History of Google
Google's original homepage had a simple design, since its founders were not experienced in HTML, the markup language for designing web pages.[24]
Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in Stanford, California.[25]
While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships between websites.[26] They called this new technology PageRank; it determined a website's relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages, that linked back to the original site.[27][28]
A small search engine called "RankDex" from IDD Information Services designed by Robin Li was, since 1996, already exploring a similar strategy for site-scoring and page ranking.[29] The technology in RankDex would be patented[30] and used later when Li founded Baidu in China.[31][32]
Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine "BackRub", because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site.[33][34][35] Eventually, they changed the name to Google, originating from a misspelling of the word "googol",[36][37] the number one followed by one hundred zeros, which was picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information.[38] Originally, Google ran under Stanford University's website, with the domains google.stanford.edu and z.stanford.edu.[39][40]
The domain name for Google was registered on September 15, 1997,[41] and the company was incorporated on September 4, 1998. It was based in a friend's (Susan Wojcicki[25]) garage in Menlo Park, California. Craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee.[25][42][43]
In May 2011, the number of monthly unique visitors to Google surpassed one billion for the first time, an 8.4 percent increase from May 2010 (931 million).[44] In January 2013, Google announced it had earned $50 billion in annual revenue for the year of 2012. This marked the first time the company had reached this feat, topping their 2011 total of $38 billion.[45]
Google's first production server. Google's production servers continue to be built with inexpensive hardware.[46]
The first funding for Google was an August 1998 contribution of US$100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given before Google was even incorporated.[47]
Early in 1999, while graduate students, Brin and Page decided that the
search engine they had developed was taking up too much of their time
from academic pursuits. They went to Excite CEO George Bell and offered to sell it to him for $1 million. He rejected the offer and later criticized Vinod Khosla,
one of Excite's venture capitalists, after he negotiated Brin and Page
down to $750,000. On June 7, 1999, a $25 million round of funding was
announced,[48] with major investors including the venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.[47]
Google's initial public offering (IPO) took place five years later on August 19, 2004. At that time Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for 20 years, until the year 2024.[49] The company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share.[50][51] Shares were sold in a unique online auction format using a system built by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, underwriters for the deal.[52][53] The sale of $1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion.[54] The vast majority of the 271 million shares remained under the control of Google, and many Google employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefited because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google before the IPO took place.[55]
Some people speculated that Google's IPO would inevitably lead to changes in company culture. Reasons ranged from shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions to the fact that many company executives would become instant paper millionaires.[56] As a reply to this concern, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page promised in a report to potential investors that the IPO would not change the company's culture.[57] In 2005, however, articles in The New York Times and other sources began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy.[58][59][60] In an effort to maintain the company's unique culture, Google designated a Chief Culture Officer, who also serves as the Director of Human Resources. The purpose of the Chief Culture Officer is to develop and maintain the culture and work on ways to keep true to the core values that the company was founded on: a flat organization with a collaborative environment.[61] Google has also faced allegations of sexism and ageism from former employees.[62][63]
The stock performed well after the IPO, with shares hitting $700 for the first time on October 31, 2007,[64] primarily because of strong sales and earnings in the online advertising market.[65] The surge in stock price was fueled mainly by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.[65] The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GGQ1.
This model of selling keyword advertising was first pioneered by Goto.com, an Idealab spin-off created by Bill Gross.[68][69] When the company changed names to Overture Services, it sued Google over alleged infringements of the company's pay-per-click and bidding patents. Overture Services would later be bought by Yahoo! and renamed Yahoo! Search Marketing. The case was then settled out of court; Google agreed to issue shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual license.[70]
In 2001, Google received a patent for its PageRank mechanism.[71] The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor. In 2003, after outgrowing two other locations, the company leased an office complex from Silicon Graphics at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California.[72] The complex became known as the Googleplex, a play on the word googolplex, the number one followed by a googol zeroes. The Googleplex interiors were designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects. Three years later, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.[73] By that time, the name "Google" had found its way into everyday language, causing the verb "google" to be added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, denoted as "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."[74][75]
Since 2001, Google has acquired many companies, primarily small venture capital-funded firms. In 2004, Google acquired Keyhole, Inc.[76] The start-up company developed a product called Earth Viewer that gave a three-dimensional view of the Earth. Google renamed the service to Google Earth
in 2005. In October 2006, Google announced that it had acquired the
video-sharing site YouTube for US$1.65 billion in Google stock, and the
deal was finalized on November 13, 2006.[77] Google does not provide detailed figures for YouTube's running costs, and YouTube's revenues in 2007 were noted as "not material" in a regulatory filing.[78] In June 2008, a Forbes magazine article projected the 2008 YouTube revenue at US$200 million, noting progress in advertising sales.[79]
On April 13, 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, giving Google valuable relationships that DoubleClick had with Web publishers and advertising agencies.[80] Later that same year, Google purchased GrandCentral for $50 million.[81] The site would later be changed over to Google Voice. On August 5, 2009, Google bought out its first public company, purchasing video software maker On2 Technologies for $106.5 million.[82] Google also acquired Aardvark, a social network search engine, for $50 million, and commented on its internal blog, "we're looking forward to collaborating to see where we can take it".[83] In April 2010, Google announced it had acquired a hardware startup, Agnilux.[84]
In addition to the many companies Google has purchased, the company has partnered with other organizations for research, advertising, and other activities. In 2005, Google partnered with NASA Ames Research Center to build 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) of offices.[85] The offices would be used for research projects involving large-scale data management, nanotechnology, distributed computing, and the entrepreneurial space industry. Google entered into a partnership with Sun Microsystems in October 2005 to help share and distribute each other's technologies.[86]
The company also partnered with AOL[87] to enhance each other's video search services. Google's 2005 partnerships also included financing the new .mobi top-level domain for mobile devices, along with other companies including Microsoft, Nokia, and Ericsson.[88] Google would later launch "AdSense for Mobile", taking advantage of the emerging mobile advertising market.[89] Increasing its advertising reach even further, Google and Fox Interactive Media of News Corporation entered into a $900 million agreement to provide search and advertising on the then-popular social networking site MySpace.[90]
In 2007, Google began sponsoring NORAD Tracks Santa, displacing former sponsor AOL. NORAD Tracks Santa purports to follow Santa Claus' progress on Christmas Eve,[91] using Google Earth to "track Santa" in 3-D for the first time.[92] Google-owned YouTube gave NORAD Tracks Santa its own channel.[93]
In 2008, Google developed a partnership with GeoEye to launch a satellite providing Google with high-resolution (0.41 m monochrome, 1.65 m color) imagery for Google Earth. The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on September 6, 2008.[94] Google also announced in 2008 that it was hosting an archive of Life Magazine's photographs. Some of the images in the archive were never published in the magazine.[95] The photos were watermarked and originally had copyright notices posted on all photos, regardless of public domain status.[96]
In 2010, Google Energy made its first investment in a renewable energy project, putting $38.8 million into two wind farms in North Dakota. The company announced the two locations will generate 169.5 megawatts of power, enough to supply 55,000 homes. The farms, which were developed by NextEra Energy Resources, will reduce fossil fuel use in the region and return profits. NextEra Energy Resources sold Google a twenty-percent stake in the project to get funding for its development.[97] Also in 2010, Google purchased Global IP Solutions, a Norway-based company that provides web-based teleconferencing and other related services. This acquisition enabled Google to add telephone-style services to its list of products.[98] On May 27, 2010, Google announced it had also closed the acquisition of the mobile ad network AdMob. This occurred days after the Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation into the purchase.[99] Google acquired the company for an undisclosed amount.[100] In July 2010, Google signed an agreement with an Iowa wind farm to buy 114 megawatts of energy for 20 years.[101]
On April 4, 2011, The Globe and Mail reported that Google bid $900 million for six thousand Nortel Networks patents.[102]
On August 15, 2011, Google made its largest-ever acquisition to-date when announced that it would acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion[103][104] subject to approval from regulators in the United States and Europe. In a post on Google's blog, Google Chief Executive and co-founder Larry Page revealed that the acquisition was a strategic move to strengthen Google's patent portfolio. The company's Android operating system has come under fire in an industry-wide patent battle, as Apple and Microsoft have sued Android device makers such as HTC, Samsung, and Motorola.[105] The merger was completed on the May 22, 2012, after the approval of People's Republic of China.[106]
This purchase was made in part to help Google gain Motorola's considerable patent portfolio on mobile phones and wireless technologies to help protect it in its ongoing patent disputes with other companies,[107] mainly Apple and Microsoft[105] and to allow it to continue to freely offer Android.[108] After the acquisition closed, Google began to restructure the Motorola business to fit Google's strategy. On August 13, 2012, Google announced plans to layoff 4000 Motorola Mobility employees.[109] On December 10, 2012, Google sold the manufacturing operations of Motorola Mobility to Flextronics for $75 million.[110] As a part of the agreement, Flextronics will manufacture undisclosed Android and other mobile devices.[111] On December 19, 2012, Google sold the Motorola Home business division of Motorola Mobility to Arris Group for $2.35 billion in a cash-and-stock transaction. As a part of this deal, Google acquired a 15.7% stake in Arris Group valued at $300 million.[112]
On June 5, 2012, Google announced it acquired Quickoffice, a company widely known for their mobile productivity suite for both iOS and Android. Google plans to integrate Quickoffice's technology into its own product suite.[113]
On February 6, 2013, Google announced it has acquired Channel Intelligence for $125 million. Channel Intelligence, a technology company that helps customers buy products online, is active globally in 31 different countries and works with over 850 retailers. Google will use this technology to enhance its e-commerce business.[114]
Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page.[121] Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google's AdWords allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme. The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website and earn money every time ads are clicked.[122]
One of the disadvantages and criticisms of this program is Google's inability to combat click fraud, when a person or automated script "clicks" on advertisements without being interested in the product, causing that advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claim that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were fraudulent or invalid.[123] Furthermore, there has been controversy over Google's "search within a search", where a secondary search box enables the user to find what they are looking for within a particular website. It was soon reported that when performing a search within a search for a specific company, advertisements from competing and rival companies often showed up along with those results, drawing users away from the site they were originally searching.[124]
Another complaint against Google's advertising is its censorship of advertisers, though many cases concern compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. For example, in February 2003, Google stopped showing the advertisements of Oceana, a non-profit organization protesting a major cruise ship's sewage treatment practices. Google cited its editorial policy at the time, stating "Google does not accept advertising if the ad or site advocates against other individuals, groups, or organizations."[125] The policy was later changed.[126] In June 2008, Google reached an advertising agreement with Yahoo!, which would have allowed Yahoo! to feature Google advertisements on its web pages. The alliance between the two companies was never completely realized because of antitrust concerns by the U.S. Department of Justice. As a result, Google pulled out of the deal in November 2008.[127][128]
In an attempt to advertise its own products, Google launched a website called Demo Slam, developed to demonstrate technology demos of Google Products.[129] Each week, two teams compete at putting Google's technology into new contexts. Search Engine Journal said Demo Slam is "a place where creative and tech-savvy people can create videos to help the rest of the world understand all the newest and greatest technology out there."[130]
On June 2013, Google announced the launch of Product Listing Ads in India.[131] The new ad format will show relevant information on brands, images and prices of the products that a user will be searching on the Google. Basically it will help web users to know about a product before buying it online or offline.
On February 14, 2012, Google updated its homepage with a minor twist.
There are no red lines above the options in the black bar, and there is a
tab space before the "+You". The sign-in button has also changed, it is
no longer in the black bar, instead under it as a button.
Google Search, a web search engine, is the company's most popular service. According to market research published by comScore in November 2009, Google is the dominant search engine in the United States market, with a market share of 65.6%.[132] Google indexes billions[133] of web pages, so that users can search for the information they desire through the use of keywords and operators.
Despite its popularity, it has received criticism from a number of organizations. In 2003, The New York Times complained about Google's indexing, claiming that Google's caching of content on its site infringed its copyright for the content.[134] In this case, the United States District Court of Nevada ruled in favor of Google in Field v. Google and Parker v. Google.[135][136] Furthermore, the publication 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has compiled a list of words that the web giant's new instant search feature will not search.[137]
Google Watch has also criticized Google's PageRank algorithms, saying that they discriminate against new websites and favor established sites.[138] The site has also alleged that there are connections between Google and the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[139] Despite criticism, the basic search engine has spread to specific services as well, including an image search engine, the Google News search site, Google Maps, and more. In early 2006, the company launched Google Video, which allowed users to upload, search, and watch videos from the Internet.[140]
In 2009, uploads to Google Video were discontinued so that Google could focus more on the search aspect of the service.[141] The company developed Google Desktop, a desktop search application used to search for files local to one's computer, but discontinued it in 2011. Google's most recent development in search is its partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to create Google Patents, which enables free access to information about patents and trademarks.
One of the more controversial search services Google hosts is Google Books. The company began scanning books and uploading limited previews, and full books where allowed, into its new book search engine. The Authors Guild, a group that represents 8,000 U.S. authors, filed a class action suit in a New York City federal court against Google in 2005 over this service. Google replied that it is in compliance with all existing and historical applications of copyright laws regarding books.[142] Google eventually reached a revised settlement in 2009 to limit its scans to books from the U.S., the UK, Australia, and Canada.[143] Furthermore, the Paris Civil Court ruled against Google in late 2009, asking it to remove the works of La Martinière (Éditions du Seuil) from its database.[144] In competition with Amazon.com, Google sells digital versions of new books.[145]
On July 21, 2010, in response to newcomer Bing, Google updated its image search to display a streaming sequence of thumbnails that enlarge when pointed at. Though web searches still appear in a batch per page format, on July 23, 2010, dictionary definitions for certain English words began appearing above the linked results for web searches.[146] Google's algorithm was changed in March 2011, giving more weight to high-quality content[147] possibly by the use of n-grams to remove spun content.[148]
During the Google I/O conference in May 2013, Google's Amit Singhal presented on the future of search, explaining that a search engine's three primary functions will need to evolve and that search will need to: 1. Answer, 2. Converse, and 3. Anticipate. As part of his keynote talk, Singhal stated, "A computer you can talk to? And it will answer everything you ask it? Little did I know, I would grow up to become the person responsible for building my dream for the entire world." Conversational search technology was then featured and Singhal introduced the term "hot-wording" to describe search without the need for an interface, whereby the user simply prompts the Google search engine by stating, "Ok Google." The I/O audience was then shown a demonstration in which a user asked a question and the search engine answered back in "conversation," in addition to the presentation of results for the query.[149]
Furthermore, software developers know Gmail for its pioneering use of AJAX, a programming technique that allows web pages to be interactive without refreshing the browser.[155] One criticism of Gmail has been the potential for data disclosure, a risk associated with many online web applications. Steve Ballmer (Microsoft's CEO),[156] Liz Figueroa,[157] Mark Rasch,[158] and the editors of Google Watch[159] believe the processing of email message content goes beyond proper use, but Google claims that mail sent to or from Gmail is never read by a human being beyond the account holder and is only used to improve relevance of advertisements.[160]
Google Docs, another part of Google's productivity suite, allows users to create, edit, and collaborate on documents in an online environment, similar to Microsoft Word. The service was originally called Writely, but was obtained by Google on March 9, 2006, and was released as an invitation-only preview.[161] On June 6 after the acquisition, Google created an experimental spreadsheet editing program,[162] which was combined with Google Docs on October 10.[163] A program to edit presentations completed the set on September 17, 2007,[164] before all three services were taken out of beta along with Gmail, Google Calendar, and all products from the Google Apps Suite on July 7, 2009.[152]
Google's search appliance at the 2008 RSA Conference
Google entered the enterprise market in February 2002 with the launch of its Google Search Appliance, targeted toward providing search technology for larger organizations.[25] Google launched the Mini
three years later, which was targeted at smaller organizations. Late in
2006, Google began to sell Custom Search Business Edition, providing
customers with an advertising-free window into Google.com's index. The
service was renamed Google Site Search in 2008.[165]
Google Apps is another primary Google enterprise service offering. The service allows organizations to bring Google's web application offerings, such as Gmail and Google Docs, into their own domains. The service is available in several editions: a basic free edition (formerly known as Google Apps Standard edition), Google Apps for Business, Google Apps for Education, and Google Apps for Government. Special editions include extras such as more disk space, API access, a service level agreement (SLA), premium support, and additional apps. In the same year Google Apps was launched, Google acquired Postini[166] and proceeded to integrate the company's security technologies into Google Apps[167] under the name Google Postini Services.[168]
Additional Google enterprise offerings include geospatial solutions (e.g., Google Earth and Google Maps); security and archival solutions (e.g., Postini); and Chromebooks for business and education (i.e., personal computing run on browser-centric operating systems).
Google Translate is a server-side machine translation
service, which can translate between 35 different languages. Browser
extensions allow for easy access to Google Translate from the browser.
The software uses corpus linguistics techniques, where the program "learns" from professionally translated documents, specifically UN and European Parliament proceedings.[169]
Furthermore, a "suggest a better translation" feature accompanies the
translated text, allowing users to indicate where the current
translation is incorrect or otherwise inferior to another translation.
Google launched its Google News service in 2002. The company announced the creation of a "highly unusual" site that "offers a news service compiled solely by computer algorithms without human intervention. Google employs no editors, managing editors, or executive editors."[170] The site hosts less licensed news content than Yahoo! News. Instead, it presents topically selected links to news and opinion pieces along with reproductions of their headlines, story leads, and photographs.[171] The photographs are typically reduced to thumbnail size and placed next to headlines from other news sources on the same topic to minimize copyright infringement claims. Nevertheless, Agence France Presse (AFP) sued Google for copyright infringement in federal court in the District of Columbia, a case which Google settled for an undisclosed amount in a pact that included a license of the full text of AFP articles for use on Google News.[172]
In 2006, Google made a bid to offer free wireless broadband access throughout the city of San Francisco along with Internet service provider EarthLink. Large telecommunications companies such as Comcast and Verizon opposed such efforts, claiming it was "unfair competition" and that cities would be violating their commitments to offer local monopolies to these companies. In his testimony before Congress on network neutrality in 2006, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf blamed such tactics on the fact that nearly half of all consumers lack meaningful choice in broadband providers.[173] Google currently offers free wi-fi access in its hometown of Mountain View, California.[174]
In 2010, Google announced the Google Fiber project with plans to build an ultra-high-speed broadband network for 50,000 to 500,000 customers in one or more American cities.[175] On March 30, 2011, Google announced that Kansas City, Kansas would be the first community where the new network would be deployed.[176] In July 2012, Google completed the construction of a fiber-optic broadband internet network infrastructure in Kansas City, and after building an infrastructure, Google announced pricing for Google Fiber. The service will offer three options including a free broadband internet option, a 1Gbit/s internet option for $70 per month, and a version that includes television service for $120 per month.[14]
In 2007, reports surfaced that Google was planning the release of its own mobile phone, possibly a competitor to Apple's iPhone.[177][178][179] The project, called Android, turned out not to be a phone but an operating system for mobile devices, which Google acquired and then released as an open source project under the Apache 2.0 license.[180] Google provides a software development kit for developers so applications can be created to be run on Android-based phones. In September 2008, T-Mobile released the G1, the first Android-based phone.[181] On January 5, 2010, Google released an Android phone under its own company name called the Nexus One.[182] A report in July 2013 stated that Google's share of the global smartphone market, led by Samsung products, was 64% in March 2013.[183]
While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships between websites.[26] They called this new technology PageRank; it determined a website's relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages, that linked back to the original site.[27][28]
A small search engine called "RankDex" from IDD Information Services designed by Robin Li was, since 1996, already exploring a similar strategy for site-scoring and page ranking.[29] The technology in RankDex would be patented[30] and used later when Li founded Baidu in China.[31][32]
Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine "BackRub", because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site.[33][34][35] Eventually, they changed the name to Google, originating from a misspelling of the word "googol",[36][37] the number one followed by one hundred zeros, which was picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information.[38] Originally, Google ran under Stanford University's website, with the domains google.stanford.edu and z.stanford.edu.[39][40]
The domain name for Google was registered on September 15, 1997,[41] and the company was incorporated on September 4, 1998. It was based in a friend's (Susan Wojcicki[25]) garage in Menlo Park, California. Craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee.[25][42][43]
In May 2011, the number of monthly unique visitors to Google surpassed one billion for the first time, an 8.4 percent increase from May 2010 (931 million).[44] In January 2013, Google announced it had earned $50 billion in annual revenue for the year of 2012. This marked the first time the company had reached this feat, topping their 2011 total of $38 billion.[45]
Financing and initial public offering
Google's initial public offering (IPO) took place five years later on August 19, 2004. At that time Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for 20 years, until the year 2024.[49] The company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share.[50][51] Shares were sold in a unique online auction format using a system built by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, underwriters for the deal.[52][53] The sale of $1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion.[54] The vast majority of the 271 million shares remained under the control of Google, and many Google employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefited because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google before the IPO took place.[55]
Some people speculated that Google's IPO would inevitably lead to changes in company culture. Reasons ranged from shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions to the fact that many company executives would become instant paper millionaires.[56] As a reply to this concern, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page promised in a report to potential investors that the IPO would not change the company's culture.[57] In 2005, however, articles in The New York Times and other sources began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy.[58][59][60] In an effort to maintain the company's unique culture, Google designated a Chief Culture Officer, who also serves as the Director of Human Resources. The purpose of the Chief Culture Officer is to develop and maintain the culture and work on ways to keep true to the core values that the company was founded on: a flat organization with a collaborative environment.[61] Google has also faced allegations of sexism and ageism from former employees.[62][63]
The stock performed well after the IPO, with shares hitting $700 for the first time on October 31, 2007,[64] primarily because of strong sales and earnings in the online advertising market.[65] The surge in stock price was fueled mainly by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.[65] The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GGQ1.
Growth
In March 1999, the company moved its offices to Palo Alto, California, which is home to several prominent Silicon Valley technology startups.[66] The next year, against Page and Brin's initial opposition toward an advertising-funded search engine,[67] Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords.[25] In order to maintain an uncluttered page design and increase speed, advertisements were solely text-based. Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bids and click-throughs, with bidding starting at five cents per click.[25]This model of selling keyword advertising was first pioneered by Goto.com, an Idealab spin-off created by Bill Gross.[68][69] When the company changed names to Overture Services, it sued Google over alleged infringements of the company's pay-per-click and bidding patents. Overture Services would later be bought by Yahoo! and renamed Yahoo! Search Marketing. The case was then settled out of court; Google agreed to issue shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual license.[70]
In 2001, Google received a patent for its PageRank mechanism.[71] The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor. In 2003, after outgrowing two other locations, the company leased an office complex from Silicon Graphics at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California.[72] The complex became known as the Googleplex, a play on the word googolplex, the number one followed by a googol zeroes. The Googleplex interiors were designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects. Three years later, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.[73] By that time, the name "Google" had found its way into everyday language, causing the verb "google" to be added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, denoted as "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."[74][75]
Acquisitions and partnerships
On April 13, 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, giving Google valuable relationships that DoubleClick had with Web publishers and advertising agencies.[80] Later that same year, Google purchased GrandCentral for $50 million.[81] The site would later be changed over to Google Voice. On August 5, 2009, Google bought out its first public company, purchasing video software maker On2 Technologies for $106.5 million.[82] Google also acquired Aardvark, a social network search engine, for $50 million, and commented on its internal blog, "we're looking forward to collaborating to see where we can take it".[83] In April 2010, Google announced it had acquired a hardware startup, Agnilux.[84]
In addition to the many companies Google has purchased, the company has partnered with other organizations for research, advertising, and other activities. In 2005, Google partnered with NASA Ames Research Center to build 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) of offices.[85] The offices would be used for research projects involving large-scale data management, nanotechnology, distributed computing, and the entrepreneurial space industry. Google entered into a partnership with Sun Microsystems in October 2005 to help share and distribute each other's technologies.[86]
The company also partnered with AOL[87] to enhance each other's video search services. Google's 2005 partnerships also included financing the new .mobi top-level domain for mobile devices, along with other companies including Microsoft, Nokia, and Ericsson.[88] Google would later launch "AdSense for Mobile", taking advantage of the emerging mobile advertising market.[89] Increasing its advertising reach even further, Google and Fox Interactive Media of News Corporation entered into a $900 million agreement to provide search and advertising on the then-popular social networking site MySpace.[90]
In 2007, Google began sponsoring NORAD Tracks Santa, displacing former sponsor AOL. NORAD Tracks Santa purports to follow Santa Claus' progress on Christmas Eve,[91] using Google Earth to "track Santa" in 3-D for the first time.[92] Google-owned YouTube gave NORAD Tracks Santa its own channel.[93]
In 2008, Google developed a partnership with GeoEye to launch a satellite providing Google with high-resolution (0.41 m monochrome, 1.65 m color) imagery for Google Earth. The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on September 6, 2008.[94] Google also announced in 2008 that it was hosting an archive of Life Magazine's photographs. Some of the images in the archive were never published in the magazine.[95] The photos were watermarked and originally had copyright notices posted on all photos, regardless of public domain status.[96]
In 2010, Google Energy made its first investment in a renewable energy project, putting $38.8 million into two wind farms in North Dakota. The company announced the two locations will generate 169.5 megawatts of power, enough to supply 55,000 homes. The farms, which were developed by NextEra Energy Resources, will reduce fossil fuel use in the region and return profits. NextEra Energy Resources sold Google a twenty-percent stake in the project to get funding for its development.[97] Also in 2010, Google purchased Global IP Solutions, a Norway-based company that provides web-based teleconferencing and other related services. This acquisition enabled Google to add telephone-style services to its list of products.[98] On May 27, 2010, Google announced it had also closed the acquisition of the mobile ad network AdMob. This occurred days after the Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation into the purchase.[99] Google acquired the company for an undisclosed amount.[100] In July 2010, Google signed an agreement with an Iowa wind farm to buy 114 megawatts of energy for 20 years.[101]
On April 4, 2011, The Globe and Mail reported that Google bid $900 million for six thousand Nortel Networks patents.[102]
On August 15, 2011, Google made its largest-ever acquisition to-date when announced that it would acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion[103][104] subject to approval from regulators in the United States and Europe. In a post on Google's blog, Google Chief Executive and co-founder Larry Page revealed that the acquisition was a strategic move to strengthen Google's patent portfolio. The company's Android operating system has come under fire in an industry-wide patent battle, as Apple and Microsoft have sued Android device makers such as HTC, Samsung, and Motorola.[105] The merger was completed on the May 22, 2012, after the approval of People's Republic of China.[106]
This purchase was made in part to help Google gain Motorola's considerable patent portfolio on mobile phones and wireless technologies to help protect it in its ongoing patent disputes with other companies,[107] mainly Apple and Microsoft[105] and to allow it to continue to freely offer Android.[108] After the acquisition closed, Google began to restructure the Motorola business to fit Google's strategy. On August 13, 2012, Google announced plans to layoff 4000 Motorola Mobility employees.[109] On December 10, 2012, Google sold the manufacturing operations of Motorola Mobility to Flextronics for $75 million.[110] As a part of the agreement, Flextronics will manufacture undisclosed Android and other mobile devices.[111] On December 19, 2012, Google sold the Motorola Home business division of Motorola Mobility to Arris Group for $2.35 billion in a cash-and-stock transaction. As a part of this deal, Google acquired a 15.7% stake in Arris Group valued at $300 million.[112]
On June 5, 2012, Google announced it acquired Quickoffice, a company widely known for their mobile productivity suite for both iOS and Android. Google plans to integrate Quickoffice's technology into its own product suite.[113]
On February 6, 2013, Google announced it has acquired Channel Intelligence for $125 million. Channel Intelligence, a technology company that helps customers buy products online, is active globally in 31 different countries and works with over 850 retailers. Google will use this technology to enhance its e-commerce business.[114]
Google data centers
As of 2011, Google Inc. owned and operated six data centers across the U.S., plus one in Finland and another in Belgium. On September 28, 2011, the company announced plans to build three data centers at a cost of more than $200 million in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan) and purchased the land for them. Google said they will be operational within two years.[115][116]Products and services
See also: List of Google products
Advertising
For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues.[117] In 2011, 96% of Google's revenue was derived from its advertising programs.[118] Google has implemented various innovations in the online advertising market that helped make it one of the biggest brokers in the market. Using technology from the company DoubleClick, Google can determine user interests and target advertisements so they are relevant to their context and the user that is viewing them.[119][120]Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page.[121] Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google's AdWords allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme. The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website and earn money every time ads are clicked.[122]
One of the disadvantages and criticisms of this program is Google's inability to combat click fraud, when a person or automated script "clicks" on advertisements without being interested in the product, causing that advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claim that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were fraudulent or invalid.[123] Furthermore, there has been controversy over Google's "search within a search", where a secondary search box enables the user to find what they are looking for within a particular website. It was soon reported that when performing a search within a search for a specific company, advertisements from competing and rival companies often showed up along with those results, drawing users away from the site they were originally searching.[124]
Another complaint against Google's advertising is its censorship of advertisers, though many cases concern compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. For example, in February 2003, Google stopped showing the advertisements of Oceana, a non-profit organization protesting a major cruise ship's sewage treatment practices. Google cited its editorial policy at the time, stating "Google does not accept advertising if the ad or site advocates against other individuals, groups, or organizations."[125] The policy was later changed.[126] In June 2008, Google reached an advertising agreement with Yahoo!, which would have allowed Yahoo! to feature Google advertisements on its web pages. The alliance between the two companies was never completely realized because of antitrust concerns by the U.S. Department of Justice. As a result, Google pulled out of the deal in November 2008.[127][128]
In an attempt to advertise its own products, Google launched a website called Demo Slam, developed to demonstrate technology demos of Google Products.[129] Each week, two teams compete at putting Google's technology into new contexts. Search Engine Journal said Demo Slam is "a place where creative and tech-savvy people can create videos to help the rest of the world understand all the newest and greatest technology out there."[130]
On June 2013, Google announced the launch of Product Listing Ads in India.[131] The new ad format will show relevant information on brands, images and prices of the products that a user will be searching on the Google. Basically it will help web users to know about a product before buying it online or offline.
Search engine
Main article: Google Search
Despite its popularity, it has received criticism from a number of organizations. In 2003, The New York Times complained about Google's indexing, claiming that Google's caching of content on its site infringed its copyright for the content.[134] In this case, the United States District Court of Nevada ruled in favor of Google in Field v. Google and Parker v. Google.[135][136] Furthermore, the publication 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has compiled a list of words that the web giant's new instant search feature will not search.[137]
Google Watch has also criticized Google's PageRank algorithms, saying that they discriminate against new websites and favor established sites.[138] The site has also alleged that there are connections between Google and the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[139] Despite criticism, the basic search engine has spread to specific services as well, including an image search engine, the Google News search site, Google Maps, and more. In early 2006, the company launched Google Video, which allowed users to upload, search, and watch videos from the Internet.[140]
In 2009, uploads to Google Video were discontinued so that Google could focus more on the search aspect of the service.[141] The company developed Google Desktop, a desktop search application used to search for files local to one's computer, but discontinued it in 2011. Google's most recent development in search is its partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to create Google Patents, which enables free access to information about patents and trademarks.
One of the more controversial search services Google hosts is Google Books. The company began scanning books and uploading limited previews, and full books where allowed, into its new book search engine. The Authors Guild, a group that represents 8,000 U.S. authors, filed a class action suit in a New York City federal court against Google in 2005 over this service. Google replied that it is in compliance with all existing and historical applications of copyright laws regarding books.[142] Google eventually reached a revised settlement in 2009 to limit its scans to books from the U.S., the UK, Australia, and Canada.[143] Furthermore, the Paris Civil Court ruled against Google in late 2009, asking it to remove the works of La Martinière (Éditions du Seuil) from its database.[144] In competition with Amazon.com, Google sells digital versions of new books.[145]
On July 21, 2010, in response to newcomer Bing, Google updated its image search to display a streaming sequence of thumbnails that enlarge when pointed at. Though web searches still appear in a batch per page format, on July 23, 2010, dictionary definitions for certain English words began appearing above the linked results for web searches.[146] Google's algorithm was changed in March 2011, giving more weight to high-quality content[147] possibly by the use of n-grams to remove spun content.[148]
During the Google I/O conference in May 2013, Google's Amit Singhal presented on the future of search, explaining that a search engine's three primary functions will need to evolve and that search will need to: 1. Answer, 2. Converse, and 3. Anticipate. As part of his keynote talk, Singhal stated, "A computer you can talk to? And it will answer everything you ask it? Little did I know, I would grow up to become the person responsible for building my dream for the entire world." Conversational search technology was then featured and Singhal introduced the term "hot-wording" to describe search without the need for an interface, whereby the user simply prompts the Google search engine by stating, "Ok Google." The I/O audience was then shown a demonstration in which a user asked a question and the search engine answered back in "conversation," in addition to the presentation of results for the query.[149]
Productivity tools
In addition to its standard web search services, Google has released a number of online productivity tools. Gmail, a free webmail service provided by Google, was launched as an invitation-only beta program on April 1, 2004,[150] and became available to the general public on February 7, 2007.[151] The service was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009,[152] at which time it had 146 million users monthly.[153] The service was the first online email service with one gigabyte of storage. It was also the first to keep emails from the same conversation together in one thread, similar to an Internet forum.[150] The service offers over 7600 MB of free storage with additional storage ranging from 20 GB to 16 TB available for US$0.25 per 1 GB per year.[154]Furthermore, software developers know Gmail for its pioneering use of AJAX, a programming technique that allows web pages to be interactive without refreshing the browser.[155] One criticism of Gmail has been the potential for data disclosure, a risk associated with many online web applications. Steve Ballmer (Microsoft's CEO),[156] Liz Figueroa,[157] Mark Rasch,[158] and the editors of Google Watch[159] believe the processing of email message content goes beyond proper use, but Google claims that mail sent to or from Gmail is never read by a human being beyond the account holder and is only used to improve relevance of advertisements.[160]
Google Docs, another part of Google's productivity suite, allows users to create, edit, and collaborate on documents in an online environment, similar to Microsoft Word. The service was originally called Writely, but was obtained by Google on March 9, 2006, and was released as an invitation-only preview.[161] On June 6 after the acquisition, Google created an experimental spreadsheet editing program,[162] which was combined with Google Docs on October 10.[163] A program to edit presentations completed the set on September 17, 2007,[164] before all three services were taken out of beta along with Gmail, Google Calendar, and all products from the Google Apps Suite on July 7, 2009.[152]
Enterprise products
Google Apps is another primary Google enterprise service offering. The service allows organizations to bring Google's web application offerings, such as Gmail and Google Docs, into their own domains. The service is available in several editions: a basic free edition (formerly known as Google Apps Standard edition), Google Apps for Business, Google Apps for Education, and Google Apps for Government. Special editions include extras such as more disk space, API access, a service level agreement (SLA), premium support, and additional apps. In the same year Google Apps was launched, Google acquired Postini[166] and proceeded to integrate the company's security technologies into Google Apps[167] under the name Google Postini Services.[168]
Additional Google enterprise offerings include geospatial solutions (e.g., Google Earth and Google Maps); security and archival solutions (e.g., Postini); and Chromebooks for business and education (i.e., personal computing run on browser-centric operating systems).
Other products
Google launched its Google News service in 2002. The company announced the creation of a "highly unusual" site that "offers a news service compiled solely by computer algorithms without human intervention. Google employs no editors, managing editors, or executive editors."[170] The site hosts less licensed news content than Yahoo! News. Instead, it presents topically selected links to news and opinion pieces along with reproductions of their headlines, story leads, and photographs.[171] The photographs are typically reduced to thumbnail size and placed next to headlines from other news sources on the same topic to minimize copyright infringement claims. Nevertheless, Agence France Presse (AFP) sued Google for copyright infringement in federal court in the District of Columbia, a case which Google settled for an undisclosed amount in a pact that included a license of the full text of AFP articles for use on Google News.[172]
In 2006, Google made a bid to offer free wireless broadband access throughout the city of San Francisco along with Internet service provider EarthLink. Large telecommunications companies such as Comcast and Verizon opposed such efforts, claiming it was "unfair competition" and that cities would be violating their commitments to offer local monopolies to these companies. In his testimony before Congress on network neutrality in 2006, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf blamed such tactics on the fact that nearly half of all consumers lack meaningful choice in broadband providers.[173] Google currently offers free wi-fi access in its hometown of Mountain View, California.[174]
In 2010, Google announced the Google Fiber project with plans to build an ultra-high-speed broadband network for 50,000 to 500,000 customers in one or more American cities.[175] On March 30, 2011, Google announced that Kansas City, Kansas would be the first community where the new network would be deployed.[176] In July 2012, Google completed the construction of a fiber-optic broadband internet network infrastructure in Kansas City, and after building an infrastructure, Google announced pricing for Google Fiber. The service will offer three options including a free broadband internet option, a 1Gbit/s internet option for $70 per month, and a version that includes television service for $120 per month.[14]
In 2007, reports surfaced that Google was planning the release of its own mobile phone, possibly a competitor to Apple's iPhone.[177][178][179] The project, called Android, turned out not to be a phone but an operating system for mobile devices, which Google acquired and then released as an open source project under the Apache 2.0 license.[180] Google provides a software development kit for developers so applications can be created to be run on Android-based phones. In September 2008, T-Mobile released the G1, the first Android-based phone.[181] On January 5, 2010, Google released an Android phone under its own company name called the Nexus One.[182] A report in July 2013 stated that Google's share of the global smartphone market, led by Samsung products, was 64% in March 2013.[183]
