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CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION

Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and
useful.

Google A modern management pioneer that has much to teach us about how to build
companies that are truly fit for the 21st century.

The Future of Management London Business School Professor, Gary Hamel


As we go forward, I hope we're going to continue to use technology to make really big
differences in how people live and work.

Sergey Brin, Cofounder of Google.







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Google Inc. is an American public corporation , earning revenue from advertising related to its
Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing
services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. The Google
headquarters, the Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California. The company is running
millions of servers worldwide. Who would have predicted that two friends with an idea, working
in a garage, would one day revolutionize internet search advertising?

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford
University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4,
1998. The initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising $1.67 billion, implying a
value for the entire corporation of $23 billion. Presently it has a market capitalization of
179.41$bn.1


Whenever a company becomes wildly successful in a brief span of time, it becomes an object of
fascination for corporate executives, students and even general public. It becomes a new role
model for business success. Google is still an young company and it has yet to be tested by
adversity. By taking a close look at Googles business model, important insights can be
deciphered. Most of Googles success can be traced to three innovations, firstly a brilliant insight
into the organization of information, secondly, a creative act of imitation, and lastly a
breakthrough in the engineering of computer systems.

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.
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. 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.
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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. The
technology in RankDex would be patented and used later when Li founded Baidu in China.
Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine "BackRub", because the system
checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site. Eventually, they changed the name to
Google, originating from a misspelling of the word "googol", 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. Originally, Google ran under Stanford University's website, with the
domains google.stanford.edu and z.stanford.edu.
The domain name for Google was registered on September 15, 1997, and the company was
incorporated on September 4, 1998. It was based in the garage of a friend (Susan Wojcicki)
in Menlo Park, California. Craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the
first employee.
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). In January 2013, Google announced
it had earned US$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 US$38 billion.
2013 onward
Google announced the launch of a new company called Calico on September 19, 2013, which
will be led by Apple chairman Arthur Levinson. In the official public statement, Page explained
that the "health and wellbeing" company will focus on "the challenge of ageing and associated
diseases".
As of September 2013, Google operates 70 offices in more than 40 countries. Google celebrated
its 15-year anniversary on September 27, 2013, although it has used other dates for its official
birthday. The reason for the choice of September 27 remains unclear, and a dispute with rival
search engine Yahoo! Search in 2005 has been suggested as the cause.
The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was launched in October 2013 and Google is part of
the coalition of public and private organisations that also includesFacebook, Intel and Microsoft.
Led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that
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access is broadened in the developing world, where only 31% of people are online. Google will
help to decrease internet access prices so that they fall below the UN Broadband Commission's
worldwide target of 5% of monthly income.
The corporation's consolidated revenue for the third quarter of 2013 is reported in mid-October
2013 as US$14.89 billion, a 12 percent increase compared to the previous quarter. Google's
Internet business was responsible for US$10.8 billion of this total, with an increase in the
number of users' clicks on advertisements.
In November 2013, Google announced plans for a new 1-million-sq-ft (93,000 sq m) office in
London, which is due to open in 2016. The new premises will be able to accommodate 4,500
employees and has been identified as one of the biggest ever commercial property acquisitions in
Britain


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CHAPTER II - ANALYSIS I
GOOGLE BUSINESS MODEL










1 Infrastructure Management

Google requires large computational resources in order to provide their service. When a client
computer attempts to connect Google, several DNS servers resolve www.google.com into
multiple IP addresses, and the client is directed to different Google clusters. . A Google cluster
has thousands of servers and once the client has connected to the server additional load balancing
is done to send the queries to the least loaded web server. In computer networking, load
balancing is a technique to distribute workload evenly across two or more computers, network
links, CPUs, hard drives, or other resources, in order to get optimal resource utilization,
maximize throughput minimize response time and avoid overload. This makes Google one of the
largest and most complex content delivery networks.







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1.1 Parallel Processing

Google runs on a distributed network of thousands of low-cost computers and can therefore carry
out fast parallel processing. Parallel processing is a method of computation in which many
calculations can be performed simultaneously, significantly speeding up data processing.

Google has three distinct parts:

Googlebot, a web crawler that finds and fetches web pages.
The indexer that sorts every word on every page and stores the resulting index of words
in a huge database.
The query processor, which compares your search query to the index and recommends
the documents that it considers most relevant.


















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1.1.1 Googlebot, Googles Web Crawler

Googlebot is Googles web crawling robot, which finds and retrieves pages on the web and
hands them off to the Google indexer. It functions much like a web browser by sending a request
to a web server for a web page, downloading the entire page, then handing it off to Googles
indexer.Googlebot finds pages in two ways: through an add URL form,
www.google.com/addurl.html, and through finding links by crawling the web

1.1.2 Google Indexer

Googlebot gives the indexer the full text of the pages it finds. These pages are stored in Googles
index database. This index is sorted alphabetically by search term, with each index entry storing
a list of documents in which the term appears and the location within the text where it occurs.
This data structure allows rapid access to documents that contain user query terms.
1.1.3 Googles Query Processor
The query processor has several parts, including the user interface (search box), the engine that
evaluates queries and matches them to relevant documents, and the results formatter. PageRank
is Googles system for ranking web pages. A page with a higher PageRank is deemed more
important and is more likely to be listed above a page with a lower PageRank.

1.2 Page Rank Technology

We've developed an interesting trick that speeds up the first step: instead of storing the entire
index on one very powerful computer, Google uses hundreds of computers to do the job.
Because the task is divided among many machines, the answer can be found much faster. To
illustrate, let's suppose an index for a book was 30 pages long. If one person had to search for
several pieces of information in the index, it would take at least several seconds for each search.
But what if you gave each page of the index to a different person? Thirty people could search
their portions of the index much more quickly than one person could search the entire index
alone. Similarly, Google splits its data between many machines to find matching documents
faster.
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Arranging the documents this way makes clear that the words "civil" and "war" appear in three
documents (8, 22, and 68). The list of documents that contain a word is called a "posting list,"
and looking for documents with both words is called "intersecting a posting list." (A fast way to
intersect two posting lists is to walk down both at the same time. If one list skips from 22 to 68,
you can skip ahead to document 68 on the other list as well.)

Ranking
Google uses many factors in ranking. Of these, the PageRank algorithm might be the best
known. PageRank evaluates two things: how many links there are to a web page from other
pages, and the quality of the linking sites. With PageRank, five or six high-quality links from
websites such as www.cnn.com and www.nytimes.com would be valued much more highly than
twice as many links from less reputable or established sites.
If a document contains the words "civil" and "war" right next to each other, it might be more
relevant than a document discussing the Revolutionary War that happens to use the word "civil"
somewhere else on the page.
Also, if a page includes the words "civil war" in its title, that's a hint that it might be more
relevant than a document with the title "19th Century American Clothing." In the same way, if
the words "civil war" appear several times throughout the page, that page is more likely to be
about the civil war than if the words only appear once.
Running a search engine takes a lot of computing resources. For each search that someone types
in, over 500 computers may work together to find the best documents, and it all happens in under
half a second.

2 Value Configuration

Google is different. Google is expanding its area of participation in the value chain. In other
words, its search technology and infrastructure is merely a utility that allows it to do what really
bring over 90% revenue and income - advertising. Google is primarily an advertising company,
simply because it is the only company that allows any business to start advertising online without
any need for professional copy writers or graphic designers or help from any advertising
salesperson.
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Nearly everything that the company does , including building big data centres, buying optical
fibers, promoting free wifi access, fighting copyright restrictions, supporting open source
software, and giving away web services and data is aimed at reducing the cost and expanding
the scope of internet use. Simply put, Google wants information to be free.
Even though the business model spells-out how a company makes money, and the value
propositions are what the company offers, not all value propositions have the purpose to
generate direct revenues. Reasons can be to, increase the value of existing intellectual assets
and capabilities, get access to new assets and capabilities, create momentum for a new
technology, lower cost of development, reduce risks, build new markets, attract the best people,
etc.
Google as an example
Google generated 99% of total revenues 2007, and 97% of total revenues in 2008 from
advertising, still most of Google's value propositions are not directed towards its advertisers.

3 Capability

Complementary Advantage
Complements are any products and services that tend to be consumed together. For Google
anything that happens on the internet is a compliment to its main business. The more the people
use internet, the more ads they see, and the more money. The vast breadth of Googles
compliments and its ability to push the price of the compliments to zero , is what sets it apart
from other firms. It faces far less risk in product development than other usual business does. It
routinely introduces half finished products and services as online betas, because it knows that
even if the offering fails to win a big share of the market, they will still generate advertising
revenue.

The real secret to Googles mystique is that of a company that understands the possibilities of
technological change, and where to look for the small companies with big ideas that will
change established business models. And in that way, it is following in the time-worn footsteps
of other acquisitive giants like Cisco Systems and Microsoft. Like any other giant multinational,
Google knows that if it needs to constantly add new products and services to its business.
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4 Acquisitions and Partnerships

Since 2001, Google has acquired many companies, mainly focusing on small venture capital
companies. In 2004, Google acquired Keyhole, Inc. The start-up company developed a product
called Earth Viewer that gave a 3-D view of the Earth. Google renamed the service to Google
Earth in 2005. Two years later, Google bought the online video site YouTube for $1.65 billion
in stock. On 13 April 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. Later that same year, Google purchased GrandCentral for $50 million. 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.

5 Adwords Revenue

Generation Model
Most search engines provide two types of results listings in response to the same user query:
organic (also called "natural" or "free") listings, and paid listings (i.e., advertisements). Google
keeps these two types of listings separate, and ads are noted by the phrase "Sponsored Links"
appearing above them. On Google, although both organic and paid results appear in response to
the same user query, the results are independent of each other. The ranking of an organic search
result has no bearing on the ranking of any ads, and vice versa. This makes it possible for an
advertiser to perform well in the paid listings and have an ample online presence, even if their
site isn't present in the top organic search results.

Google introduced a smart, innovative and quite risky business model - Adwords - and the pay
per click concept. The risk proved winning, and the innovative business model worked. Today
Adwords is Google main source of revenues. AdWords analyzes every Google search to
determine which advertisers get each of up to 11 "sponsored links" on every results page. It's the
world's biggest, fastest, a never-ending, automated auction.
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Thousands of advertisers worldwide use the Google Adwords program to promote their products
and services on the web. Advertisers bid in an open and competitive auction to have their ads
appear alongside the search results for particular keywords. They can specify the geographic
location and time of the day for their ads to appear .The adwords program includes local ,
national and international distribution.

5.1 Benefits of Adwords

Relevance
One of the biggest benefits AdWords offers is the ability to precisely target ads to users based on
their interest, as well as a number of other factors like location, language, and demographic. The
result is that the user sees highly relevant ads, which they are more likely to click on. And
because ads on search engines show only in response to a user's query, the user is also more
likely to be further along in the buying cycle, and more likely to be ready to convert.

Return on Investment (ROI)
Online advertising is thoroughly measurable, making it easy to tell whether or not you're meeting
your advertising goals. Every user's click is tied to a particular ad, keyword, and search query, all
of which you can track and decide to improve whenever you like. If you spot a trend, you can
create, modify, or delete keywords, ads, and campaign targeting selections within seconds. This
allows you to be more responsive and more in control when it comes to improving your ROI.

Reach
Every day, Internet users conduct millions of searches on Google. When you use Google
AdWords, you have the opportunity to capture any segment of that broad worldwide audience
that's actively looking for products, services, information, and websites. By giving your products
or services a presence during relevant user searches, you're ensuring that you're visible in a
crucial point in the customer's buying cycle -- when the user is actively searching for what you're
offering.


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Pay per Click Advertising
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is the best way to send immediate, targeted traffic to your website.. An
advertiser has to pay every time his ad receives a click. The Advertisers decide the keywords
relevant to their offer that should display their ad and the maximum amount they are willing to
pay per click for that keyword. Categories are ranked by the cost per click that advertisers
generally have to pay, weighted by distribution, and then separated into three bundles: high cap,
mid cap, and low cap. "The high caps are very competitive keywords, like 'flowers' and
'hotels,'" Tang says. In the mid-cap realm you have keywords that may vary seasonallythe
price to place ads alongside results for "snowboarding" skyrockets during the winter. Low caps
like "Massachusetts buggy whips" are the stuff of long tails.

Placement Targeting
Placement targeting lets advertisers choose individual sites in the Google Content Network
where they'd like their ads to appear. A placement can be an entire website, or it can be a subset
of pages or ad units on a site, as defined by the site's publisher. For example, a news site might
offer advetisers the chance to place ads across their entire site, only on its front page, or just in ad
units on the upper half of its sports pages. Placement targeting gives advertisers even greater
flexibility to control exactly where their ads show.

Ad Rank
Ads are positioned on pages based on their Ad Rank, which is a combination of your bid and a
relevancy metric called Quality Score. The ad with the highest Ad Rank appears in the first
position, and so on down the page.
A Quality Score is calculated every time the advertisers keyword matches a search query that
is, every time the keyword has the potential to trigger an ad. Quality Score is a formula that
varies based on the bid type, where the ad is showing, and targeting type. However, the main
concept remains the same. Because Quality Score measures relevancy, a high Quality Score
generally means that the ads will appear in a higher position and at a lower cost-per-click (CPC).



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Adwords cost
Google charges a one-time AdWords activation fee upon account creation to ensure that our
advertisers are committed to creating well-targeted advertisements. The fee also helps cover the
costs associated with creating, maintaining and, if applicable, cancelling an account.

Google Search Network
It includes Google search pages, search sites, and properties that display search results pages,
such as Google Product Search and Earthlink. AdWords ads can appear alongside or above
search results, as part of a results page as a user navigates through a site's directory, or on other
relevant search pages.

6 Cost Structure

Estimates of the power required for over 450,000 servers range upwards of 20 megawatts, which
cost on the order of US$2 million per month in electricity charges.

Adsense Cost-The formula is familiar: Sell ads, in many cases around content Google doesn't
own; turn over the bulk of that revenue to the owner of the content; repeat until the end of time.
Google's business that runs ads around others content and pays the owners the bulk of related
revenues (For the first three quarters of 2007, AdSense accounted for 35% o Google's grosss
revenue).










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7 Distribution Channel

























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8 Ideas
They use a process that lets idea really thrive. Ideas come from everywhere. Some people think
that ideas come from the top down. Something they come from the bottom up. They come from
everywhere. Google has several active emai lists just for ideas. It's odd for a company of 200
people to have a miscellaneous mailing list. Employees compile all of those ideas discuss them,
and prioritize them. This is a tool at Google called Sparrow. It's a typical Web page but it allows
in-page editing. These are basically project ideas. There are also little widgets. They pop up a
form, and you can add new ideas to the list. We literally have hundreds if not thousands of
project ideas that we consider and prioritize. If you make the capturing of ideas simple and low
cost, a lot of people will share ideas. Snippets. Those are brief weekly reports from different
teams. They give an update on what they're working on, and it's a w to help self-organize and
find efforts that are correlated.

9 Experiments

Google launches its products quick and often They believe that the easiest thing to do is to put it
out to public, listen to the feedback and see what people think is important. Through Google
Labs is a great tool to get immediate response to a particular idea and revive early feedback on
projects. All these projects are called Googlettes within the startups.. Another example is Orkut,
which is named after one of Googles core engineers.

We have something we call 20% time. Orkut's is actually the social coordinator for Google. But
because of his social network interests, Orkut dedicates his side time, his 20% time, to work on
whatever he wants to work on. Orkut started working on building this social networking site. He
sent a mail out to the miscellaneous list, and within hours, we had 1,000 employees signed up.
This really sparked people's imagination, thus Orkut was launched.


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10 Recruitment

Many organizations have changed their pay or benefits in order to attract better workers, but no
one has changed every professional job in the company just so that the work itself is the primary
attraction and retention tool. Rather than letting work, jobs, and job descriptions be put together
by the "out of touch" people in corporate compensation, Google's founders (Larry and Sergey as
everyone calls them), HR director Stacy Sullivan, and the leadership team at Google have
literally crafted every professional job and workplace element so that all employees are:
- Working on interesting work
- Learning continuously
- Constantly challenged to do more
- Feeling that they are adding value.

The key element of changing the work so that the work itself becomes a critical attraction and
retention force and driver of innovation and motivation is what Google calls "20% work." There
is no concrete definition of what 20% work means, but generally for professional jobs it means
that the employee works the equivalent of one-day-a-week on their own researching individually
selected projects that the company funds and supports. Both Google Groups and Google News
products are reported to have started as a result of personal 20% time.

But its greatest value is that it drives innovation and creativity throughout the organization. At
Google, innovation is expected of everyone in every function, not just product development. The
20% time, along with the expectation of continuous and disruptive innovation, has driven the
company's phenomenal success in product and service innovation. Yes, in this rare case, HR
activities and policies are actually driving corporate business success.

11 Value Proposition

From its modest start as a search-engine research project at Stanford University in the mid-
1990s, the Google universe has expanded exponentially with new products and services. It's
already a word processor, e-mail service, smartphone, and aims to be a storehouse of every
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printed word in human history. Google allows us to cruise the streets of New York and Rome, or
scour the surfaces of the moon and Mars. We can track global flu trends, monitor our household
energy usage or simply edit photos.

Google wants to own your every waking minute online--at home, while in transit, at your
workplace, wherever you happen to be. It makes connectivity so easy, on a desktop, laptop or
mobile phone. How much easier via a little-known business called Google Applications that
allows us to instantly share Google calendars, spreadsheets, memos, reports, e-mail, corporate
blogs, presentations and more--much, much more--by storing them in Google's enormous data
centers. These bundled office-suite services make Google money on subscriptions, but they are
also something of a Trojan horse to pull more people onto the Internet so that Google can make
even more money from ads. By expanding what kinds of information people organize and share,
as well as what they search, Google makes users ever more dependent on it to get through the
day.

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12 SWOT Analysis









STRENGTHS

Open source products and services. As the company states: Googles mission is to
organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful. The
same is with almost any of Google products. Let it be Google maps, calendars, drive, OS
or the advices how to rank better in a search index. Googles products can also be used
with any OS or mobile device without a charge. Google openness is the key why Google
is the number one in many products and services.
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Quality and customer experience are the primary objects. Everything that Google
offers is of premium quality. The products are aimed at solving customer needs and
problems by providing excellent customer experience.
Financial situation. Google is one of the most profitable companies in the world with
earnings nearly $50 billion and $11 billion profits (22%). The company also holds $48
billion in cash and just $7 billion of debt. Few other companies are so strong financially
to compete with Google.
Access to the largest group of internet users worldwide. Google has an access to 79%
of the world desktop search market users and 89% of the world mobile search market
users. Combined, these internet users represent an extremely large market that Google
can use to promote and sell its products and services.
Strong patents portfolio. In 2012, Google added 1,151 patents and was the 21st business
worldwide in terms of number of patents. Intellectual property is the key in competing
against competitors and Google with Motorolas acquisition gained a strong advantage
over its competitors.
Product integration. Nearly all Google products are integrated with each other forming
an ecosystem that enriches customers experience and encourages using more of
companys products and services. Besides, Google products can be used on any OS or
any device without a trouble or can be integrated with other companies applications. No
other major tech organization offers the same level of integration.
Culture of innovation. Many unique products are offered by Google every year, with so
many in development stages. According to Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Google is
the 2nd most innovative business in the world. The company was also the second patent
creator in the worle in 2012. Google emphasizes its innovative work culture as one of its
main competitive advantages.

WEAKNESSES

Relies on one source of income. More than 90% of Googles revenue comes from online
advertising. Online advertising is expected to grow in double digits in 2013 and will grow
Googles income in the short term. But in the long run, Google may experience slow
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income growth or even the decline due to a few reasons. First, the market for personal
computers is growing slowly and the Google experiences the overall decline in its
desktop search engine market. If Google wont push the competition back it will lose not
only the market share but the main source of its income as well. Second, Google as many
other firms, find it hard to monetize mobile device users, who will represent the highest
growing group in online advertising. Third, online advertising growth is driven by
emerging economies where an average price for an advertisement is considerably lower
than in the developed economies, so the growth of online advertising will only grow the
income of companies insignificantly.
Unprofitable products. Google has many products and services that add little value for
the business and make only losses, thus decreasing firms profits.
Patent litigations. Google is often involved in litigations over the breached patents and
other intellectual property. These litigations are costly and time consuming and distract
the company from innovating rather than litigating.

OPPORTUNITIES

Growing number of mobile internet users. Google has an opportunity to create a
platform that could be used to better display ads for mobile device users and increase
firms income.
Obtaining patents through acquisitions. For Google to grow and to compete
successfully, it has to obtain more new patents. One way of doing that is to acquire
companies that have strong patents portfolio. Google has acquired Motorola in 2012,
obtaining more than 17,000 patents from the business.
Driverless electronic cars. Google has introduced and successfully tested driverless cars
in Nevada, U.S. The technology of these cars could easily be installed in any future
model and would be a huge technological step. Although, Google has no intentions of
manufacturing such cars itself, the company could sell licenses for car manufactures for
using their technology and IP.
Growing into electronics industry. Google has already launched a few new models of
notebooks, tablets and smartphones into the market but these were only introduction
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models. Google could strengthen its entry into electronic devices industry by introducing
more products for more customer groups and cut out its market share. This would result
in tighter integration of its software products and diversified income.
Google fiber cables. Google is currently testing their new fiber cables that can deliver
internet content at astonishing 100 times as fast as current providers. It is wise for Google
to invest in such infrastructure that virtually would have no competition and would
integrate the company vertically.


THREATS

Growing number of mobile internet users. Google finds it hard to monetize mobile
internet users as there is less space to place ads on a mobile device and the ads costs less
than usual. The growing number of mobile users means fewer searches made on the
personal computers and lower income growth or even decline for Google.
Unprofitable products. Google has introduced many products and services but few of
them earn profits for the business. Most of the services are the burden for Google and
only makes losses. If Google continues to introduce new products that add little value and
only make losses, the companys profits will fall.
EU antitrust laws. Google is currently accused by EU of using its dominating position in
internet search engine market to display its own services higher than competitors in
search results. If proved guilty, Google would have to pay fines that would significantly
lower firms profits.
Competition from Microsoft. Microsoft is gaining a market share in internet searches
and is playing an important role against Google. The company has also introduced
Windows 8, the OS aimed for mobile devices, to carve out its market share in mobile OS
market. In both fronts, internet search and mobile OS, Microsoft is challenging Google
and is taking away the potential revenues.

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CHAPTER III - ANALYSIS II

GOOGLE AS A MODERN LIBRARY

The environment in which research is disseminated and used is undergoing a radical change and
the task of modern HEIs is to better understand this change and support new ways of accessing
content. It is now beyond doubt that the Google has revolutionised the way that research content
is discovered, accessed and used.
Content which once needed specialist skills to find is now widely available and searches which
once took days of painstaking work can now be done in a matter of seconds. Increasingly,
learners and new teachers needs are defined by their capacity to differentiate information: to
recognise what is and what is not research content, to sort out the good from the bad, the useful
from the merely relevant. The Google also appears to have had an impact on the way that
research content is used in the real world. Many universities have invested heavily in learning
spaces designed to facilitate the kind of social interaction that the Google promotes. Networks
online and offline - are increasingly a part of the way that the modern world evaluates
information, including research content. Yet all this presumes that modern users will best know
how to find their way in this new information environment, that they have the skills to find the
right databases, enter the right search terms, to discover the most appropriate research content for
their teaching and learning and use it in the most appropriate way.

Although the library remains a key physical resource, more students are using home computers
to conduct initial and advanced research: the value to students of being able to access library
services at home (their office?) is very clear, they are information homebirds. This is especially
true for women students, 24 per cent of whom said they access the virtual library from home
(Nicholas and Rowlands 2008, 330-331). A study by Vondracek (2007) looking at why students
choose to use alternatives to the library found that students cited inconvenience and enhanced
comfort elsewhere. However, it remains the case that students are still reliant on their library as a
physical space for the discovery of research content, with an estimated 71% in one study visiting
the library at least once a week (Nicholas and Rowlands 2008, 330-331). New technologies may
well offer new, more flexible ways for students to meet and collaborate on research, turning
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informal networks into dynamic virtual spaces for learning. That the medium for encountering
research has changed is beyond any doubt, but has the rise of digital also altered the way that
students read research content - and even think? According to the research that weve surveyed,
students tend to encounter research content in a much more fragmentary way than in the past,
developing chains of meaning from a variety of sources rather than investigating one source in-
depth. This is considered in studies of critical thinking such as Moon (2005) and Heinstrm
(2005) who argue that, in todays information-rich society, surface learning is more prevalent
due to the availability and diversity of information.

The digital native is a term has received a wider currency. A digital native is someone who was
born digital, i.e. born into and raised in a world defined by technologies such as the internet.
Very soon HEIs will be admitting students for whom the internet is not a new technology in
any sense and who have grown up using search engines, social networking and similar
technologies as a matter of course.




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For most of the students, the discovery of research content is largely directed by the assessment
that theyve been set and the resources available to them, in particular the library, the Google,
course materials and the direction of their tutor. The traditional reading list is important to some
students who use it as a basis for starting their research. Students in Social Science, Science and
at University B all cited the reading list as their main starting point which they then use to
expand on their reading. However, the reading list was not mentioned by other groups. Many
students said that they found research content through references in other research content. This
might mean expanding on the reading list and following up references in journals and books. As
one Science student put it, you research something then that leads to something else and then
something else. Students in Social Science said that they would visit a library first to look for
key texts and get background information on their topic.

Although a significant minority of students prefer hard copy texts, most of the students use
Google to discover research content. They will extract keywords from the assignment question
and input them into their library catalogue, their local intranet service, a specialised database or a
third-party commercial search engine, normally Google. Usually these keywords are strategically
extracted from assignment questions as the words most likely to lead to a successful search,
although one student in the Science focus group has a different strategy: I underline what I dont
understand and do an internet search. Students in nearly all groups cited at least one specialised
research database such as Project Muse, Web of Knowledge and Emerald which demonstrates
that students are aware of discipline specific resources. They tend to prefer databases which give
them direct access to research content online and many said that they were frustrated when links
led to content that their library does not subscribe to. One student at University A was even
surprised that their library had non-electronic journals: Ive never seen a real journal, do they
have them in the library?

Students in every group, without exception, use Google as their main search engine. No other
non-academic search engine was talked about and it is clear from all our research that Google is
now absolutely dominant. In the research exercise, the majority of users showed familiarity with
online search techniques: a common pattern emerged of using Google as a stepping stone to
either known sources (named journals/systems) or unknown (a generalistic approach to
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searching). However in the case of the unknown, users would, in the main, only go to the first
few links before either a) using these to develop further lines of enquiry or b) going to a
dedicated academic search facility Using Google has become a default action whether students
are seeking to discover research content because of an assignment, or simply pursuing an
academic question for its own sake. This statement from a student is revealing: I take key words
from the title and look at what I can find quickly and easily, Ill also read the source list, Ill type
them in Google and then go to the library. In other words, the student does not even check their
library catalogue before using Google to expand upon the keywords and source list that they
have been given. As a student in the Professions group put it, Googles like a train: it takes you
there. That said, students did demonstrate some sophistication in the use of Google. They are
aware that it is very much keyword driven and many are frustrated about the amount of
information that is returned. Most students do not look beyond the first 2-3 pages returned by
Google; one student in the Professions group claimed to have searched through 80 pages for
relevant research content, but he was very much the exception rather than the rule. Students are
also aware of Googles academic services, particularly Google Scholar which searches research
content on the internet and on specialist databases; and Google Books, which returns sample
pages of many published books. For some students, Google Books replaces the library as a
means of accessing content: books are not always in the library so I also use Google books.
Two students in the Professions group use Google Books exclusively, never visiting the library
in person and only discovering research content through the fragments and snippets available.

Users overwhelmingly use keyword searches to discover the existence of research content which
are inputted into a mixture of tools usually including internet search engines, library catalogues
and specialist subject databases. The survey data showed that this was typical of all students in
all universities. Of the possible keyword search engines used, we found Google to be dominant
for all users. More sophisticated products from Google such as Google Scholar and Google
Books are increasingly being used as well. Our recorded exercises showed that Google is the
search facility of first choice for most users, including users who told us that they use other
means first.

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Most users will access content directly through a computer as a result of a keyword-based search.
Users are comfortable with accessing only the part of the content relevant to their research and
will use services such as Google Books to this end.
Students will also visit the library to access printed research content and a significant proportion
of survey responses and focus group answers affirmed the centrality of the local institutional
library to accessing research content. However, we found little evidence of persistence amongst
users surveyed and interviewed. Users expect to be able to access research content immediately
and prefer online access.

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CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION, SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATION

CONCLUSION

Google is an innovative internet firm which started as a simple research project. Through years
of growth and innovation, Google has evolved into an internet-based powerhouse, rivaling that
of Microsoft and Yahoo. Partly because of their relevant search results, and also partly because
of their simple and user-friendly approach to searching, Google has grown to be the most
frequently used search engine in the world. Google maintains its competitive market position by
continually developing new services and technologies, while also acquiring other small firms
with great potential. Google earns 99% of its revenues through advertising, which are unique
because the ads displayed on a page are relevant to the content of that specific page.
Additionally, funded by advertisements, Google is able to offer a number of free services, which
range from free web-based e-mail to maps to mobile services for cell phones. These services
attract end-user attention, which is the basis for advertising revenue.

Google appears superior in both coverage and accessibility as compared to traditional library.
Google gives quality information, though the difference is small, and both types of resource are
needed if good coverage is required. Google may bring together a large number of resources.
Google is still a single entity when you use it as a service for research. Despite its huge scope, it
doesnt handle all information. For specialist research purposes, Google is a help, but only when
used as part of the research process. Thats not to say that the overall role of the library has
changed. But the needs of students have. This, in turn, means that libraries need to adapt their
approach. The internet certainly hasnt replaced the library. Any student will use all available
means to access information and find the best quality sources. The internet complements the
library and vice versa. Any source of information can complement another source. Its not a
competition.


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SUMMARY

Whats more, Googles vast store of knowledge about consumer behavior, and about how that
behavior is changing minute to minute, would give Google an extraordinary leg up as a web
retailer. They know what people want through search, they know what is hot. Its almost an
unfair advantage, says Kevin Lee, CEO of search engine marketing firm Didit.com LLC. Its
not clear how far Google intends to press that advantage. Google has said it wants to go carbon
neutral. With the FERC order, it can now effectively erect as many solar panels and install as
many fuel cells as it likes without worrying about having purchased too much capacity; the
company can now sell off the extra power it generates.
Google can now exploit its massive data centers to provide services for controlling power
consumption in commercial buildings, industrial sites, and homes. Google PowerMeter,
currently in beta, allows you to see your own electricity usage information (on iGoogle widget)
and helps you to improve your efficiency in a variety of ways. Google PowerMeter receives
information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provides customers
with access to their home electricity consumption right on their personal iGoogle homepage.
Real and potential missteps aside, its hard to forget that Google already has transformed, indeed
practically created, the online advertising industry. And it has the financial heft and the
constantly growing storehouse of data to potentially alter online retailing, even if the elephant
has yet to hit its full stride.

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and
useful. From the beginning, Google had a lofty goal, but as time has passed, Google has without
a doubt shown its potential. Leading the search engine industry in market share, Google is one of
the largest and fastest growing technology companies in the world. Driven by advertising
revenues, Google has gained success by providing relevant search results while also offering
advertisements which are related to the content of each specific web page. Additionally, Google
offers a variety of free services and products, ranging from a myriad of free search services, to
Google Maps, to services available for mobile phones. Because these services draw millions of
users to Googles websites every day, advertising revenues provide a steady stream of income.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

Though people are aware about the traditional libraries, they are not the members of the
same. Students should be more focused towards bookish knowledge as compared to the
Googled information. Students should use both library as well as Google to collect
appropriate information in wider scope. They should not be limited only to Google.

Employees from their busy schedule should prefer going to library for leisure time.

Traditional library provides quality information in wider scope compared to Google but is
time consuming.

The plans in the works suggest Google is likely to focus on selling digital goods, such as
e-books and entertainment content, taking advantage of its vast web infrastructure and
massive amounts of data about online shoppers.

Whatever direction Google takes, data from search will serve as a guide, and any moves
into retail likely will boost Googles core business.



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BIBLIOGRAPHY


Google, www.google.com

Google, Inc. Form 10-Q, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, D.C.
http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312507110490/d10qa.htm

Google Acquisitions, Bill Slawski, http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=64

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google,