the web. It is from here that it delivers a text based Ad Words and by their relevance to the owners of the website content pages. The Google Ad Words receive a sponsored section after ones uses the search engine on the internet. This has been useful in increasing website traffic and sales for certain website.
The other product that falls under advertising is the Ad Words Express. This happens to be a local online advertising that has been made easy. Their Google Certification Program also comes in handy in terms of advertising. They have agencies that allow persons or companies to pass exams and through other criteria’s. It substituted the Google Advertising Professionals. In this digital age, their Double-click product has proved to be very useful. This is an ad management and ad allocation technology that is helpful for the buyers, creators and sellers involved in the digital media.
The next list of products falls under the communication and publishing tools. The first product is the Feed Burner. This acts as news feed administration service. It will include a feed traffic analysis and other advertising services. The next product is its 3D Warehouse. This provides and display object and vehicles created using Google Sketch UP. One can download these models and use it under their Google Earth product. Google has been able to connect bloggers all over. It has been possible through use of Blogger services. This is a web publishing tool whereby the users can create and customize their blogs. People can publish photos and let other readers comment. Gmail has been their best product under the communication products. It is free and very easy to use. It is known universally for its abundant storage space, interface and elasticity. It also has integration of other communication tools like SMS and Google Talk.
Strategic Management Goals
The speed at which Google pulls out and delivers information is the main reason of its popularity over the globe. The next rationale is its simplicity on the interface thus making it straightforward to employ as measured up to other search engines. Google do have an enormous data base and it is estimated that 60 percent of the data delivered on the web search can be found in Google’s host servers. During its inception in the stock market, the stock price of Google was selling at 110 US dollars. Currently, it is trading at 500 US dollars. It is their strategic management goals that made all the difference (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2004). For a person to comprehend this, one has to primarily look at the way they treat their employees all over the world. According to the Forbes magazine, Google is considered to be the best place to work at all over the world.
Google is known for its comfortable corporate culture. The employees can testify to working with very little pressure from the management. They mostly deal with one project at a time. After clearing or completing ones project, they are allowed to break away from work until the next project. With the performance of their stocks in these tough economic times, the employees are motivated to be competitive while at the same time been greatly compensated for their hard work. This has led to a huge growth in equity. They also do offer incentives like the Google founder’s awards and higher salaries for new and current empl...