Google Inc.

Website
www.google.com

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG and LSE: GGEA) is an American public corporation, specializing in Internet search and online advertising. The company had 9,378 full-time employees as of September 30, 2006, and is based in Mountain View, California. Google's mission statement is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998. Eric Schmidt has been Google's chief executive officer since Larry Page stepped down in 2001. The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol,"[ which refers to 10100 (the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros). The verb "google" was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."

Google is well-known for its web search service, which is a major factor of the company's success. It indexes billions of Web pages, so that users can search for the information they desire, through the use of keywords and operators. Google has also employed the Web Search technology into other search services, including Image Search, Google News, the price comparison site Froogle, the interactive Usenet archive Google Groups, Google Maps and more. In 2004, Google launched its own free web-based email service, known as Gmail. Gmail features improved spam filtering technology, combined with the capability to use Google search technology on individual email messages. The service generates revenue by displaying advertisements from the AdWords service that are tailored to the content of the email messages displayed on screen. In early 2006, the company launched Google Video, which not only allows users to search and view freely available videos, but also offers users and media publishers to publish their content, including television shows on CBS, NBA basketball games, and music videos. Google has also developed several desktop applications, including Google Earth, an interactive mapping program powered by satellite imagery. Many other products are available through Google Labs, which is a collection of incomplete applications, that are still being tested for use by the general public.