The

MCM 354Internet and Marketing Communication

Professor Mohamed IbahrineSection 1

American University of SharjahCollege of Arts and SciencesMCM Department

Spring 2012

Google Report

Nada Hassan36604

36348Zain Masri

Table of Contents

What is Google?.............................................................................1

Why is Google so popular?............................................................2

How can it maintain its competitive advantage?............................3

What are the Key features of Google Digital Marketing Strategy?.5

What is Google Zeitgeist?..............................................................7

Analysis of Google Zeitgeist results for the Gulf Region................8

How can digital marketers make use of Google Zeitgeist?..........10

Appendix.......................................................................................11

References...................................................................................12

What is Google?

Google is a search engine created by two Stanford Univer-sity students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in 1998. Since then the website has undergone significant changes in terms of the variety and effectiveness of its services. Google now offer hundreds of products and services such as, advertising and web applications to aid in the accomplishment of various tasks. Google, initially located in a Silicon Valley garage, received a fund of 25 million dollars from major venture capital firms, granting it the opportunity to prosper. Google became so successful it made a partnership with NASA by September 2005 (The History of Google, 2006). The company’s success has been steady ever since.

Google’s Mission: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

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Why is Google so popular?

Google’s consumer-oriented focus works hand-in-hand with its user-friendliness and simplicity to sustain the multi-billion dollar company it is today. It offers free, versatile and beneficial services. Google also re-created tangible objects such as, books and maps as digital reincarnations making them accessible anytime, any-where. The main highlight of which is the access to a seemingly endless array of information through its search engine. A brand becomes truly successful once it transforms its name, a mere noun, into a verb or an action. Google has managed to turn its brand into a necessity by appealing to multiple users through multiple platforms.

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How can it maintain its competitive advantage?

Google has created the world's top search engine, a social networking service, a shopping price comparison service, an email service, and a local search/yellow pages. Google hardly faces any detrimental competition. While Yahoo!, Facebook and MSN (Bing) are amongst Google’s closest rivals, more than 80% of search referrals originate from Google. The search engine responds to approximately a billion search requests per day, making an estimate of 12 cents per search. In order to maintain its leading status in the digital marketing Google must continuously research and develop future technology and innovators. In terms of computing power, they increase the size and speed of their computer every month, while simultane-ously lowering the cost of CPU cycles (Skrenta, 2004). This con-cept parallels with Moore’s Law stating that chip performance doubles every eighteen months (Hanson & Kalyanam, 2010, p. 40). By increasing its computing power, Google’s system now resembles a general purpose platform rather than a cluster used for a single application. While competing companies are targeting individual applica-tions, Google is setting up a massive, general purpose computing platform, also known as Google Cloud, specifically designed for web-scale programming (Chitu, 2005). Google Cloud is Google’s answer to Apple’s iCloud, it provides users with faster access to innovation regardless of location, less disruption, faster collabora-tion, immense security, higher reliability and uptime (operating time), Google applications offering flexibility and control and less spending through Google’s economies of scale (Top Ten Advan-tages of Google’s Cloud, N.A.).

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What are the key features of Google’s digital marketing strategy?

According to Google’s business overview, their main objec-tive is to provide the technology necessary to improve existing ways of doing business. When it comes to advertising the company offers options including, search advertising, display advertising and mobile advertising. Advertising is Google’s backbone and has allowed thousands of businesses to prosper. In 2000 Google developed an advertising program named AdWords. The program’s main purpose is to illustrate the useful-ness and relevance of advertising. Google has enabled advertisers to create simple text-only ads that appear alongside related search results and on thousands of partner sites (Appendix, Image One). Advertisers may select target keywords that relate to their ads. Fees are only charged when customers click on their ads (Pay-Per-Click). Google also developed display advertising to benefit its users. This advancement includes DoubleClick advertising technol-ogy, also known as content advertising, and Google Display Net-work, which is made up of more than a million partner websites, and Google-owned sites such as, YouTube. Another advantage to advertising with Google is access to tools that derive efficient and measurable results for advertising campaigns. Google also extends its services to websites by offering Google Analytics. This free service that creates detailed figures regarding the visitors, sales performance and activity of website became the most widely used service in its field. The program may also be integrated with AdWords allowing users to review cam-paign effectiveness.

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In terms of mobile advertising, companies are now capable of running search ad campaigns on mobile phones using mobile-specific ad formats, including click-to-call ads (which allow advertisers to provide a phone number within ad text) and many more formats for mobile websites and mobile applications. These services facilitate reaching users that are constantly on the go. Google acquired AdMob, an in-app ads leader, in 2010. Google Apps are constantly updated and are considered more secure than traditional applications. AdSense was created to support publishers on the internet. This allows Google to deliver ads that are precisely targeted to website content or search results. This advance-ment eliminated the need for advertiser relationships. An online local database named Google Places was created to cater to local businesses. The database contains listings that appear free of charge when potential customers search for products, services and businesses using Google. Google Maps is used to receive accurate and updated information including location and phone number(s).

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Analysis of Google Zeitgeist for the Gulf Region

According to the 2010 report, there was a strong interest in social media (Facebook, Youtube and SMS services) in the UAE. Users also expressed interest in news sources of various countries for instance, the most popular news related searches are for Gulf News, Malaya Manorama and the Times of Aya. This diverse range of searches reflects UAE’s ethnic diversity. The results for the fastest rising queries were retrieved by calculating the number of the most frequent searches conducted in 2010 and then ranking them based on the extent at which their popularity increased in comparison to 2009. The top three fastest rising searches are Burj Khalifa, Enrique Iglesias and sports (Appendix, Graph One). The most popular searches are You-Tube, Facebook and Yahoo! Mail. The fastest rising people searches are for Justin Beiber, Shakira and Lady Gaga. The most popular “exploration” related searches are for “What is love?”, “What is life?” and Wikipedia. The top three service related searches are for Gulf News jobs section, Emirates NBD and REEL Cinema Dubai. According to Google Gulf Regional Manager, Mohammad Mourad, “the UAE in particular is the third-fastest growing country in the MENA region in terms of search queries” (Nancy Messieh, 2011, para. 4). In 2011 the top three news related searches for ndividuals residing in Saudi Arabia are about Mohammad Abdu, Manal AlAlam (a famous chef in the region) and Khaled AbdelRahman. In terms of entertainment the Saudi Arabian population expressed an interest in Mohammad AlSalam’s music,

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Eysh Elly (a Saudi Arabian YouTube sensation) and Cartoon Net-work Arabia (Appendix, Graph Two). The population of Saudi Arabia also searched for regional news sources such as, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. These results express Saudi Arabia’s less diverse environ-ment, its focus is Arabic music, food and entertainment.

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How can digital marketers make use of Google Zeitgeist?

Companies using AdWords may use Google Zeitgeist to choose the most appropriate keywords to go with their ads. Digital marketers may also use Google Zeitgeist to analyze past trends and predict future trends. Since what individuals search for online reflects their interests, Google Zeitgeist may be used to understand the majority of a country’s citizens’ lifestyle or their attitudes, opinions and interests in comparison to others. Understanding how citizens of a certain country use the internet is a means of deriving the ideal strategy for approaching them.

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Appendix

Graph one

Graph two

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Image one

References

Chitu, A. (2005). Google Operating System. Blogspot. Retrieved on March 17, 2012. http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2005/10/google- operating-system.html

Google Launches Airline Ticket Search. (2011). Arizona Central. Retrieved on March 17, 2012.

Hanson, H. and Kalyanam, K. (2010). Internet Marketing & e-Commerce. United States: South-Western College Publishing.

Initiatives. Google Company. Retrieved on March 17, 2012. http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/company/initiatives.html

Messieh, N. (2011). Hosny Mubarak and Wael Ghonim Top List of Google’s Most Searched for People in Egypt. The Next Web. Retrieved on March 17, 2012. http://thenextweb.com/me/2011/12/15/hosny-mubarak-and wael-ghonim-top-listof-googles-most-searched-for-people in-egypt/

Skrenta, Rick. (2004). The secret source of Google’s power. Topix Weblog. Retrievedon March 17, 2012. http://blog.topix.com/2004/04/the-secret-source-of-googles power.html

The History of Google. (2006). Evolution SEO. Retrieved on March 17, 2012. http://www.evolution-seo.co.uk/history-of google.html#ixzz1pMuelvdB

Top Ten Advantages of Google’s Cloud. (N.A.). Google. Retrieved on March 17, 2012. http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/cloud.html#toc customers

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http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2011/09/14/20110914google-launches-airline-ticket-section.html

How can it maintain its competitive advantage?

Google has created the world's top search engine, a social networking service, a shopping price comparison service, an email service, and a local search/yellow pages. Google hardly faces any detrimental competition. While Yahoo!, Facebook and MSN (Bing) are amongst Google’s closest rivals, more than 80% of search referrals originate from Google. The search engine responds to approximately a billion search requests per day, making an estimate of 12 cents per search. In order to maintain its leading status in the digital marketing Google must continuously research and develop future technology and innovators. In terms of computing power, they increase the size and speed of their computer every month, while simultane-ously lowering the cost of CPU cycles (Skrenta, 2004). This con-cept parallels with Moore’s Law stating that chip performance doubles every eighteen months (Hanson & Kalyanam, 2010, p. 40). By increasing its computing power, Google’s system now resembles a general purpose platform rather than a cluster used for a single application. While competing companies are targeting individual applica-tions, Google is setting up a massive, general purpose computing platform, also known as Google Cloud, specifically designed for web-scale programming (Chitu, 2005). Google Cloud is Google’s answer to Apple’s iCloud, it provides users with faster access to innovation regardless of location, less disruption, faster collabora-tion, immense security, higher reliability and uptime (operating time), Google applications offering flexibility and control and less spending through Google’s economies of scale (Top Ten Advan-tages of Google’s Cloud, N.A.).

What is Google Zeitgeist?

Google Zeitgeist aims to reveal the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of a certain time period and place. This is done by the accumulation of millions of search queries received on a daily basis. Utilizing the efficient tools, Google gains insight into global, regional, past and present search trends.

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Google has also purchased YouTube and Android, gaining control over a magnitude of services. Its diverse services also extend to the geo-marketing segment through its purchasing of Zagat, a platform offering reviews, rating and insights of establish-ments. Google also extends its services in the financial realm through Google Wallet, a virtual wallet mobile application. Another area Google has explored is the airline industry, Google Airline, is an online ticket search service. Google Airline was faced with opposition arguing that Google would use its dominance of online searching with to gain an unfair advantage (Google Launches Airline Ticket Search, 2011). Unlike most companies, Google invests in creative human capital. Google lives up to its slogan: “Don’t be evil”. Its three main initiatives are Google Ventures, Green Initiatives and Google.org. The company utilizes its financial and technological abilities to sponsor and empower inspiring and philanthropic initiatives world-wide. Google allows its users to learn through interaction, for instance, Google constantly updates its main page with Google Doodles. This initiative allows users to transform the Google logo into fun, surprising and spontaneous variations to celebrate holi-days, special occasions and the lives of famous artists, pioneers and scientists. Doodles act as a means of deriving traffic to the site. In order to remain appealing and relevant Google must con-tinue to actively research ways to maintain its simplicity and efficiency in terms of usage and experience. For instance, Google Instant provides its users frequently searched options in a drop down menu; this feature operates as soon as a letter is typed into the search box. The drop down menu makes the Google experi-ence fast and efficient.

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