Australia Edition 5

THE MARKET

Online consumers have at their disposal incredible

quantities of information, feeds, news, blogs, maps,

images, videos, games, social networks, email,

collaborative software and more.

With the advent of new devices, more offline

content moving into cyberspace, broadband

speeds increasing and users generating more

content themselves, consumers’ lives are

increasingly being led online. In 2007, among 18-29

year oldAustralians, over 40 per cent of media time

was spent online.

Google, the world’s most widely used search

engine, is at the heart of the newmedia environment,

connectingAustralianswith information, audiences

and customers worldwide.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Google is a world-renowned brand andAustralia’s

leadingweb destination.Australians rely onGoogle

to find andmanage all sorts of information, and the

brand is committed tomaking the experience simple

and useful for them.

Google’s growing Australian presence is a

critical part of its global operations. Google

Australia was one of the first Google offices

outside the US. It’s now a vital R&D hub for

the entire Asia Pacific region. The web is an

especially vital and exciting platform for

Australian users and businesses. It helps them

to overcome the tyranny of distance and

compete in world markets. Google’s

Australian engineers work to improve

Australian users’ internet experience

and enable them to take full advantage

of the exciting potential of the internet

and Google’s suite of products.

Both globally and in Australia,

Google is far more than just a search

engine. Its range of popular products

includes Google Maps, Google Earth,

Gmail, Docs and Spreadsheets,

YouTube, Blogger, Google News, the

photo site Picasa and many more.

Google’s business is based on selling

‘sponsored links’ next to its search

results through its AdWords

programme. Thousands of Australian

businesses use AdWords to connect

with potential customers.

HISTORY

According to Google lore, company

founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin

were not terribly fond of each other

when they first met as Stanford

University graduate students in computer science

in 1995. They argued about every topic they

discussed. Their strong opinions and divergent

viewpoints would eventually find common ground

in a unique approach to solving one of computing’s

biggest challenges: retrieving relevant information

from a massive set of data.

By January of 1996, Larry andSergey had begun

collaboration on a search engine called BackRub,

named for its unique ability to analyse the “back

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