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swoll1980
June 2nd, 2009, 10:50 PM
I don't understand how spending millions of dollars developing software, that you give away for free, is profitable. Could someone explain this please?

billgoldberg
June 2nd, 2009, 10:51 PM
I don't understand how spending millions of dollars developing software, that you give away for free, is profitable. Could someone explain this please?

Adsense I guess.

ghindo
June 2nd, 2009, 10:53 PM
Magic.

xpod
June 2nd, 2009, 10:53 PM
Advertising (http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/sitespecific/googlemoney.html).

CJ Master
June 2nd, 2009, 10:53 PM
Adsense I guess.

Defiantly Adsense, and they have some paid services as well.

lisati
June 2nd, 2009, 10:53 PM
Adsense I guess.

Rats: you beat me to it!

I'm also vaguely aware of Google offering services to online merchants, but haven't really looked into it. When Yahoo completely pulls the plug on its Geocities services later this year, I might do a bit more homework.

Sub101
June 2nd, 2009, 10:54 PM
Advertising. And specifically targeted advertising.

For example, if you use GMail they search each word in the messages you send to make the advertising you see more user specific.

swoll1980
June 2nd, 2009, 10:57 PM
I kind of figured ads were their main source of revenue. I guess I'm more curious about the software side of things. What to they gain from developing apps like, Picassa, Chrome, Google Earth, and things like that? These things have to cost a fortune to develop.

kidux
June 2nd, 2009, 11:02 PM
They also own buy.com, which is a large store for everything.

Regenweald
June 2nd, 2009, 11:14 PM
I kind of figured ads were their main source of revenue. I guess I'm more curious about the software side of things. What to they gain from developing apps like, Picassa, Chrome, Google Earth, and things like that. These things have to cost a fortune to develop.

An online operating system, with the google brand. very smart. With the addition of Wave we see their revised foray into communication and social networking. People are already cloud computing and are unaware of it :)

infestor
June 2nd, 2009, 11:19 PM
ads? only ads? i always thought ads wouldnt be enuff to generate $ 21.796 billion revenue :o
jesuss...

MikeTheC
June 2nd, 2009, 11:24 PM
Velcro, and a few other inventions they license to the MiB.

dspari1
June 2nd, 2009, 11:26 PM
I don't understand how spending millions of dollars developing software, that you give away for free, is profitable. Could someone explain this please?

Google is a marketing company and they make their revenues from the ads that are found whenever you search for something (towards the very right).

Vostrocity
June 2nd, 2009, 11:30 PM
They also own buy.com, which is a large store for everything.
Really? Since when?



ads? only ads? i always thought ads wouldnt be enuff to generate $ 21.796 billion revenue :o
jesuss...
As the largest ad service in the world they can. And don't forget they have YouTube.

benj1
June 2nd, 2009, 11:34 PM
i think their longterm aim is to have you surfing the web on you android computer, using chrome, emailing with gmail, search with google, etc etc.

why?
i suspect (unfortunately) for the same reason why microsoft gives away web browsers and music players while trying to snuff out the competition, theres no inherent money in it, control.
i suppose they also think it will eventually be more valuable from an advertising perspective. i bet the nikes and coca colas of this world would be willing to spend big money to reach a worldwide mass audience, how many other companies can offer that.

Vostrocity
June 2nd, 2009, 11:37 PM
Yes I agree. Google's ultimate goal is to own the internetz. So far they've been good about their "do no evil" mantra, but who knows what will happen in 50 years, once they truly own all your information. :o

richg
June 2nd, 2009, 11:55 PM
Volume

Rich

Sporkman
June 3rd, 2009, 01:15 AM
They make money by search advertising, specifically adwords & adsense.

The software they release is to gain users & mindshare, as well as exploring other potential sources of revenue (though to date, as far as I know, they haven't made any significant money on anything except advertising).

pwnst*r
June 3rd, 2009, 02:54 AM
http://investor.google.com/faq.html#money

Sublime Porte
June 3rd, 2009, 03:12 AM
What to they gain from developing apps like...

Marketshare... Even if you don't make revenue directly off the software itself, the fact all the people are using your software and your services puts a halo around the rest of your products (some of which might be paid products).

pookiebear
June 3rd, 2009, 04:49 AM
Adwords is the buyers side of adsense. All those keywords are bid on too so its not flat rate it fluctuates with the supply and demand. It is huge. Think about 80 billion websites (or whatever the number is) and about 25% of them running adsense. Also those 80 billion sites have hundreds to millions of pages. Look at associated content's website it has almost 2 million pages just for that one site. Advertising is a weird animal for sure but google has their stuff running good.