Google Earth From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Google Earth Image:GoogleEarthLogo.JPG Screenshot of Googleplex using Google Earth. Developed by Google Initial release ? Stable release 4.2.0205.5730 (Win) (November 5, 2007) 4.2.0205.5730 (Mac) (November 10, 2007) 4.2.0205.5730 (Linux) (November 13, 2007) [+/−] Preview release N/A [+/−] Written in ? OS Windows 2000, XP & Vista, Mac OS X, Linux Available in Multilingual[1] Genre Virtual globe License Proprietary Website http://earth.google.com/ Google Earth is a virtual globe program that was originally called Earth Viewer and was created by Keyhole, Inc. It maps the earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS 3D globe. It is available under three different licenses: Google Earth, a free version with limited functionality; Google Earth Plus ($20 per year), which includes additional features; and Google Earth Pro ($400 per year), which is intended for commercial use.[2] Contents [hide] * 1 Overview o 1.1 Sky mode o 1.2 Wikipedia and Panoramio integration o 1.3 Influences * 2 Specifications o 2.1 Mac version o 2.2 Linux version * 3 Resolution and accuracy * 4 National security and privacy issues * 5 Google Earth Community * 6 Copyright * 7 Google Earth Plus * 8 Google Earth Pro * 9 Flight Simulator * 10 Google Earth in Popular Culture * 11 See also o 11.1 Related information o 11.2 Google mapping services o 11.3 Other providers * 12 References * 13 External links o 13.1 Official and related sites o 13.2 Placemarks and overlays o 13.3 Unofficial guides and tips o 13.4 Tools o 13.5 Reviews [edit] Overview Formerly known as Earth Viewer, Google Earth was developed by Keyhole, Inc., a company acquired by Google in 2004. The product, renamed Google Earth in 2005, is currently available for use on personal computers running Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, Mac OS X 10.3.9 and above, Linux (released on June 12, 2006), and FreeBSD. In addition to releasing an updated Keyhole based client, Google also added the imagery from the Earth database to their web based mapping software. The release of Google Earth caused a more than tenfold increase in media coverage on virtual globes between 2005 and 2006,[3] driving public interest in geospatial technologies and applications. The viewer displays houses, the color of cars, and even the shadows of people and street signs. The degree of resolution available is based somewhat on the points of interest, but most land (except for some islands) is covered in at least 15 meters of resolution.[4] Las Vegas, Nevada and Cambridge, Massachusetts include examples of the highest resolution, at 15 cm (6 inches). Google Earth allows users to search for addresses (for some countries only), enter coordinates, or simply use the mouse to browse to a location. Google Earth also uses digital elevation model (DEM) data collected by NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). This means one can view the Grand Canyon or Mount Everest in three dimensions, instead of 2D like other map programs/sites. Since November 2006, the 3D views of many mountains, including Mount Everest, have been improved by the use of supplementary DEM data to fill the gaps in SRTM coverage.[5] Many people using the applications are adding their own data and making them available through various sources, such as the BBS or blogs mentioned in the link section below. Google Earth is able to show all kinds of images overlaid on the surface of the earth and is also a Web Map Service client. Google Earth supports managing three-dimensional Geospatial data through Keyhole Markup Language (KML). Google Earth has the capability to show 3D buildings and structures (such as bridges), which consist of users' submissions using SketchUp, a 3D modeling program. In prior versions of Google Earth (before Version 4), 3D buildings were limited to a few cities, and had poorer rendering with no textures. Many buildings and structures from around the world now have detailed 3D structures; including (but not limited to) those in the United States, Canada, Ireland, India, Japan, United Kingdom,[6] Germany, Pakistan and the cities, Amsterdam and Alexandria.[7] In August 2007, Hamburg became the first city entirely shown in 3D, including textures such as facades. The Irish town of Westport was added to Google Earth in 3D on January 16th, 2008. The 'Westport3D' model was created by 3D imaging firm AM3TD using long-distance laser scanning technology and digital photography and is the first such model of an Irish town to be created. As it was developed initially to aid Local Government in carrying out their town planning functions it includes the highest resolution photo-realistic textures to be found anywhere in Google Earth. Three-dimensional renderings are available for certain buildings and structures around the world via Google's 3D Warehouse[8] and other websites. Recently, Google added a Traffic feature which uses the same information as Google Maps' similar feature to allow users to see real-time traffic speed at loops which are located every 200 yards. [edit] Sky mode Google Earth in Sky Viewing Mode Google Earth in Sky Viewing Mode In version 4.2, released August 22, 2007, Google Earth added a Sky tool for viewing stars and astronomical images.[9] Google Sky is produced by Google through a partnership with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, the science operations center for Hubble. Dr. Alberto Conti and his co-developer Dr. Carol Christian of the Space Telescope Science Institute, plan to add the public images from 2007,[10] as well as color images of all of the archived data from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Newly released Hubble pictures will be added to the Google Sky program as soon as they are issued. New features such as multi-wavelength data, positions of major satellites and their orbits as well as educational resources will be provided to the Google Earth community and also through Christian and Conti's website for Sky. Also visible on Sky mode are constellations, stars, galaxies and animations depicting the planets in their orbits. A real-time Google Sky mashup of recent astronomical transients, using the VOEvent protocol, is being provided by the VOEventNet collaboration. Google Sky will soon face competition [1] from the upcoming product WorldWide Telescope from Microsoft, anticipated soon[2]. [edit] Wikipedia and Panoramio integration In December 2006 Google Earth added a new layer called "Geographic Web" that includes integration with Wikipedia and Panoramio. In Wikipedia, entries are scraped for coordinates via the Coord templates. If the options to show Wikipedia or Panoramio entries are selected, users will be presented with clickable dots in their current Google Earth view. When any of these dots are selected, the user will be shown the Wikipedia or Panoramio entry right in Google Earth. There is also a community-layer from the project Wikipedia-World. More coordinates are used, different types are in the display and different languages are supported than the built-in Wikipedia layer. See: *dynamic resp. static layer. Google announced on May 30, 2007 that it is acquiring Panoramio.[11] [edit] Influences The Google Earth interface bears a noted similarity to the ‘Earth’ program described in Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi classic Snow Crash. Indeed, a Google Earth co-founder claimed that Google Earth was modeled after Snow Crash, while another co-founder said it was inspired by Powers of Ten.[12] In fact Google Earth was at least partly inspired by a Silicon Graphics demo called "From Space to in Your Face" which zoomed from space into the Swiss Alps then into the Matterhorn[13]. This was a launch demo for the Infinite Reality[14] which supported Clip Mapping and was inspired by the hardware texture paging capability (although it did not use the Clip Mapping) and "Powers of Ten". The first Google Earth implementation called Earth Viewer emerged from Intrinsic Graphics as a demonstration of Chris Tanner's software based implementation of a Clip Mapping texture paging system and was spun off as Keyhole Inc. Earth Viewer was the inevitable ultimate realization of the capabilities of a seamless texture paging system and many of the individuals working on Earth Viewer were Silicon Graphics alumni. [edit] Specifications * Coordinate System and Projection o The internal coordinate system of Google Earth is geographic coordinates (latitude/longitude) on the World Geodetic System of 1984 (WGS84) datum. o Google Earth shows the earth as it looks from an elevated platform such as an airplane or orbiting satellite. The projection used to achieve this effect is called the General Perspective. This is similar to the Orthographic projection, except that the point of perspective is a finite (near earth) distance rather than an infinite (deep space) distance.[15] * Baseline resolutions o U.S.: 15 m (some states are completely in 1 m or better) o Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, England, Andorra, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Vatican City: 1 m or better o Global: Generally 15 m (some areas, such as Antarctica, are in extremely low resolution), but this depends on the quality of the satellite/aerial photograph uploaded. * Typical high resolutions o U.S.: 1 m, 0.6 m, 0.3 m, 0.15 m (extremely rare; e.g. Cambridge and Google Campus, or Glendale) o Europe : 0.3 m, 0.15 m (e.g. Berlin, Zьrich, Hamburg) * Altitude resolution: o Surface: varies by country o Seabed: Not applicable (a colorscale approximating sea floor depth is "printed" on the spherical surface). * Age: Images dates vary. The image data can be seen from squares made when DigitalGlobe Coverage is enabled. The date next to the copyright information is not the correct image date. Zooming in or out could change the date of the pictures. Most of the international urban image dates are from 2004 and have not been updated. However, most US images are kept current. Google announces imagery updates on their LatLong Blog[16] in form of a quiz, with hints of the updated locations. The answers are posted some days later in the same blog. Google Earth is unlikely to operate on older hardware configurations. The most recent downloads available document these minimum configurations: * Pentium 3, 500 MHz * 128 MB RAM * 12.7 MB free disk space (400 MB for Linux) * Network speed: 128 kb/s * 16MB 3D-capable graphics card * Resolution of 1024x768, 16-bit High Color * Windows XP or Windows 2000, Windows Vista(not Windows ME compatible), Linux and Mac OS X The most likely mode of failure is insufficient video RAM: the software is designed to warn the user if their graphics card is not able to support Earth (this often occurs due to insufficient Video RAM or buggy graphics card drivers). The next most likely mode of failure is Internet access speed. Except for the very patient, broadband Internet (Cable, DSL, T1, etc.) is required. [edit] Mac version A version for Mac OS X was released on January 10, 2006, and is available for download from the Google Earth website. With a few exceptions noted below, the Mac version appears to be stable and complete, with virtually all the same functionality as the original Windows version. Screenshots and an actual binary of the Mac version had been leaked to the Internet, on December 8, 2005. The leaked version was significantly incomplete. Among other things, neither the Help menu nor its "Display License" feature worked, indicating that this version was intended for Google's internal use only. Google released no statement regarding the leak. Currently, the Mac version runs only under Mac OS X version 10.4 or later. There is no embedded browser and no direct interface to Gmail. There are a few bugs concerning the menu bar when switching between applications and a few bugs concerning annotation balloons and printing. From version 4.1.7076.4558 (released on May 9, 2007) onward, Mac OS X users can now, among other new features, upgrade to the "Plus" version via an option in the Google Earth menu.[17] Some users reported difficulties with Google Earth crashing in the latest version when zooming in.[18] [edit] Linux version Starting with the version 4 beta, Google Earth functions under Linux, as a native port using the Qt-toolkit. It is proprietary software specifically in order to impose Digital Rights Management, and the Free Software Foundation consider one of the High Priority Free Software Projects to develop a free compatible client for Google Earth. Minimum System Requirements[19] * Kernel: 2.4 or later * CPU: Pentium III, 500 MHz * System Memory (RAM): 128 MB * Hard Disk: 400 MB free space * Network Speed: 128 kbit/s * Screen: 1024x768, 16 bit color * Tested and works on the following distributions: * Ubuntu 5.10/6.06/6.10/7.04/7.10 * SUSE 10.1/10.2/10.3 * Fedora Core 4/5/6/7 * Linspire 5.1 * Gentoo 2006.0 * Debian 3.1/4 * Red Hat 9 * Slackware 11.0 * FreeBSD 6.1/7.0 with Linux Emulation * Arch Linux 0.7.2 Duke * Xandros 3.0.3 Business Edition * Mandriva 2007 * Sabayon Linux 3.26 * PCLinuxOS 5.0 [edit] Resolution and accuracy The Isles of Scilly, showing the very low resolution of some islands. The islands (green area) are about 10 km across.49°56′10.81″N 6°19′22.88″W / 49.9363361, -6.3230222 (Low resolution Isles of Scilly) The Isles of Scilly, showing the very low resolution of some islands. The islands (green area) are about 10 km across. [show location on an interactive map] 49°56′10.81″N 6°19′22.88″W / 49.9363361, -6.3230222 (Low resolution Isles of Scilly) The west side of Gibraltar, tilted view showing the sea rising up the Rock of Gibraltar - claimed altitude of the sea just off the beach at Elliots Memorial, 252 m. 36°6′59.6″N 5°21′5.2″W / 36.116556, -5.351444 (Water altitude problem in Google Earth) The west side of Gibraltar, tilted view showing the sea rising up the Rock of Gibraltar - claimed altitude of the sea just off the beach at Elliots Memorial, 252 m. [show location on an interactive map] 36°6′59.6″N 5°21′5.2″W / 36.116556, -5.351444 (Water altitude problem in Google Earth) Most land areas are covered in satellite imagery with a resolution of about 15 m per pixel. Some population centers are also covered by aircraft imagery (orthophotography) with several pixels per meter. Oceans are covered at a much lower resolution, as are a number of islands; notably, the Isles of Scilly off southwest England, are at a resolution of about 500 m or less. These pictures are provided by Terrametrics. Google has resolved many inaccuracies in the vector mapping since the original public release of the software, without requiring an update to the program itself. An example of this was the absence from Google Earth's map boundaries of the Nunavut territory in Canada, a territory that had been created on April 1, 1999; this mistake was corrected by one of the data updates in early 2006. Recent updates have also increased the coverage of detailed aerial photography, particularly in certain areas of western Europe, though not including Ireland where imagery remains extremely limited. The images are not all taken at the same time, but are generally current to within three years. Image sets are sometimes not correctly stitched together. Updates to the photographic database can occasionally be noticed when drastic changes take place in the appearance of the landscape, like for example Google Earth's incomplete updates of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, or when placemarks appear to shift unexpectedly across the Earth's surface. Though the placemarks have not in fact moved, the imagery is composed and stitched differently. Such an update to London's photography in early 2006 created shifts of 15-20 metres in many areas, noticeable because the resolution is so high. Place name and road detail vary greatly from place to place. They are most accurate in North America and Europe, but regular mapping updates are improving coverage elsewhere. Errors sometimes occur due to the technology used to measure the height of terrain; for example, tall buildings in Adelaide cause one part of the city to be rendered as a small mountain, when it is in fact flat. The height of the Eiffel Tower creates a similar effect in the rendering of Paris. Also, elevations below sea level are presented as sea level; i.e. Salton City, California; Death Valley; and the Dead Sea are all listed as 0 m when Salton City is −38 m; Death Valley is −86 m; and the Dead Sea is −420 m. Where no 3 arc second digital elevation data was available, the three dimensional images covering some areas of high relief are not at all accurate, but most mountain areas are now well mapped. The underlying digital elevation model has been placed 3 arc seconds too far north and up to 3 arc seconds too far west. This means that some steep mountain ridges incorrectly appear to have shadows extending over onto their south facing sides. Some high resolution images have also been misplaced, an example is the image covering Annapurna, which is misplaced by about 12 arc seconds. Elevation data was recently updated to 10-meter (1/3-arc-second) resolution for much of the United States from the previous 30-meter (1-arc-second) resolution. The "Measure" function shows that the length of equator is about 40,030.24 km, giving an error of −0.112% compared with the actual value of 40,075.02 km Earth; for the meridional circumference, it shows a length of about 39,963.13 km, also giving an error of −0.112% compared with the actual value of 40,007.86 km. On December 16, 2007, most of Antarctica was updated to a 15m resolution using imagery from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Australia; (1m resolution images of some parts of Antarctica were added in June 2007); however, the Arctic polar ice cap is completely absent from the current version of Google Earth, as are waves in the oceans. The geographic North Pole is found hovering over the Arctic Ocean and the tiling system produces artifacts near the poles as the tiles become 'infinitely' small and rounding errors accumulate. Cloud cover and shadows can make it difficult or impossible to see details in some land areas, including the shadow side of mountains. [edit] National security and privacy issues The software has been criticized by a number of special interest groups, including national officials, as being an invasion of privacy and even posing a threat to national security. The typical argument is that the software provides information about military or other critical installations that could be used by terrorists. The following is a selection of such concerns: * Former Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam has expressed concern over the availability of high-resolution pictures of sensitive locations in India.[20] Google subsequently agreed to censor such sites.[21] * The Indian Space Research Organisation has said Google Earth poses a security threat to India, and seeks dialogue with Google officials.[22] * The South Korean government has expressed concern that the software offers images of the presidential palace and various military installations that could possibly be used by their hostile neighbor North Korea.[23] * In 2006, one user spotted a large topographical replica in a remote region of China. The model is a small-scale (1/500) version of the Karakoram Mountain Range, currently under the control of China but claimed by India. When later confirmed as a replica of this region, spectators began entertaining military implications.[24][25] * The Area 51 base in the Nevada desert is clearly visible, with no evidence of intentional obstruction or blurring. * Morocco's main Internet provider Maroc Telecom has been blocking Google Earth[26] since August 2006 without giving any justification for it. * Operators of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney, New South Wales asked Google to censor high resolution pictures of the facility.[27] However, they later withdrew the request.[28] * In July 2007, it was reported that a new Chinese navy Jin-class nuclear ballistic missile submarine was photographed at the Xiaopingdao Submarine Base south of Dalian.[29] * In October 2007, The Guardian reported that al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades were using Google Earth to plan Qassam rocket attacks on Israel.[30] * It is also possible to view the United Nations Headquarters without any obstructions. Blurred out image of the Royal Stables in The Hague, Netherlands. Blurred out image of the Royal Stables in The Hague, Netherlands. Some citizens may express concerns over aerial information depicting their properties and residences being disseminated freely. As relatively few jurisdictions actually guarantee the individual's right to privacy, as opposed to the state's right to secrecy, this is an evolving, but minor, point. Perhaps aware of these critiques[citation needed], for a time, Google had Area 51 (which is highly visible and easy to find) in Nevada as a default placemark when Google Earth is first installed. As a result of pressure from the United States government, the residence of the Vice President at Number One Observatory Circle is obscured through pixelization in Google Earth and Google Maps. The usefulness of this downgrade is questionable, as high-resolution photos and aerial surveys of the property are readily available on the Internet elsewhere.[31] Capitol Hill used to also be pixelized in this way but this was lifted. Critics have expressed concern over the willingness of Google to cripple their dataset to cater to special interests, believing that intentionally obscuring any land goes against its stated goal of letting the user "point and zoom to any place on the planet that you want to explore". Finally, empirical research has shown that while Google does allow people to opt-out from personal listings, a vast majority of people can still be geographically located using phone numbers. [32] [edit] Google Earth Community The Google Earth Community is an online forum[33] which is dedicated to producing placemarks of interesting or educational perspectives. It may be found on the Google Earth webpage or under the Help section on the program itself. After downloading a placemark, it will automatically run Google Earth (if not opened), and fly to the area specified by the person who placed it. Once there, you can add it to your "My Places" by right clicking on the icon and selecting "Save to My Places". Additionally, anyone can post a placemark for others to download; as long as you have an account. Google earth also can be used to locate "disasters". Currently a user can find these items within the google earth community. An example is a capsized ship off the shore ( [show location on an interactive map] 69°15′32.22″N 33°14′17.11″E / 69.25895, 33.2380861 (GE Community: Capsized ship)) or a burning car, on A3 autobahn near Gieslenberg, N of Leverkusen, Germany ( [show location on an interactive map] 51°4′47.04″N 6°59′17.77″E / 51.0797333, 6.9882694 (GE Community: Burning car)). [edit] Copyright Currently, every image created from Google Earth using satellite data provided by Google Earth is a copyrighted map. Any derivative from Google Earth is made from copyrighted data which, under United States Copyright Law, may not be used except under the licenses Google provides. Google allows non-commercial personal use of the images (e.g. on a personal website or blog) as long as copyrights and attributions are preserved.[34] By contrast, images created with NASA's globe software World Wind use the Blue Marble, Landsat or USGS layer, each of which is a terrain layer in the public domain. Works created by an agency of the United States government are public domain at the moment of creation. This means that those images can be freely modified, re-distributed and used for commercial purposes. [edit] Google Earth Plus Google Earth can be upgraded to a Plus edition for a $20 annual subscription fee. Google Earth Plus is an individual-oriented paid subscription upgrade to Google Earth and adds the following features: * GPS integration: read tracks and waypoints from a GPS device. A variety of third party applications have been created which provide this functionality using the basic version of Google Earth by generating KML or KMZ files based on user-specified or user-recorded waypoints. However, Google Earth Plus provides direct support for the Magellan and Garmin product lines, which together hold a large share of the GPS market. The Linux version of the Google Earth Plus application does not include any GPS functionality. * Higher resolution printing. * Customer support via email. * Data importer: read address points from CSV files; limited to 100 points/addresses. A feature allowing path and polygon annotations, which can be exported to KML, was formerly only available to Plus users, but was made free in version 4.0.2416. * Higher data download speeds [edit] Google Earth Pro For a $400 annual subscription fee, Google Earth Pro is a business-oriented upgrade to Google Earth that has more features than the Plus version. The Pro version includes add-on software such as: * Movie making. * GIS data importer. * Advanced printing modules. These used to cost extra in addition to the $400 fee but have recently been included in the package.[35] [edit] Flight Simulator In Google Earth v4.2, a flight simulator was included as a hidden feature. It can be accessed by holding Control+Alt+A or Control+A at the same time. It can be accessed on Mac OS X by holding Command+Option+A. After this feature has been activated at least once it appears under the tools menu. As of right now the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the Cirrus SR-22 are the only aircraft that can be used, in addition to a few airports.[36] * Google Earth Flight Simulator Controls It is also possible to control the simulator with a joystick, although not all models are currently supported. Screenshot of "Audioslave Nation" Screenshot of "Audioslave Nation" [edit] Google Earth in Popular Culture * Google Earth is regularly shown in the TV program Dog The Bounty Hunter, when a certain felon's house or other location is shown. * Google Earth is used by news channels such as the BBC, CNN, Citytv, ESPN, Fox News, and The Weather Network. * Throughout the film Crank, various locations in Los Angeles, where the film's action takes place, are shown with images from Google Earth. The Google Earth logo can be seen in the bottom right-hand corner of the images. * As a special promotional campaign of Audioslave's 2006 album Revelations, there was a fictional utopian island created in Google Earth's South Pacific. The "Audioslave Nation" continent, a downloadable add-on, had a shape of the band's flame logo designed by Storm Thorgerson. * In the song "Success" by Jay-Z featuring Nas. Nas says "Google Earth Nas, I got flats in other continents." [edit] See also * Google Maps * Google Mars * Google Moon [edit] Related information * Web mapping * Geoweb * NASA World Wind * Yinchuan - subject to an Internet phenomenon originating on Google Earth forum. [edit] Google mapping services * List of Google services and tools * Google Maps o Google Moon o Google Mars [edit] Other providers * DigitalGlobe — the provider of high resolution imagery to Google Earth * EarthSat * GeoEye * GlobeXplorer * Pictometry * Spot Image * ViewGL - updated aerial imagery for Google Earth [edit] References 1. ^ Available in English, Swahili, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Traditional Chinese 2. ^ Google Earth Product Family. Retrieved on 2007-08-05. 3. ^ Media Coverage of Geospatial Platforms. Retrieved on 2007-08-05. 4. ^ Google Earth Coverage: Maps showing a visual representation of Google Earth coverage 5. ^ Google Earth Community: Nov. 23rd - Thanksgiving Day imagery update. 6. ^ Skyscraper News Google Earth 7. ^ infopot.tk 8. ^ 3D Warehouse 9. ^ Explore the sky with Google Earth. Google (2007-08-22). Retrieved on 2007-08-22. 10. ^ Celestial add-on points Google Earth at the stars - tech - 22 August 2007 - New Scientist Tech 11. ^ Google is planning to acquire Panoramio. google.com. 12. ^ Avi Bar-Ze’ev (from Keyhole, the precursor to Google Earth) on origin of Google Earth 13. ^ http://bnhsu.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/google-earth-from-space-to-your-face%E2%80%A6and-beyond/ 14. ^ http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/ir_techreport.html 15. ^ GE Projection 16. ^ Google Earth 17. ^ Google Earth 4.2.180.1134 - MacUpdate. 18. ^ Google Earth Community: Viewing forum: Google Earth for Mac OS X. 19. ^ Google Earth 20. ^ "Kalam Concerned Over Google Earth". Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 21. ^ "Google Earth agrees to blur pix of key Indian sites". 22. ^ "Google Earth Poses Security Threat to India, ISRO Chief seeks Dialogue". Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 23. ^ "Google Earth images compromise secret installations in S. Korea". Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 24. ^ "Chinese X-file excites spotters". Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 25. ^ "From sky, see how China builds model of Indian border 2400 km away". Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 26. ^ Message au monde - Message to the world 27. ^ "Google Earth prompts security fears". Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 28. ^ " Aussie Nuclear Reactor on Google Earth". Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 29. ^ "New Chinese Ballistic Missile Submarine Spotted". Retrieved on 2007-07-10. 30. ^ Inside Gaza: 'Resistance is our strategy' 31. ^ Eyeballing the US Vice Presidential Residence. 32. ^ "The Creative Reconstruction of the Internet: Google and the Privatization of Cyberspace and DigiPlace". 33. ^ Google Earth Community: Viewing list of forums 34. ^ Google Earth Help Center: Can I post images to the web? 35. ^ Which version of Google Earth is right for you?. 36. ^ Marco's Blog: Google Earth Flight Simulator

:


Google From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the corporation. For the search engine, see Google Search. For other uses, see Google (disambiguation). Google Inc. Type Public (NASDAQ: GOOG), (LSE: GGEA) Founded Menlo Park, California (September 7, 1998)[1] Headquarters Mountain View, California, USA Key people Eric E. Schmidt, CEO/Director Sergey Brin, Co-Founder, Technology President Larry Page, Co-Founder, Products President George Reyes, CFO Industry Internet, Computer software Products See list of Google products Revenue US$16.593 billion ▲56% (2007)[2] Net income US$4.203 billion ▲25% (2007)[2] Total assets US$25.335 billion (2007)[2] Total equity US$22.689 billion (2007)[2] Employees 16,805 (December 31, 2007)[3] Slogan Don't be evil Website www.google.com Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG and LSE: GGEA) is an American public corporation, earning revenue from online and mobile advertising related to its Internet search, web-based e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. Google's headquarters, the Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California, and the company has 16,805 full-time employees (as of December 31, 2007).[3] It is the largest American company (by market capitalization) that is not part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (as of October 31st, 2007).[4] Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998. Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising US$1.67 billion, making it worth US$23 billion. Google has continued its growth through a series of new product developments, acquisitions, and partnerships. Environmentalism, philanthropy, and positive employee relations have been important tenets during Google's growth, the latter resulting in being identified multiple times as Fortune Magazine's #1 Best Place to Work.[5] The company's unofficial slogan is "Don't be evil", however Google is not without controversy related to its business practices; there are concerns regarding the privacy of personal information, copyright, censorship, and discontinuation of services. Contents [hide] * 1 History o 1.1 Financing and initial public offering o 1.2 Growth o 1.3 Acquisitions o 1.4 Partnerships * 2 Products and services o 2.1 Advertising o 2.2 Web-based software o 2.3 Enterprise products * 3 Platform * 4 Corporate affairs and culture o 4.1 Googleplex o 4.2 ITO o 4.3 Easter eggs and April Fool's Day jokes o 4.4 IPO and culture o 4.5 Philanthropy * 5 Criticism * 6 See also * 7 References * 8 Further reading * 9 External links History Google in 1998 Google in 1998 Main article: History of Google Google began in January 1996, as a research project by Larry Page, who was soon joined by Sergey Brin, two Ph.D. students at Stanford University, California.[6] They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page.[7] Their search engine was originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked backlinks to estimate a site's importance.[8] A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy.[9] Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. Originally, the search engine used the Stanford University website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997,[10] and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. The total initial investment raised for the new company eventually amounted to almost US$1.1 million, including a US$100,000 check by Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.[11] In March 1999, the company moved into offices in Palo Alto, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups.[12] After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003.[13] The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since come to be known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex, a 1 followed by a googol zeros). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for US$319 million.[14] The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design and usability.[15] In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords.[6] The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed.[6] Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and clickthroughs, with bidding starting at US$.05 per click.[6] This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Goto.com (later renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing).[16][17][18] While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.[6] The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol",[19][20] which refers to 10100, the number represented by a 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, 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."[21][22] A patent describing part of Google's ranking mechanism (PageRank) was granted on September 4, 2001.[23] The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor. Financing and initial public offering The first funding for Google as a company was secured in the form of a US$100,000 contribution from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given to a corporation which did not yet exist.[24] Around six months later, a much larger round of funding was announced, with the major investors being rival venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.[24] Google's IPO took place on August 19, 2004. 19,605,052 shares were offered at a price of US$85 per share.[25][26] Of that, 14,142,135 (another mathematical reference as √2 ≈ 1.4142135) were floated by Google and 5,462,917 by selling stockholders. The sale of US$1.67 billion, and gave Google a market capitalization of more than US$23 billion.[27] The vast majority of Google's 271 million shares remained under Google's control. Many of Google's employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefited from the IPO because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google as of August 9, 2004, ten days before the IPO.[28] Google's stock performance after its first IPO launch has gone well, with shares hitting US$700 for the first time on October 31, 2007,[29] due to strong sales and earnings in the advertising market, as well as the release of new features such as the desktop search function and its iGoogle personalized home page.[30] The surge in stock price is fueled primarily by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.[30] The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG and under the London Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GGEA Growth While the company's primary business interest is in the web content arena, Google has begun experimenting with other markets, such as radio and print publications. On January 17, 2006, Google announced that its purchase of a radio advertising company "dMarc", which provides an automated system that allows companies to advertise on the radio.[31] This will allow Google to combine two niche advertising media—the Internet and radio—twith Google's ability to laser-focus on the tastes of consumers. Google has also begun an experiment in selling advertisements from its advertisers in offline newspapers and magazines, with select advertisements in the Chicago Sun-Times.[32] They have been filling unsold space in the newspaper that would have normally been used for in-house advertisements. Google was added to the S&P 500 index on March 30, 2006. It replaced Burlington Resources, a major oil producer based in Houston which was acquired by ConocoPhillips. Acquisitions See also: List of Google acquisitions Since 2001, Google has acquired several small start-up companies, often consisting of innovative teams and products. One of the earlier companies that Google bought was Pyra Labs. They were the creators of Blogger, a weblog publishing platform, first launched in 1999. This acquisition led to many premium features becoming free. Pyra Labs was originally formed by Evan Williams, yet he left Google in 2004. In early 2006, Google acquired Upstartle, a company responsible for the online word processor, Writely. The technology in this product was used by Google to eventually create Google Docs & Spreadsheets. In February 2006, software company Adaptive Path sold Measure Map, a weblog statistics application, to Google. Registration to the service has since been temporarily disabled. The last update regarding the future of Measure Map was made on April 6, 2006 and outlined many of the service's known issues.[33] In late 2006, Google bought online video site YouTube for US$1.65 billion in stock.[34] Shortly after, on October 31, 2006, Google announced that it had also acquired JotSpot, a developer of wiki technology for collaborative Web sites.[35] On April 13, 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick. Google agreed to buy the company for US$3.1 billion.[36] On July 9, 2007, Google announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire enterprise messaging security and compliance company Postini.[37] Partnerships In 2005, Google entered into partnerships with other companies and government agencies to improve production and services. Google announced a partnership with NASA Ames Research Center to build up 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 mІ) of offices and work on research projects involving large-scale data management, nanotechnology, distributed computing, and the entrepreneurial space industry.[38] Google also entered into a partnership with Sun Microsystems in October to help share and distribute each other's technologies.[39] The company entered into a partnership with Time Warner's AOL,[40] to enhance each other's video search services. The same year, the company became a major financial investor of the new .mobi top-level domain for mobile devices, in conjunction with several other companies, including Microsoft, Nokia, and Ericsson among others.[41] In September 2007, Google launched, "Adsense for Mobile", a service for its publishing partners which provides the ability to monetize their mobile websites through the targeted placement of mobile text ads,[42] and acquired the mobile social networking site, Zingku.mobi, to "provide people worldwide with direct access to Google applications, and ultimately the information they want and need, right from their mobile devices."[43] In 2006, Google and News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media entered into a US$900 million agreement to provide search and advertising on the popular social networking site, MySpace.[44] Products and services Main article: List of Google products Google has created services and tools for the general public and business environment alike; including Web applications, advertising networks and solutions for businesses. Advertising Most of Google's revenue is derived from advertising programs. For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported US$10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only US$112 million in licensing and other revenues.[45] 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. Google AdSense website owners can also display adverts on their own site, and earn money every time ads are clicked. Web-based 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%).[46] Google 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 Google Product Search, the interactive Usenet archive Google Groups, Google Maps, and more. In 2004, Google launched its own free web-based e-mail service, known as Gmail (or Google Mail in some jurisdictions).[47] Gmail features spam-filtering technology and the capability to use Google technology to search e-mail. The service generates revenue by displaying advertisements from the AdWords service that are tailored to the content of the e-mail 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 the ability to publish their content, including television shows on CBS, NBA basketball games, and music videos.[48] In August 2007, Google announced that it would shut down its video rental and sale program and offer refunds and Google Checkout credits to consumers who had purchased videos to own. On February 28, 2008 Google launched the Google Sites wiki as a Google Apps component. Google has also developed several desktop applications, including Google Earth, an interactive mapping program powered by satellite and aerial imagery that covers the vast majority of the planet. Google Earth is generally considered to be remarkably accurate and extremely detailed. 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. Specifically, some countries and militaries contend 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. For example, NASA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Some counter this argument by stating that Google Earth makes it easier to access and research the images. 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. 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.[49][50] Also, a similar page was launched for American college students, under the name College Life, Powered by Google.[51] In 2007, some reports surfaced that Google was planning the release of its own mobile phone, possibly a competitor to Apple's iPhone.[52][53][54] The project, called Android 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 October 2007, Google SMS service was launched in India allowing users to get business listings, movie showtimes, and information by sending an SMS. Enterprise products 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 US$50 per user per year. A large implementation of Google Apps with 38,000 users is at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.[55] Platform Main article: Google platform Google runs its services on several server farms, each comprising thousands of low-cost commodity computers running stripped-down versions of Linux. While the company divulges no details of its hardware, a 2006 estimate cites 450,000 servers, "racked up in clusters at data centers around the world."[56] Corporate affairs and culture A license plate seen in the Googleplex parking lot. A license plate seen in the Googleplex parking lot. Google is known for its relaxed corporate culture, of which its playful variations on its own corporate logo are an indicator. In 2007 and 2008, Fortune Magazine placed Google at the top of its list of the hundred best places to work.[5] Google's corporate philosophy embodies such casual principles as "you can make money without doing evil," "you can be serious without a suit," and "work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun."[57] Google has been criticized for having salaries below industry standards.[58] For example, some system administrators earn no more than US$35,000 per year – considered to be quite low for the Bay Area job market.[59] However, Google's stock performance following its IPO has enabled many early employees to be competitively compensated by participation in the corporation's remarkable equity growth.[60] Google implemented other employee incentives in 2005, such as the Google Founders' Award, in addition to offering higher salaries to new employees. Google's workplace amenities, culture, global popularity, and strong brand recognition have also attracted potential applicants. After the company's IPO in August 2004, it was reported that founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and CEO Eric Schmidt, requested that their base salary be cut to US$1.00.[61] Subsequent offers by the company to increase their salaries have been turned down, primarily because, "their primary compensation continues to come from returns on their ownership stakes in Google. As significant stockholders, their personal wealth is tied directly to sustained stock price appreciation and performance, which provides direct alignment with stockholder interests."[61] Prior to 2004, Schmidt was making US$250,000 per year, and Page and Brin each earned a salary of US$150,000.[61] They have all declined recent offers of bonuses and increases in compensation by Google's board of directors. In a 2007 report of the United States' richest people, Forbes reported that Sergey Brin and Larry Page were tied for #5 with a net worth of US$18.5 billion each.[62] Googleplex The Googleplex The Googleplex Main article: Googleplex Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, is referred to as "the Googleplex" in a play of words; a googolplex being 1 followed by a googol of zeros, and the HQ being a complex of buildings (cf. multiplex, cineplex, etc). The lobby is decorated with a piano, lava lamps, old server clusters, and a projection of search queries on the wall. The hallways are full of exercise balls and bicycles. Each employee has access to the corporate recreation center. Recreational amenities are scattered throughout the campus and include a workout room with weights and rowing machines, locker rooms, washers and dryers, a massage room, assorted video games, Foosball, a baby grand piano, a pool table, and ping pong. In addition to the rec room, there are snack rooms stocked with various foods and drinks.[63] Sign at the Googleplex Sign at the Googleplex In 2006, Google moved into 311,000 square feet (28,900 mІ) of office space in New York City, at 111 Eighth Ave. in Manhattan.[64] The office was specially designed and built for Google and houses its largest advertising sales team, which has been instrumental in securing large partnerships, most recently deals with MySpace and AOL.[64] In 2003, they added an engineering staff in New York City, which has been responsible for more than 100 engineering projects, including Google Maps, Google Spreadsheets, and others.[64] It is estimated that the building costs Google US$10 million per year to rent and is similar in design and functionality to its Mountain View headquarters, including foosball, air hockey, and ping-pong tables, as well as a video game area.[64] In November 2006, Google opened offices on Carnegie Mellon's campus in Pittsburgh.[65] By late 2006, Google also established a new headquarters for its AdWords division in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[66] The size of Google's search system is presently undisclosed. The best estimates place the total number of the company's servers at 450,000, spread over twenty five locations throughout the world, including major operations centers in Dublin (European Operations Headquarters) and Atlanta, Georgia. Google is also in the process of constructing a major operations center in The Dalles, Oregon, on the banks of the Columbia River. The site, also referred to by the media as Project 02, was chosen due to the availability of inexpensive hydroelectric power and a large surplus of fiber optic cable, remnants of the dot com boom of the late 1990s. The computing center is estimated to be the size of two football fields, and it has created hundreds of construction jobs, causing local real estate prices to increase 40%. Upon completion, the center is expected to create 60 to 200 permanent jobs in the town of 12,000 people.[67] Google is taking steps to ensure that their operations are environmentally sound. In October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of solar panels to provide up to 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the campus' energy needs.[68] The system will be the largest solar power system constructed on a U.S. corporate campus and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world.[68] In June 2007, Google announced that they plan to become carbon neutral by 2008, which includes investing in energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and purchasing carbon offsets, such as investing in projects like capturing and burning methane from animal waste at Mexican and Brazilian farms. ITO As an interesting motivation technique (usually called Innovation Time Off), all Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them. Some of Google's newer services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense originated from these independent endeavors.[69] In a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, stated that her analysis showed that half of the new product launches originated from the 20% time.[70] Easter eggs and April Fool's Day jokes Main article: Google's hoaxes Google has a tradition of creating April Fool's Day jokes—such as Google MentalPlex, which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web.[71] In 2002, they claimed that pigeons were the secret behind their growing search engine.[72] In 2004, they featured Google Lunar (which claimed to feature jobs on the moon),[73] and in 2005, a fictitious brain-boosting drink, termed Google Gulp was announced.[74] In 2006, they came up with Google Romance, a hypothetical online dating service.[75] In 2007, Google announced two joke products. The first was a free wireless Internet service called TiSP (Toilet Internet Service Provider) [76] in which one obtained a connection by flushing one end of a fiber-optic cable down their toilet and waiting only an hour for a "Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)" to connect it to the Internet.[76] Additionally, Google's Gmail page displayed an announcement for Gmail Paper, which allows users of their free email service to have email messages printed and shipped to a snail mail address.[77] Some thought the announcement of Gmail in 2004 around April Fool's Day (as well as the doubling of Gmail's storage space to two gigabytes in 2005) was a joke, although both of these turned out to be genuine announcements. In 2005, a comedic graph depicting Google's goal of "infinity plus one" GB of storage was featured on the Gmail homepage. Google's services contain a number of Easter eggs; for instance, the Language Tools page offers the search interface in the Swedish Chef's "Bork bork bork," Pig Latin, ”Hacker” (actually leetspeak), Elmer Fudd, and Klingon.[78] In addition, the search engine calculator provides the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[79] As Google's search box can be used as a unit converter (as well as a calculator), some non-standard units are built in, such as the Smoot. Google also routinely modifies its logo in accordance with various holidays or special events throughout the year, such as Christmas, Mother's Day, or the birthdays of various notable individuals.[80] IPO and culture Many people speculated that Google's IPO would inevitably lead to changes in the company's culture,[81] because of shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions and short-term advances, or because a large number of the company's employees would suddenly become millionaires on paper. In a report given to potential investors, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page promised that the IPO would not change the company's culture.[82] Later Mr. Page said, "We think a lot about how to maintain our culture and the fun elements. We spent a lot of time getting our offices right. We think it's important to have a high density of people. People are packed together everywhere. We all share offices. We like this set of buildings because it's more like a densely packed university campus than a typical suburban office park."[83] However, many analysts are finding that as Google grows, the company is becoming more "corporate". In 2005, articles in The New York Times and other sources began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy.[84][85][86] In an effort to maintain the company's unique culture, Google has designated a Chief Culture Officer in 2006, who also serves as the Director of Human Resources. The purpose of the Chief Culture Officer is to develop and maintain the culture and work on ways to keep true to the core values that the company was founded on in the beginning — a flat organization, a lack of hierarchy, a collaborative environment.[87] Philanthropy Main article: Google.org In 2004, Google formed a non-profit philanthropic wing, Google.org, with a start-up fund of US$1 billion.[88] The express mission of the organization is to create awareness about climate change, global public health, and global poverty. One of its first projects is to develop a viable plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can attain 100 mpg. The founding and current director is Dr. Larry Brilliant.[89] Criticism Main article: Criticism of Google As it has grown, Google has found itself the focus of several controversies related to its business practices and services. For example, Google Book Search's effort to digitize millions of books and make the full text searchable has led to copyright disputes with the Authors Guild. Google's cooperation with the governments of China, and to a lesser extent France and Germany (regarding Holocaust denial) to filter search results in accordance to regional laws and regulations has led to claims of censorship. Google's persistent cookie and other information collection practices have led to concerns over user privacy. As of December 11, 2007, Google, like the Microsoft search engine, stores "personal information for 18 months" and by comparison, Yahoo! and AOL (Time Warner) "retain search requests for 13 months".[90] A number of Indian state governments have raised concerns about the security risks posed by geographic details provided by Google Earth's satellite imaging.[91] 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.[92] Further, Google has faced allegations of sexism and ageism from former employees.[93][94] See also * Gmail - Google's free Web-Based e-mail service * Google Translate - Google's Web translator * Googlebot - Google's Web crawler * Google China - Chinese subsidiary of Google Web search * Google File System - Google's internal distributed file system * Google Platform - Google's server and system hardware architecture with geographic references * Google logo * Search engine * TrustRank References 1. ^ (April 29, 2004) "The Rise of Google". USA Today. Retrieved on 2007-08-01.  2. ^ a b c d Financial Tables. Google Investor Relations. Retrieved on 2008-01-31. 3. ^ a b Google Announces Fourth Quarter And Fiscal Year 2007 Results (January 31, 2008). Retrieved on 2008-01-31. 4. ^ Google’s Surge Would Make Casey Kasem Proud. Wall Street Journal (October 31, 2007). Retrieved on 2008-01-21. 5. ^ a b "100 Best Companies to Work For 2007." Fortune Magazine (link published by CNN). January 22, 2007. Retrieved on January 8, 2007. 6. ^ a b c d e "Corporate Information: Google Milestones." Google. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. 7. ^ Page, Lawrence; Brin, Sergey; Motwani, Rajeev; Winograd, Terry. "The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web." November 11, 1999. 8. ^ Battelle, John. "The Birth of Google." Wired Magazine. August, 2005. 9. ^ Li, Yanhong. "Toward a qualitative search engine." Internet Computing, IEEE. 2 (4), July-August, 1998, 24-29. 10. ^ WHOIS - google.com. Retrieved on 2007-08-10. 11. ^ Google. "Google Milestones." Retrieved on July 12, 2006. 12. ^ Fried, Ian. "A building blessed with tech success." CNET. October 4, 2002. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 13. ^ Olsen, Stefanie. "Google's movin' on up." CNET. July 11, 2003. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 14. ^ Staff Writer. "Google to buy headquarters building from Silicon Graphics." Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal. June 16, 2006. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 15. ^ Thompson, Bill. "Is Google good for you?" BBC News. December 19, 2003. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 16. ^ Sullivan, Danny. "GoTo Going Strong." The Search Engine Report. July 1, 1998. 17. ^ Pelline, Jeff. "Pay-for-placement gets another shot." CNET. February 19, 1998. 18. ^ Glaser, Ken. "Who Will GoTo.com?" OnlinePress.com. February 20, 1998. 19. ^ Koller, David. "Origin of the name, "Google." Stanford University. January, 2004. 20. ^ Hanley, Rachael. "From Googol to Google: Co-founder returns." The Stanford Daily. February 12, 2003. Retrieved on July 14, 2006. 21. ^ Harris, Scott D. "Dictionary adds verb: to google[dead link – history]." San Jose Mercury News. July 7, 2006. Retrieved on July 7, 2006. 22. ^ Bylund, Anders. "To Google or Not to Google[dead link – history]." The Motley Fool via MSNBC. July 5, 2006. Retrieved on July 7, 2006. 23. ^ Page, Lawrence. "Method for node ranking in a linked database." European Patent Organisation. September 4, 2001. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 24. ^ a b Kopytoff, Verne; Fost, Dan. "For early Googlers, key word is $$$." San Francisco Chronicle. April 29, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 25. ^ Elgin, Ben. "Google: Whiz Kids or Naughty Boys?" Business Week. August 19, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 26. ^ http://investor.google.com/pdf/2004_AnnualReport.pdf 27. ^ Webb, Cynthia L. "Google's IPO: Grate Expectations." Washington Post. August 19, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 28. ^ Kuchinskas, Susan. "Yahoo and Google Settle." internetnews.com. August 9, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 29. ^ Daily Telegraph Issue 47,409 Business Section Page B5 date, 7 November 2007 30. ^ a b La Monica, Paul R. "Bowling for Google." CNN. May 25, 2005. Retrieved on February 28, 2007. 31. ^ Levingston, Steven. "Google Buys Company To Expand Into Radio." Washington Post. January 18, 2006. 32. ^ Gonsalves, Antone. "Google Confirms Testing Ads in Sun-Times Newspaper." Information Week. " January 10, 2006. 33. ^ "Measure Map Forum - Known issues." Google Groups. April 6, 2006. Retrieved on September 10, 2007. 34. ^ La Monica, Paul R. "Google to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion." CNN. October 9, 2006. Retrieved on October 9, 2006. 35. ^ Google Buys Wiki Startup JotSpot. October 31, 2006. 36. ^ Louise Stort and Miguel Helft. "Google Buys DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion." The New York Times. April 13, 2007. Retrieved on April 13, 2007. 37. ^ Google to acquire Postini. Google (Press release) (July 9, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-07-18. 38. ^ Mills, Elinor. "Can Google beat the new-office curse?" CNET. September 28, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 39. ^ Kessler, Michelle; Acohido, Byron. "Google, Sun make 'big deal' together." USA Today. October 3, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 40. ^ Mills, Elinor. "What the Google-AOL deal means for users." CNET. December 28, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 41. ^ "dotMobi Investors." .mobi. Retrieved on October 14, 2007. 42. ^ "Google AdSense for Mobile unlocks the potential of the mobile advertising market." Google. September 17, 2007. Retrieved on October 14, 2007. 43. ^ Niccolai, James. "Google Buys Mobile Social Network Zingku." PC World. September 29, 2007. Retrieved on October 14, 2007. 44. ^ Staff Writer. "Fox Interactive Media Enters into Landmark Agreement with Google Inc.; Multi-Year Pact Calls for Google to Provide Search and Advertising across Fox Interactive Media's Growing Online Network Including the MySpace Community." Business Wire. August 7, 2006. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 45. ^ Form 10-K -- Annual Report. EDGAR. SEC. Retrieved on 2007-07-14. 46. ^ "August 2007 Search Share for Top 10 Search Engines from Nielsen//NetRatings October 26, 2007. Retrieved on October 26, 2007. 47. ^ Staff Writer. "Google + e-mail = gmail." CNN. August 1, 2004. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. 48. ^ Tyler, Nathan. "Google to Launch Video Marketplace." Google. January 6, 2006. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. 49. ^ "Googlespace Website." Google. Retrieved on February 26, 2007. 50. ^ Donoghue, Andrew. "Google turns Heathrow into testing lab." ZDNet. November 24, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 51. ^ "College Life, Powered by Google Website." Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 52. ^ Orlowski, Andrew. "Google Phone - it's for real." The Register. March 16, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007. 53. ^ Smith, David. "The future for Orange could soon be Google in your pocket." The Guardian. December 17, 2006. Retrieved on April 1, 2007. 54. ^ Ricker, Thomas. "The Google Switch: an iPhone killer?." Engadget. January 18, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007. 55. ^ Rickwood, Lee. "Google Apps: Killer software or killer decision?." PCWorld.ca. March 23, 2007. Retrieved on March 25, 2007. 56. ^ Carr, David F. "How Google Works." Baseline Magazine. July 6, 2006. Retrieved on February 7, 2008. 57. ^ "Google Corporate Philosophy." Google. Retrieved on August 31, 2006. 58. ^ "Google Employee Salaries Data Survey --Retrieved from mydanwei.com 59. ^ Penenberg, Adam L. "Why Google Is Like Wal-Mart." Wired. April 21, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 60. ^ Shinal, John. "Google IPO achieved its major goal: It's all about raising cash for the company and rewarding employees, early investors." San Francisco Chronicle. August 22, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. 61. ^ a b c La Monica, Paul R. "Google leaders stick with $1 salary." CNN. March 31, 2006. Retrieved on February 28, 2007. 62. ^ "The 400 Richest Americans." Forbes. September 20, 2007. Retrieved on September 22, 2007. 63. ^ "About the Googleplex." Google. Retrieved on March 5, 2008. 64. ^ a b c d Reardon, Marguerite. "Google takes a bigger bite of Big Apple." c net. October 2, 2006. Retrieved on October 9, 2006. 65. ^ "Google Completes Pittsburgh Office, Holds Open House", WTAE ThePittsburghChannel, November 17, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-01-13. 66. ^ Inside Google's Michigan Office. InformationWeek (October 24, 2007). 67. ^ Markoff, John; Hansell, Saul. "Hiding in Plain Sight, Google Seeks More Power." The New York Times. June 14, 2006. Retrieved on October 13, 2007. 68. ^ a b Richmond, Riva. "Google plans to build huge solar energy system for headquarters." MarketWatch. October 17, 2006. Retrieved on October 17, 2006. 69. ^ "What's it like to work in Engineering, Operations, & IT?." Google. Retrieved on August 2, 2006. 70. ^ Mayer, Marissa. "MS&E 472 Course: Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar Series." (video link; an audio podcast is also available in MP3 format). ETL Seminar Series/Stanford University. May 17, 2006. Retrieved on August 2, 2006. 71. ^ "Google MentalPlex." Google. April 1, 2000. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. 72. ^ "The technology behind Google's great results." Google. April 1, 2002. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. 73. ^ "Google Copernicus Center is hiring." Google. April 1, 2004. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. 74. ^ "Quench your thirst for knowledge." Google. April 1, 2005. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. 75. ^ Fox, Lynn. "Google to Organize World's Courtship Information with Google Romance." Google. April 1, 2006. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. 76. ^ a b "Welcome to Google TiSP." Google. April 1, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007. 77. ^ "Gmail Paper." Google. April 1, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007. 78. ^ "Language Tools." Google. Retrieved on January 24, 2007. 79. ^ "Google Search Results for 'answer to life the universe and everything'." Google. Retrieved on January 24, 2007. 80. ^ "Holiday logos." Google. Retrieved on May 21, 2007. 81. ^ Associated Press. "Quirky Google Culture Endangered?" Wired Magazine. April 28, 2004. 82. ^ Baertlein, Lisa. "Google IPO at $2.7 billion." CIOL IT Unlimited. April 30, 2004. 83. ^ Vise, David A. "Tactics of 'Google Guys' Test IPO Law's Limits." Washington Post. August 17, 2004. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. 84. ^ Rivlin, Gary. "Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain." New York Times. August 24, 2005. 85. ^ Gibson, Owen; Wray, Richard. "Search giant may outgrow its fans." The Sydney Morning Herald. August 25, 2005. 86. ^ Ranka, Mohit. "Google - Don't Be Evil."OSNews. May 17, 2007. 87. ^ Mills, Elinor. "Meet Google's culture czar." ZDNet. April 30, 2007. Retrieved on April 30, 2007. 88. ^ "About the Foundation." Google.org. Retrieved on October 11, 2007. 89. ^ Hafner, Katie. "Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual." The New York Times. September 14, 2006. Retrieved on October 11, 2007. 90. ^ Liedtke, Michael. "Ask.com will purge search info in hours", Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne Newspapers, December 11, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-12-11. 91. ^ Sharma, Dinesh C. "Indian president warns against Google Earth." c net. October 17, 2005. Retrieved on July 23, 2006. 92. ^ Mills, Elinor. "Google to offer advertisers click fraud stats." c net. July 25, 2006. Retrieved on July 29, 2006. 93. ^ Kawamoto, Dawn. "Google hit with job discrimination lawsuit." c|net news.com. July 27, 2005. 94. ^ CTV.ca | Google accused of ageism in reinstated lawsuit