And the Award for the Fourth-Most Admired Company in the Media Industry Goes to Google!

Google is a company that has been admired in the past few years for the company’s organizational structure. According to Fortune Magazine, a well known business magazine, “Google is the fourth-most admired company in the United States.” Google has been featured multiple times as well on the top-companies-to-work-for list. The main reason Google is such a widely admired company is because the management lets the employees run the company as much as possible. Google has a cross-functional organization that allows excellent leadership as well as employee satisfaction. Cross-functional organization is described as a group with different functional expertise working toward a common goal. For Google that common goal is to be the best search engine on the Internet. Google is also a well admired and structured company because the management team doesn’t set the goals for the company, the employees do. Employees set objectives which are approved by the management. Management periodically checks up on the progress of the goals, but it is all done by the employees. Google employees spend “70% of their time on current assignments, 20% on related projects of their choosing, and 10% on new projects in any area they desire.” The structure of their time management is called the 70-20-10 rule. Google uses this rule to make sure that the employees take risks. Without these risks the company wouldn’t be as successful as it is now. Also without risks Google wouldn’t have ventured into the multiple industries it has. I admire Google’s policy where the employees are the main figures of the company, with management overseeing their works. I feel that is the most effective way to structure a company.

Google enters the competitive landscape...again

With countless numbers of companies aiming to provide consumers with entertainment, media can be quite a competitive industry. In such a wild competitive landscape, it takes true entrepreneurship to set you apart form the competition. Google is a perfect example of a company that seeks to be involved in competition. Just when we thought Google couldn’t get more involved in the services they provide, they somehow find a way to surprise us. Google has put up several headlines over the past year. First it was the revealing of their social media website, Google +. Then it was revealed that Google would be entering competition with Apple and Amazon’s music services by starting Music Beta. Now, Google appears to be entering competition with Apple’s Apple TV services.

This past Friday, Google announced an update to the software for Google TV. Google stated that they simplified the product to allow users to access the Internet and search for online videos through their TVs. Google TV will also offer on-demand shows that are normally available of services such as Netflix and Hulu. Google has recently reached a deal with various chipmakers, device makers, and TV makers, such as Vizio and Sony, which will bring new Google-powered TVs into the market next year.

Google plans to separate itself from Apple TV in that Google TV will provide access to all content available on the Internet, instead establishing a narrow amount of offerings formatted for use on TVs. Some analysts are viewing Google TV as potential threat to cable/satellite companies. Google on the other hand stated that Google TV isn’t meant to replace TV and cable, but rather to complement it. Google seems to be on the right track. They seem to be doing a great job in entrepreneurship seeing as how they are involved in almost every aspect of media's competitive landscape.

Google Music vs. iTunes: Who Will Take Over the Industry?

In Media Res was asked to look at recent news in the media industry. We found the most important new in the media industry is that competition is heating up. Google Inc. just introduced its own online music player that would work closely with Google Plus- the Google Inc. social network. “Google Music” is the current name of the product that Google is working with. This online music source would work much like an iTunes or the newer Spotify in a way that Google customers would share their musically libraries with their Google Plus contacts who could listen to the music for free, however the catch is you may only listen to it free once. After the one free listen, the song would be available for downloading for 99¢ per purchase, which currently is cheaper than iTunes purchase rate of $1.29. However, controversy has struck Google Inc. in regards to the participation of all four major-label companies. Without the participation of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI, the four major-label companies, dissatisfaction of customers is bound to be an issue. Without all four major-label companies this also compacts the amount of songs available for listening and downloading, for many customers they want all the convenience of a one-stop shop. Google Inc.’s competitors though have all waited until the guarantee of all four major-label companies before issuing their music services.

Online music is becoming a major trend. While Google Music is still in its elementary phase, there are certain glitches that still need to be worked out. Google Inc.’s competitor, iTunes, according to Wall Street Journal, is about to start an online music listener that will create revenue for the company as well as all the major-label companies. Spotify-a new online music listener that allows sharing between Facebook friends launched their product over the summer. Even Spotify has revenues of $10 a month for the ad-free smartphone version and $5 a month without ads. With all the competition in online music players, Google Inc. may have a hard time breaking into the music industry.

Google Ceases to Amaze

Google seems to be getting involved in everything these days. Google recently entered the social networking industry with Google+ and now it seems they will be entering the world of online music stores. Google is now entering competition with Apple and Amazon in a race to create services that combine retail sales and remote music storage. Google's cloud service, Music Beta, and Amazon's Cloud Player both let users store music online, but neither of them have licenses from all the music companies. Due to this, users must upload most of the music that they want stored on their system. Google, though, is talking to three major music companies, Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, Sony Corp.'s Sony Music and Access Industries Inc.'s Warner Music Group. Music Beta currently allows people to upload up to 20,000 songs. Apple is at this moment leading the race with their recent release iCloud. However, Google's Music Beta is still in an invitation-only testing mode, so we can expect it to become much larger threat to Apple and Amazon.

Differentiation Between Facebook and Google+

Different media companies are like any other company in that they are always fighting to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Companies want to detract as many consumers from their competitors as possible. This is done through differentiation. A current important struggle between two media companies is occurring when Google launched its Google+ to directly compete with Facebook. I will be focusing on the difference between Facebook and Google+ as opposed to Google as a whole. This article gives a good idea of the differences.

For the social media world, companies try to differentiate themselves in a number of ways such features unique to a company or number of users. Examples of ways that they differentiate themselves is that Facebook has hundreds of millions of users and google+ has many new features that Facebook does not. One of the key features that Google+ has is that it lets users create groups among their friends to create privacy. This is different from Facebook where everything you post is visible to all your friends. While Google+ is still in its experimenting phase, we can see it as being major competition in the near and long term future.