Google has created services and tools for the general public and business environment alike, including Web applications, advertising networks and solutions for businesses.
Advertising
99% of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs.[60] For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues.[61] Google is able to precisely track users' interests across affiliated sites using DoubleClick technology[62] and Google Analytics.[63] Google's advertisements carry a lower price tag when their human ad-rating team working around the world believes the ads improve the company's user experience.[64] Google AdWords allows Web advertisers to display advertisements in Google's search results and the Google Content Network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme.[citation needed] Google AdSense website owners can also display adverts on their own site, and earn money every time ads are clicked.[citation needed] Google began in March 2009 to use behavioral targeting based on users' interests.[65]
Google has also been criticized by advertisers regarding its inability to combat click fraud, when a person or automated script is used to generate a charge on an advertisement without really having an interest in the product. Industry reports in 2006 claim that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were in fact fraudulent or invalid.[66]
In June 2008, Google reached an advertising agreement with Yahoo!, which would have allowed Yahoo! to feature Google advertisements on their web pages. The alliance between the two companies was never completely realized due to antitrust concerns by the U.S. Department of Justice. As a result, Google pulled out of the deal in November, 2008.[67][68]
Software
The Google web search engine is the company's most popular service. As of August 2007, Google is the most used search engine on the web with a 53.6% market share, ahead of Yahoo! (19.9%) and Live Search (12.9%).[69] Google indexes billions of Web pages, so that users can search for the information they desire, through the use of keywords and operators, although at any given time it will only return a maximum of 1,000 results for any specific search query. Google has also employed the Web Search technology into other search services, including Image Search, Google News, the price comparison site Google Product Search, the interactive Usenet archive Google Groups, Google Maps, and more.
In early 2006, the company launched Google Video, which allowed users to both upload videos, and search and watch videos from the larger Internet.[70] In 2009 uploads to Google video were discontinued.[71]
Google has also developed several desktop applications, including Google Desktop, Picasa, SketchUp and Google Earth, an interactive mapping program powered by satellite and aerial imagery that covers the vast majority of the planet. Many major cities have such detailed images that one can zoom in close enough to see vehicles and pedestrians clearly. Consequently, there have been some concerns about national security implications; contention is that the software can be used to pinpoint with near-precision accuracy the physical location of critical infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings, bases, government agencies, and so on. However, the satellite images are not necessarily frequently updated, and all of them are available at no charge through other products and even government sources; the software simply makes accessing the information easier. A number of Indian state governments have raised concerns about the security risks posed by geographic details provided by Google Earth's satellite imaging.[72]
Google has promoted their products in various ways. In London, Google Space was set-up in Heathrow Airport, showcasing several products, including Gmail, Google Earth and Picasa.[73][74] Also, a similar page was launched for American college students, under the name College Life, Powered by Google.[75]
In 2007, some reports surfaced that Google was planning the release of its own mobile phone, possibly a competitor to Apple's iPhone.[76][77][78] The project, called Android, an operating system provides a standard development kit that will allow any "Android" phone to run software developed for the Android SDK, no matter the phone manufacturer. In September 2008, T-Mobile released the first phone running the Android platform, the G1.
Google Translate aka Google Language Tools is a server-side machine translation service, which can translate 35 different languages to each other, forming 595 language pairs. Browser extension tools (such as Firefox extensions) allow for easy access to Google Translate from the browser. The software uses corpus linguistics techniques from translated documents, (such as United Nations documents,[citation needed] which are professionally translated) to extract translations accurate up to 88 percent. A "suggest a better translation" feature appears with the original language text in a pop-up text field, allowing users to indicate where the current translation is incorrect or else inferior to another translation.
On 1 September 2008, Google pre-announced the upcoming availability of Google Chrome, an open-source web browser,[79] which was released on 2 September 2008.
On 7 July 2009, Google announced the project to develop Google Chrome OS, an open-source Linux-based operating system in a "window of opportunity"[80][81].
Gmail
Gmail is a free webmail, POP3 and IMAP service provided by Google. In the United Kingdom and Germany, it is officially called Google Mail.
Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007. As of July 2009 it has 146 million users monthly. The service was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009, along with the rest of the Google Apps suite.
With an initial storage capacity offer of 1 GB per user, Gmail significantly increased the webmail standard for free storage from the 2 to 4MB its competitors offered at that time. The service currently offers over 7350 MB of free storage with additional storage ranging from 10 GB to 400 GB available for $20 to $500 (US) per year.
Gmail has a search-oriented interface and a "conversation view" similar to an Internet forum. Software developers know Gmail for its pioneering use of the Ajax programming technique.
Gmail runs on Google Servlet Engine and Google GFE/1.3 which run on Linux.
Enterprise Products
Google entered the Enterprise market in February, 2002 with the launch of its Google Search Appliance, targeted toward providing search technology to larger organizations.[82] Providing search for a smaller document repository, Google launched the Mini in 2005.
Late in 2006, Google began to sell Custom Search Business Edition, providing customers with an advertising-free window into Google.com's index.[83] In 2008, Google re-branded its next version of Custom Search Business Edition as Google Site Search.[83]
In 2007, Google launched Google Apps Premier Edition, a version of Google Apps targeted primarily at the business user. It includes such extras as more disk space for e-mail, API access, and premium support, for a price of $50 per user per year. A large implementation of Google Apps with 38,000 users is at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.[84]
Also in 2007, Google acquired Postini[85] and continued to sell the acquired technology[86] as Google Security Services.[87]
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