How Google make money ?

Everyone (or at least, nearly everyone) knows that Google makes money through advertising on its search engine. But how do they do that exactly? And what about all its application that does not seem to have ads on it ?

Search engine : AdSense - AdWords / Click-to-Call / Pay-per-action / Acquisition

Google.com earns most of its profits thanks to a program called AdWords.

How? By allowing other website owners to advertise on their search result pages. Advertisers pay only when an ad is clicked (called cost-per-click or CPC)

In order to be more present (to have more ads), Google has developed a program called AdSense that proposes to website owners to earn a share of its revenue from AdWords by displaying these same "sponsored links" on their site.  In other words, you're helping Google advertise and they pay you a percentage of what they earn thanks to you. 

Another online "experiment" of Google is the Click-to-Call service that allows internautes to initiate a phone call to an advertiser when a telephone icon appearing next to a text ad is clicked. 

Or "pay-per-action" advertising which is a new pricing model that allows advertisers to pay only when specific actions (such as making a purchase) are completed by a user on their site. --> Only pay for ads that works !

Moreover, Google is also expanding beyond online search advertising and is broadening its offerings to marketers. In 2006, Google acquired dMarc Broadcasting and Youtube. The first one is a radio-advertising firm that provides an automated system for purchasing radio advertising. The second one is the most visited Web site on the Internet.  One year later, Google also acquired DoubleClick, the industry leader in providing technology and services for placing ads on Web sites. 

During this same year the company launched Google TV Ads which is an online platform fo buying, selling, measuring, and delivering television commercials. The goal is to provide advertisers with more detailed and accurate information on how many people are viewing TV commercials and who these people are. 

By collecting those marketing data Google can sell them or using it for targeted advertising. 

The former way (of course still used) is to charge Web sites to become listed in Google search engine and for better placement in this list, or charging them for the purchasing of keywords for themselves. 

What about the applications of Google ?

Google has developed its applications for three reasons : 

1° To collect more marketing data on people in order to better target them and to increase the probability that those people are going to click on an ad. 

2° To put more advertising. 

More Google products = more time spend on google pages = more exposure to Google ads. 

A good example is Google Maps. For example, when tapping "The Skyline Hotel, NY", Google locates the hotel, gives us information about it such as the phone number and the official Web site, but Google also offers the possibility to book a room online at the best price!

3° To associate people with the brand, creating a positive brand image. "Google enables you to do anything on the Internet thanks to Google Maps, GMail, Google Agenda, Google Documents, Google Groups, Google Chrome, Picasa, Sketch Up, google News, Orkut, Blogger, ...  either for a business use or for personal use.

Light Touch Holographic Projector

We have already discussed in the previous topic the several possibilities offered by pico-projectors among Smartphones. However, this new topic tackles pico-projectors that use holography to interact with the user directly on the image projected.

How is it possible?

It is a projector equipped with holographic laser technology and infrared touch sensors that can register the movement of your hands. That potent mix of functionality means that you can control the projector simply by “pressing” the images it displays.

Imagine the diverse possibilities offered by this technology.

• In a restaurant, in stead of having a menu that you need to change every week (dirty, updates, ...), you could just have a tool that displays an holographic menu directly on the table where customers could directly order their meal without having to wait for the waiter to ask them what they want to eat.

• In a clothing store, you could also have such a tool to look at the different size and colors available for the dress you would like to buy. Is it in stock? Can I order it? What is the delivery time?

• In the day to day life, with the unbelievable miniaturization of electronic devices, it would be interesting to have a projector that displays query results (see the topic "smartphone"), but it would also be interesting to have a full size keyboard in such ultra small devices. This would indeed be possible thanks to this technology! You could just have a virtual holographic keyboard projected wherever you want.

Mozilla Seabird 

Smartphones

This first topic is about the evolution of smartphones for the upcoming years.

• Pico Projectors :

At the time of plasma, LCD and other full HD, this technology looks like a revolution in the field of audio visual since it would ultimately lead to a multimedia mobile providing a visual quality to meet the current trend. It is the use of a projector embedded in a handheld device that enables to project a large image that overcomes the screen size limitation in mobile electronics devices thanks to miniaturized software and hardware that enables to project digital images onto any nearby viewing surface, such as wall. 
Moreover, this has sufficient storage capacity to handle presentation materials.

Many manufacturers point the various opportunities offered by the pico-projection and the associated media that could be attributed with it. 

In the short term, most major manufacturers announce support for multimedia readers, mobile phones and laptops. iSuppli forecasts that shipments of embedded pico projectors will rise to more than 3 million units in 2013, up from less than 50,000 units this year.

For example, we have the LG eXpo, the ShowwX of Macrovision

     

• Flexible wrist smartphones or computer

When we want to buy a mobile phone or a laptop, we have to choose between:

• Big screen to promote readability and clarity, to the detriment of having a bulky device.
• Small screen for easy transport or easy placement in his pocket, with the disadvantage of having an illegible device only displaying few information at a time.

This choice is quite restrictive and annoying. Therefore, some companies have attempted to reconcile the benefits of each solution : more portable & easy to use thanks to a large screen! This led them to invent "flexible wrist smartphones"or "flexible wrist computer".

The Sony Nextep : 

A really impressive example is the device imaginated by Hiromi Kiriki for Sony. This designer created what could be the ultra-portable computer of Sony in 2020, one that we will wear like a bracelet and carry evrywhere : the Sony Nextep. 

"The OLED screens would let the Sony Nextep roll up to conform to the shape of the wearer’s wrist. When in use, the computer folds out to expose its twin holographic projector screens and split pull-out keyboard. It’s designed to keep you connected to your social networking sites at all times, so you’re never more than a few folds and clicks away from your online network." Lien

The Nokia Morph concept : 

This cellphone is just amazing, it rolls up, stretches, cleans itself, ...

This concept demonstrates some of the possibilities nanotechnologies might enable for the future! There are no words to express this ... just a video !

More information?