Economic and Design Issues as Seen on Google

The most consistent driver of the market over the last year has been the falling dollar. U.S. interest rates are generally regarded as the biggest factor that affects the greenback. When rates move higher, the dollar usually attracts interest whereas falling yields will cause investors to seek better returns elsewhere, say the market. As a result, when the U.S. dollar underperforms as it is these days, it pushes up commodity prices as well as stock prices. Speaking of rising stock prices, Google reported net income in the quarter ended Sept. 30 rose to $1.64 billion, or $5.13 a share, from $1.29 billion, or $4.06 a share, in the same period last year. Net revenue rose to $4.38 billion from $4.04 billion. Shares of Google rose $21.10 to $551.01.

One outcome that often follows earning reports such as these is companies get back to the business of hiring people, which is really good news in the face of all the jobless recovery talk. Finding the right Googler, as Patrick Pichette puts it, is the priority, and it seems likely those jobs will include its Google Apps business, and mobile phone services which are areas receiving heavy investment.

The success of computer services companies like Google can often be tied back to an equation that includes the success of their UI/UE, and in this area Google is an interesting case study. UI/UE, when boiled down to its most granular level, can be defined as design and architecture. Everyone can imagine the Google home page; big logo, search box. Simplicity at its finest but not what would be considered a design masterpiece. Design was never the primary concern when developing the site. When Marissa Mayer, "keeper" of the Google homepage since 1998, mentioned to founder Sergey Brin that he might want to do something to spiff up the brand-new homepage for users, his response was almost poetically eloquent: "I don't do HTML."

The other night I took my seven year old daughter to a workshop at her school. Part of the evening was spent in the library where I saw a poster with the headline, “Don’t be a Googlehead”; Google is everywhere. The message was when it comes to research there are better options to find documented, more academic information for their projects. This makes sense, of course, because while their search algorithms receive a lot of attention, Google makes the vast majority of its sales from online advertising, a market that has struggled over the past year. But two important indicators of advertising market health improved: The number of paid clicks, which include clicks on ads served on Google sites and its partners, rose 4% from the previous quarter and 14% from the same period last year. This is the other part of that success equation; having a strong business model and being great at it.

Google seems to be heading in the right direction and are saying the worst of the recession is over and we’re hopeful we’re on a permanent road to recovery.