The Evolution of Google: Google Business Report

Today it is almost a commonality to turn on the computer, go to your usual, preferred search engine, and type in what you want to find - all of this without any thought. What would we do without it? What if the search engine you have used your whole life never existed? I thought escaping the daily addiction of going to my homepage, Google, and typing in what I'm looking for, would be as relieving as taking off a weighty backpack. As my experiment began, I found that seven days without being able to have the luxury of rapid and simple search was incomprehensible. I realized just how significant Google has become in today's fast-paced world with expectations that are taken for granted. Having no allowed access to Google made completing homework assignments, finding information about schools, and planning trips nearly a hassle. Interviewing at least a dozen people, I found that over half use Google as their main search engine. Others either relied on Yahoo!, or used Google Search Engine but Yahoo! Email. Internet competition has been tense since these search engines came to life. Risen immensely from the beginning of its time, Google has become a global icon with providing many with improved Internet, making an impact on the economy, and affecting society's way of life.

The Nineties was the first decade following the Cold War. There were bursts of changes throughout the world. With the most impact, "in 1991 when the WWW first became available for the public it grew dramatically with users multiplying at the rate of about 3500 times a year , by the year 2000 there were an estimated 295 million users on the Internet" (The People History Site Par. 27). Although it was very difficult to find information on the Web, Internet use increased by an outstanding close to100% per year (Anderson Par. 6). Every day, sites were born and viewers were in need of finding a convenient and simple way to search the web. In 1993, a group of undergraduates from Stanford created Excite, which used numerical examination of word connections to make search results more accurate. In the year that followed, Filo and Yang created Yahoo, which was more of an index than a search tool, but nonetheless improved getting around the web. Each year, more and more innovative search engines came to life, including AltaVista. Although popular and fast, AltaVista brought up many unrelated results. No search engine had proved to be very effective. At the same time, many historic events were occurring all over the world. Princess Diana's death received many questions. In Africa, the Rwanda genocide had 500,000 casualties (The People History Site Par. 21). A vast amount of media attention was give to the O.J. Simpson trial in the mid-1990s. As people were recovering from the Cold War, the economy had changed all over the world. According to The Global Oneness Commitment, "many First World economies such as the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and South Korea experienced steady economic growth for nearly the entire decade" (par.1). Democratic ruling and living norms improved in particularly South Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and East Asia. Due to the discovery of oil and gas in numerous countries, trade between nations improved, leading to the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) (Events and Trends 5). Despite these improvements, Europe (excluding the UK and Ireland) underwent severe economic issues. The worst recession from WWII occurred in France in 1995. Slowly throughout the next few years, France came out of the recession. This same decade came numerous science goals were conquered. Most known, Dolly the Sheep had also been the first animal to be cloned successfully. Globally now known, "the Human Genome Project (HGP) refers to the international 13-year effort, formally begun in October 1990 ... to discover all the estimated 20,000-25,000 human genes and make them accessible for further biological study" (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Par. 1). In addition, the deadly AIDS virus had reduced deaths due to the introduction of HAART therapy. Many more developments took place such as the use of DNA to identify criminals, more successful methods of recycling, and the discoveries of dark energy, dark matter, and black holes (Infoplease.com). After the creation of Google, the Internet and world had been changed forever.
Before Google, a countless number of search engines were created around the clock in an attempt to create a search engine that was very effective with no major problems. There was Excite, Altavista, LookSmart, Lycos, and WebCrawler (Sullivan). Up to the time that Google was created, most search engines ranked sites "simply by the number of times the search term searched for appeared on the webpage, and the duo set out to make a more 'aware' search engine" (MOU Par. 1). Standford University students Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin met and before long started a project called Backrub. After a year, they decided Backrub needed a new name - Google (Google Par. 2). For the creators, "Google began with a grand aspiration: organize the world's information" (Stross 1). Page and Brin stated that "we chose our system name, Google, because it is a common spelling of googol, or 10100 and fits well with our goal of building very large-scale search engines" (Brin and Page Par. 4). Google started out in a dorm, moved into a garage, and today has turned into a massive company. A historic moment in the Web, the creation of Google brought excitement to Internet users. According to Planet Earth's Randall Stross,

When the Google search engine was first made available to the public, visitors noticed superior search results, but they also noticed the service was entirely free of commercial messages. Google spared them the irritating pop-ups, flashing banners, and other mutating forms of advertisements that at that time were competing in an escalating arms race for a visitor's attention on the Web (3). The creation of a vast search engine with numerous tools and applications, the Internet and the world built around it would never be the same.

Does a company have the power to change the entire planet in different ways? How big can a company get? Celebrated author Paulo Coelho says, " 'The search engine is going to control the planet' " (Jarvis 121). Google has grown in a blink of an eye. Just twelve years ago, it was published in a magazine under new technology. Chris Anderson states that now "Google is not just a company, it is an entirely new way of thinking. Jarvis has done something really important: extend that approach to business and culture, revealing just how revolutionary it is' " (Jarvis 0). Google has made a lot of impact on business. In 2003, Google had employed 1,628 people, and by 2007 it had expanded to an astonishing 16, 805 employees at the Googleplex (Stross 19). The company provides free bikes to ride around the complex, food and drinks, games, toys, and other numerous things employees can use and have fun with while working at the same time. Google has profited immensely over the years from gains from competition, even though it is the first company in history to gain so much recognition with spending enormous amounts of money on advertising and marketing (Vise 251). Google is constantly striving to become bigger and better and has recently bought the manager of e-mail. Helft declares that " 'The deal underscores Google's ambitions to become a serious player in the business of selling software to companies and organizations, in competition with Microsoft and others' " (Par. 2). Microsoft and Yahoo! Are constantly in battle with Google to overpower it, but so far Google is without fail. Competition in search engines is very beneficial for the economy. On the Internet, "Getting a top organic ranking in Google can drive huge amount of customers to a website, resulting in large profits" (Atloft Par. 1). In fact, numerous web site owners report that 80%-90% of visitors to their page are referred by Google's search engine (Tapei Times? Par.9). Google has changed the Internet forever. Finally a search engine was created that produced fast and accurate results. According to the Harvard Business Review, Google draws on the terabytes of behavioral data it collects through its search engine and other sites, it carries out thousands of experiments a day, and it uses the results to refine the algorithms that increasingly control how people find information and extract meaning from it" (The Atlantic Par 24).

Google has people constantly working on making it better, on improving the site. Google has tens of applications and tools that are available to the public. Some help you organize, other are for entertainment, and still others provide you with an interesting way to attain knowledge while promoting good causes. Particularly, "Earth Outreach was put together to provide public benefit and non-profit organizations the resources and knowledge required to reach people in the continuing battle to bring awareness about climate change and global warming (Alternative Energy News Par. 1). Furthermore, Google has affected our lives as people. We are more reliant on Internet search engines to find out answers. There is somewhat of an addiction to it that we cannot stop. Sullivan states that " 'I'm probably going to continue to use the thing that I have a good relationship with, which is Google. If you suggest that someone should go use Microsoft search, it's like saying 'You should go get a new best friend' " (Taipei Times Par. 22). Sullivan speaks for much of Google users. Many have been using Google since it first was born and it is a habit. Bad habit maybe? More Americans have spent doing things they used to do now on the Internet, like reading. Billout points out: 'What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, I.e. I'm just seeking convenience because the way I THINK has changed?' " (The Atlantic, Par 5). In the past, people have read for hours, but concentration is not the same anymore. It is hard to get through one novel page for some people.

Some might say that now humans have become entirely reliant on the Internet through Google and other search engines. It may be startling, "but before you check yourself into the sanitarium, remember that the real moral to the Google story is this: If Google can do it, so can you. Google is seeing problems, solving them, and finding opportunities in them by thinking in new ways. This is all about finding your own new worldview" (Jarvis 122). The world is constantly changing and coming up with new creative ideas. Each idea, if supported by people, leads to success and greatness. Google is a resource and convenience to accomplish more tasks in life. Why spend three minutes looking up a word in the dictionary when you can find it on Google in ten seconds? There are more important things to recognize and focus on such as violence, pollution, and the troubling economy. Google is here to aid our minds to find a solution to the Earth's conflicts. Still, what if Google keeps growing until it really does own everything?

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