What is Google's industry?
Google's Industry: Internet Information Providers
Industry Description
The Internet Information Provider industry is populated by customer facing firms that
generate their sales primarily through families of Internet sites. These companies
specialize in creating and / or aggregating content and then attracting eye-balls to their
site through the generally free provision of such content. At their core, all such sites,
disregarding the smaller niche players, are effectively margin machines relying on
advertising: they spend money on enhancing their websites and improving their
content offerings while marketing to attract viewers but they resell the eyeballs they
attract to advertisers for more than the internal costs for capturing those eyeballs.
Overall, this industry excludes e-commerce firms (such as eBay and Amazon) as well
as Internet software providers or firms that otherwise are generally firm rather than
consumer facing. Companies that are part of this industry have mass consumer
focused Web sites that supply “neutral” information. That is, they are supplying
information from a variety of sources and generally refrain from selling a proprietary
product to readers – that is, they aren’t selling software, mortgages, cars, other
durable goods, or consulting services. Their customers, in a business model sense, are
not the readers. The readers merely serve to convince advertisers to buy ad space on
their site or across their networks.
(http://analystreports.som.yale.edu/reports/internetinfoproviders.pdf)
Industry Description
The Internet Information Provider industry is populated by customer facing firms that
generate their sales primarily through families of Internet sites. These companies
specialize in creating and / or aggregating content and then attracting eye-balls to their
site through the generally free provision of such content. At their core, all such sites,
disregarding the smaller niche players, are effectively margin machines relying on
advertising: they spend money on enhancing their websites and improving their
content offerings while marketing to attract viewers but they resell the eyeballs they
attract to advertisers for more than the internal costs for capturing those eyeballs.
Overall, this industry excludes e-commerce firms (such as eBay and Amazon) as well
as Internet software providers or firms that otherwise are generally firm rather than
consumer facing. Companies that are part of this industry have mass consumer
focused Web sites that supply “neutral” information. That is, they are supplying
information from a variety of sources and generally refrain from selling a proprietary
product to readers – that is, they aren’t selling software, mortgages, cars, other
durable goods, or consulting services. Their customers, in a business model sense, are
not the readers. The readers merely serve to convince advertisers to buy ad space on
their site or across their networks.
(http://analystreports.som.yale.edu/reports/internetinfoproviders.pdf)