Google- Megan W.

I am like Dan because I use Google almost exclusively when I am searching the internet. When I sign on, I'm either checking my email (I have a gmail account), logging in to facebook, or going to Google to search for information that I am looking for. Did I mention I use Google Chrome as my browser?? I hadn't really given this a lot of thought, so I don't partially "resent" my Google usage, like Dan said. But, now that I do think about it, it's kind of strange that I allow my knowledge to rely so much on a single search engine that is run by a corporation. I know they do their best to "do no evil," so that is comforting. But still, it is strange to me that Google essentially controls what I know and do not know- it kind of serves as a gatekeeper between me and the knowledge of the world.

I hardly know anything about Google's advertising strategies, I think I'll Google it, hang on...

Ok, I found a lot of information about how to advertise on Google, but I can't find much about how they advertise themselves. I did find a list of what Google owns, the only thing I recognize was YouTube, but there were probably 20-30 other things listed as well- including communication and graphics companies. On Google's own website, it says it owns 150 domains. I did find this quote on Google's site: at http://www.google.com/corporate/business.html

"While the dotcom boom exploded around it and competitors spent millions on marketing campaigns to "build brand," Google focused instead on quietly building a better search engine."

I also found their philosophy about their business, and it is quite encouraging:

http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html

It does really sound like they are out there to help us and give us information.

They state that their two sources of revenue are advertisements and search services. In regards to how the company will get bigger- I think we've seen this happen in the past few years: launching gmail and Googletalk and purchasing YouTube, and Google Calendar and Googledocs and all these popular "apps." They talk a lot about increasing the personalization of Google so that when each user searches, he or she finds what he/she is looking for, and quickly. I think they hope to grow by continuing to work on increasingly personalized search results. Google is an "Aptocrat" because its entire comapany if formed in aptocratic ways. They hire employees who have proved to score highly on aptitude tests. And their entire system runs on the "aptitude" of search results- which are relevant and which are not. This is all numerically calculated as our search results pop up. Their focus on increasing personalization illustrates this- they are hoping to increase the aptitude of Google to be able to give each user what it wants- Google is becoming better and better at these "personalization aptitude tests" and this is probably why continues to grow.

I personally think that Yahoo just got too crowded and "messy" looking. I completely agree with what Toni Carreiro says in the Planet Google article. Google is simplistic and allows you to just focus on what you are looking for. (If Yahoo was this way and Google was cluttered, I'd pick Yahoo!) There aren't "blinking things" in my way- or pop-ups. I also think that Google is the best at giving me what I'm looking for- which means their personalization campaign sucked me in! After reading the article on Yahoo's plans, it looks like Yahoo is trying to catch up, and maybe they will- who knows??