EXTRA CREDIT- GOOGLE TALK

Google Talk


The guy Nicoli basically spoke about Google's core competencies. They have the most data available because they are the largest search engine on the internet. They use this data to make their search engine even better. Over the past decade or so groups of 3 to 5 engineers work on configuring data in new ways that make search engines easier to use. For example, the search Britney Spears can be mistakenly typed into a search queries in many differents forms. Google data miners basically find out the different ways and spellings of queires that people enter incorrectly. Once they find this information they will make that particular misspelling of the search go to the correct search for Britney Spears. (enter Brittney Speers and u still get what you are looking for).
Google boasts that they have more than three times the websites of their largest competitor. Google engineers have also been working on the long time problem of language translation. They are using webpage documentation to find ways that will make the translation easier in the future. Since Google has the most data they will be the best translator in coming years.
One thing that Nicoli said that made me realize how modern of a company is is that they allow 20% of their time for whatever they feel is necessary. This is a great way to get more out of your workers. They can devote a small yet significant portion of their time into developing new ways to do things and these new ideas can get more engineers assigned to them and could eventually make Google more profitable. It also seemed like it was a laid back place to work. Have a pool table and video games to play with could be a great way to interact with your co-workers and to clear your mind from work related stuff for a little bit.
So basically employees of google are paid to find and develope trends from databases in a laid back enviornment. This has to be part of the reason for Google's booming success over the past decade.