In addition to being the largest search engine on Earth, mediating tens of billions of searches daily, Google is an innovator and has diversified from being an ad-supported search platform with the development of its Android operating system and Chromebook and Nexus. All online marketers should follow Google to see the latest approaches it is trialling. 

Google’s mission is encapsulated in the statement ‘to organise the world’s information … and make it universally accessible and useful’. Google explains that it believes that the most effective, and ultimately the most profitable, way to accomplish its mission is to put the needs of its users first. Offering a high-quality user experience has led to strong word-of-mouth promotion and strong traffic growth. In its most recent SEC filing Google highlighted its commitment to research for new product development to release ‘early and often’: 

Our product development philosophy is to launch innovative products early and often, and then iterate rapidly to make those products even better. We often post early-stage products at test locations online or directly on Google.com. We then use data and user feedback to decide if and how to invest further in those products. Our research and development expenses were $5.2 billion, $6.8 billion, and $8.0 billion in 2011, 2012, and 2013, respectively. 

Further details on the culture and ethics of Google is available at www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/tenthings.html (may no longer be available, but kept for historic context). Notable tenets of the Google philosophy are: 

1 Focus on the user and all else will follow. 

2 It’s best to do one thing really, really well. 

3 You can make money without doing evil.

Putting users first is reflected in three key commitments in the Google SEC filing: 

1 We will do our best to provide the most relevant and useful search results possible, independent of financial incentives. Our search results will be objective  and we will not accept payment for inclusion or ranking in them. 

2 We will do our best to provide the most relevant and useful advertising. Advertisements should not be an annoying interruption. If any element on a search result page is influenced by payment to us, we will make it clear to our users. 

3 We will never stop working to improve our user experience, our search technology and other important areas of information organisation.  

Question 

Explain how Google generates revenue and exploits innovation in digital technology to identify future revenue growth. You should also consider the risk factors for future revenue generation.