Google’s business model (Assignment 7)

Google is a highly successful Internet business. Recently they have broadened their scope with a multitude of new tools. Research Google’s business model and answer the following questions below. You may add additional information not included in these questions.

Questions :
Explain Google’s business model.
1. Who are their competitors?
2. How have they used information technology to their advantage?
3. How competitive are they in the market?
4. What new services do they offer?
5. What makes them so unique?
6. How competitive are they in the international market?

Google is known to be as a web search engine. And as I have searched the net, these are their competitors in this said field. I have included brief information about them that I also browsed from the internet.

Who are their competitors?
--> Ask.com

Ask.com had a personality change in 2008 as it re-focused itself on being a question-answering service. It's actually reasonably good at coming up with answers through web search and being able to gather questions and answers through its Q&A. Some semantic technology is involved that goes beyond merely matching on keywords. It has a variety of search tools that includes web search, news, images, video, blogs. Maps and directions are provided from Microsoft.

--> Yahoo.com
Yahoo! Search is one of the best for search aids. It has Search Assist at the top with related searches and suggested concepts to explore, as well as top sites from the search results in the left side panel. Yahoo signed-in account holders save page and keep notes in the new Search Pad. Search results are enhanced with deep links and thumbnails of images and videos. All in all, Yahoo is pleasant to use.

--> Cuil.com

"Cuil is an old Irish word for knowledge. For knowledge, ask Cuil"
Cuil was launched in 2008 as the world's biggest search engine. Its founders included some from Google. Its edge was going to be an ability to examine the context of words to establish their relevance to a search query. Initially it didn't do this well, but that has changed.

Today categories provide context and specifics: they are well developed and include sub-categories with examples. Scroll over the links to get previews of top results. Try this with arctic exploration. But it doesn't do well with more specific queries such as where did john franklin die.

--> Exalead.com
Exalead is a small alternative search engine. It is based in France and may have somewhat better coverage of European content. The index has been 8 billion pages for a couple of years. Most notably, Exalead has function that all other engines abandoned: accepts wildcard characters; and has a NEAR operator to require that words be within 16 words or a number you set.

With regards on how they used information technology to their advantage it is clearly seen that the backbone of the business that Google decided to enter is directly associated to information technology. This is because without a computer, without knowledgeable people browsing the internet, google will not exist at all.

They used information technology wisely. They continue to find ways to improve on giving fast and relevant response to every possible queries that a user may come about. In fact, they developed different algorithms and methods to make their answers significant and reliable.

They also did not rely only in desktop. As a respond to the rapidly developing technologies, they expand there services in cellular phones and other devices that supports internet access.


As I browsed the net for new services that they are offering aside from being a search engine, as I was not surprised seeing a lot. But these new services are mainly under a broad project that they developed which they called "Google Business Solutions".

These are the following services they marked as new:
--> Google Ad Manager
Sell, schedule, deliver, and measure your directly-sold and network-based ad inventory.

--> Google enterprise search solutions
Maximize website ROI and internal productivity with Google-powered search for your website or intranet.

--> Postini services
Protect your email infrastructure with hosted spam and virus protection, archiving, and encryption.

In my personal perspective, google is unique because of its simplicty. Simplicity in terms of its interface and the way the search engine gives its response. This is a good thing for a lot of users especially to those who are not familiar in navigating websites.

Simplicity can be clearly seen in there main page, where you will only see the google logo, a texfield for input, and some options. Unlike from other search engines that i have tried, google focuses on the relevence of their answers and not on how their sites attractive look.

Aside from that, google is also unique in terms on their business oriented services. I am not sure if they are the first in this field but i am pretty much confident that they are leading it. I can say this because I browse the internet a lot and almost every site have there ads on and there advertising power has been very powerfula and in demand nowadays.

Google is very competitive in international market. infact they rank one of highest among the different search engines available based on advancedwebranking.com and other website rankings survey that i have browsed. Because their field is directly independent to internet connectivity, they are able to reach almost every part in the world which made there company very influencial in terms of advertising and business solutions.


Reference:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/competing_with_google_search.php