GOOGLE

In 1998, two Stanford University Ph.D. students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founded a search engine company and named it Google. The name plays on the number googol1 followed by 100 zeroesand refers to the massive quantity of data available online that the company helps users find. Googles corporate mission is To organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful. As such, the company focuses first and foremost on creating the perfect search engine. Google search works because it uses the millions of links on other Websites to help determine which sites offer the most valuable content. The company has become the worldwide market leader for search engines through its strategic business focus and constant product innovation.

Google creates and distributes its products for free, which in turn has attracted a host of online advertisers seeking targeted advertising space. About 96 percent of its revenues come from online advertising, which means creating new advertising space is critical to its growth. Google sells advertising space on its search pages through AdWords, which is linked to specific keywords. Hundreds of thousands of companies use AdWords by buying search ads, little text-based boxes shown alongside relevant search results that advertisers pay for only when users click on them. Google also runs an advertising program called AdSense, which allows any Website to display targeted Google ads relevant to the content of its site. Website publishers earn money every time their visitors click on these ads.

In addition to offering prime online real estate for advertisers, Google adds value by providing tools so businesses can better target their ads and understand the effectiveness of their marketing. Google Analytics, for example, is free to Googles advertisers and provides a custom report detailing how Internet users found the site, what ads they saw and/or clicked on, how they behaved on the site, and how much traffic was generated.

With its ability to deploy data that enable up-to-the-minute improvements in a Web marketing program, Google supports a style of marketing in which the advertising resources and budget can be constantly monitored and optimized. Google calls this approach marketing asset management, implying that advertising should be managed like assets in a portfolio depending on the market conditions. Rather than following a marketing plan developed months in advance, companies use the real-time data collected on their campaigns to optimize their effectiveness and be more responsive to the market.

Since its launch, Google has expanded far beyond its search capabilities with numerous other products, applications, and tools that benefit consumers and businesses. The goal behind each product was to help users find the information they need and to help them get things done better, faster, and easier than before. Today, Googles wide range of products and services fall into the following categories: Web (Web Search, iGoogle, Google Chrome), Mobile (Mobile, Search for Mobile, Maps for Mobile), Media (Picasa, Google Play, Youtube.com, which Google acquired in 2006 for $1.65 billion), Geo (Earth, Maps), Home & Office (Docs, Calendar), Social (Google+, Blogger), Specialized Search (Patents, Finance, Scholarly Papers), and Innovation.

As the world becomes more mobile, Google is betting big in the mobile category. In 2008, Google launched Android, a mobile operating system that went head to head with Apples iPhone. The biggest differentiation between the two was that Android was free, open-sourced, and backed by a multimillion-dollar investment. That meant Google wanted its partners to help build and design Android over the years. The investment paid off, and by 2010, Android became the number-one mobile operating system in the market.

As Google expanded into mobile technology, it quickly became the leader in mobile advertising with a 75 percent market share for search ads and approximately 50 percent market share for all mobile ads. In 2012, Google entered the mobile device category when it purchased Motorola and launched the Nexus 7, a sleek tablet that competed directly with the iPad and Kindle. As Google looks toward the future, the company wants to offer the ultimate mobile solutionGoogle mobile devices and mobile services so users can use all of Google all the time.

Googles ultimate goal is to reach as many people as possible on the Webwhether by PC or mobile devices. The more users on the Web, the more advertising Google can sell. Googles new products not only accomplish this goal but also make the Web a more personalized experience.

Google has enjoyed great success as a company and a brand in its short lifetime. From the beginning, it has strived to be one of the good guys in the corporate world, supporting a touchy-feely work environment, strong ethics, and a famous founding credo: Dont be evil. Google currently holds a 67 percent market share for core searches in the United States, significantly greater than Microsofts 17 percent and Yahoo!s 15 percent market shares. Globally, Google holds a more dominant lead, with 85 percent market share over Yahoo!s eight (8) percent and Microsofts three (3) percent. Googles revenues topped $59 billion in 2013, and the company was ranked the second most powerful brand in the world with a brand value of $107 billion. In addition, Googles

$400 billion market capitalization in 2014 edged out companies like Walmart and Microsoft to become the second most valuable company in the world.

Questions (4 items x 10 points):

1. With a portfolio as diverse as Googles, what are the companys core brand values?
2. What pushed Google to go for the mobile market?
3. Whats next for Google? Is the company right to put so much focus on Mobile?
4. Who are Googles competitors in the mobile market? Do they stand out among their competitors? If yes, how? If not, what can their competitors do for improvement?

Rubric for grading

CRITERIA	PERFORMANCE INDICATORS	POINTS
Content	Provided theories - pieces of evidence, supporting details, and factual scenarios related to the research	8
Organization of Ideas	Expressed the outline in a clear and logical arrangement of ideas	2
Total		10

Please provide the correct answer of the 1, 2, 3 and 4 questions. Thanks