Creation of a Map using Maps Engine Lite feature in Google Maps

I had enrolled for a Google course on Google Maps and Google Earth. I'm still in the process of completing the course. This is just a glimpse of my project that I was required to do during the course.

I will tell you more about this course in due time. Please check my blog for further details and updates.

Google's Stakeholders

We all know how huge Google Inc. is. Hence, it would obviously have various stakeholders. The following are some of the main stakeholders of Google-

1. Users
2. Investors
3. Employees
4. Developers
5. Advertisers

Let us see what claims they place on Google and how Google is working towards satisfying those claims.

1. Users
Google has many many users, You could say way beyond a billion. This is because Google has may
products which now-a-days are indispensable for almost all their users. We users have taken for granted that Google will provide the answers to all our questions. Everyday, Google is working towards making the life of us users extremely simple and easy. They do it mainly by way of their products or applications.
Google is a vast machine with all types of apps, programs, and tools. A lot of these—like Gmail and Google Docs (now Drive)—are clearly useful and beloved by many. But hidden inside Google's network are some awesome, lesser-known tools that can make your life easier.
Over the last couple of years Google has experimented with a lot of products. Hidden beneath popular apps like Gmail, Google Search, and Chrome are a lot of cool features that most people don't mess around with. To know more about all these features, visit the Chrome Webstore.

Products of Google

Google is keeping all its users satisfied and every year there are more satisfied users. We can say this because of a survey conducted by American Consumer Satisfaction Index. This is what the survey on this website says.
Report of the recent American Consumer Satisfaction Index showed that there are more satisfied Google users now than there were last year.
The American Consumer Satisfaction Index is based on the comparison of customer satisfaction among companies, e-business and other sectors as well. As expected, Google beats all the other search engines with its 86% satisfaction rating. All the other search engines got 78% satisfaction rating.

2. Investors
All investors expect that their companies should do well. The same is in the case of Google. Google

has been giving announcing better results every quarter. Google recently announced its earnings for

Q4 of 2012 and guess what? They made a ton of money. I was shocked. Q4 of 2012 was really

great for Google. The company earned $14.4 billion in revenue, which is 36% better than what they

did last year. While we tend to think Google is an American Company, only about $6 billioin of

that revenue came from the US, while the rest was made in international markets.

3. Employees

Another major stakeholder of Google are their employees. The employees also have a great interest and respect for their job and company they are working for. They need to be kept happy and hence they are a major stakeholder in Google. If employees are provided good working conditions, they find their work interesting and workplace enjoyable. This would inculcate more of an ownership attitude in the employee and at the same time his work efficiency would improve.

Just recently my friend had told me that his girlfriend got a job offer from Google. She would be placed in Hyderabad. He told me that Google's offer is very lucrative. She is just a fresher and she's getting 2 stocks as Employee Stock Options. My friend also added that one stock of Google in terms of INR is around Rs. 40,000. I was amazed. All the fresh recruits get a minimum of 2 stocks as ESOPs. This is a great thing for Google to do.

CareerBliss, the career site has released a list of 50 employers with most-improved worker-satisfaction scores, culled from more than 50,000 employee reviews posted on their site. Topping this year's list is Google Inc., which saw its employee-satisfaction rating soar by more than a third -- 37 percent -- during the last year. CareerBliss says the jump in Google's score was the result of improved employee support and growth, a category that saw an 80 percent rise among Google workers.

None of us can even imagine how friendly and relaxed the work environment at Google is. If you really want to find out, go to Google.com and type "Google's Work Environment" and see the pictures for yourself. Jealous aren't you?

Google's California Head Office

That's not all. Google employees reported improvements in the rewards they receive and the overall way in which they work, said CareerBliss CEO and co-founder Heidi Golledge. "With the increase in Google stock price, the death benefits offered to a spouse or domestic partner, as well as the other array of benefits Google employees receive, the search-engine giant continues to lead the way in pioneering a happy work environment," Golledge told AOL Jobs. Read this article to know how Google manages to keep their employees satisfied.

4. Developers

Google has done a lot for developers and vice versa. After the Android Operating System was launched, the number of developers creating products for Google and its OS rose considerably. This was because as Android came out, more and more people wanted to make the OS versatile, just like the computer. That is when the concept of applications or Apps came out. Many developers started creating numerous apps for Android and Google. Then came the Chrome Webstore which also today has innumerable and very useful apps. Apart from the users, Google and Android owes its success to its developers. Hence, they are very important stakeholders of Google.

Without its developers, Google would not have reached where they are today. Hence, Google has a responsibility towards its developers. Therefore, Google has taken some steps to repay and keep the developers happy. It may not be much in monetary terms, but developers do feel good that Google is noticing their role and giving them some importance.

Google has started out with encouraging more people to take interest into developing products for them. Google provides various developer tools online for FREE for users to download, learn and become developers. Some of the developer tools are- API Console, App Engine Console, Oauth 2.0 Playground, Project Hosting etc. Anyone and everyone can learn and master Google API and Technologies.

What more? Google has even brought out a blog for its developers which contains all the latest news and tips for developers who want to create something for Google. The website for developers is “developers.google.com”. Their tagline says- “Inspiring Developers Everywhere”. Hence, we can deduce that Google is striving towards encouraging new developers and are going a long way in supporting them.

5. Advertisers

Google offers people to advertise anything they want. This service is provided by their product called Google AdWords. Advertisers are also main stakeholders of Google. This is because they pay money to Google can reach their ads to billions around the world. The common advertiser expects some returns on his payment. As of today, Google has over 1 million advertisers. As a matter of fact, I myself have spent Rs. 10,000 until now on Google AdWords and I am really satisfied and happy with the kind of response I am getting.

Google AdWords is Google's main advertising product and main source of revenue. Google's total advertising revenues were USD $42.5 billion in 2012. (source) AdWords offers pay-per-click, that is,

cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, cost-per-thousand-impressions or cost-per-mille (CPM) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and rich-media ads.

Since Google makes a lot of money through AdWords from their customers, they have a responsibility towards them. Google has to make sure that their users are not unhappy and dissatisfied. Google makes this possible by having a very sophisticated algorithm for reaching a particular advertisement to a person who is interested in that particular advertisement. I don't know how Google does it, but they do it. We can't even imagine how complicated and sophisticated their algorithm would be.

Therefore, we can see that every stakeholder of Google places various claims on the company and Google manages to satisfy them very effectively.

Lance Armstrong - Doped or Duped?

There is hardly anyone in the World who hasn't heard of Lance Armstrong. He is one of the greatest icons for sports. Its not just winning Tour de France multiple times that makes him an icon, its his attitude, perseverance and dedication that makes him the icon he is. It really hurts to see him being stripped off his titles.

People have varied opinions regarding this issue. Some support him and many oppose him. The only think ironic here is that they are stripping him of the titles 16 years after he won his 1st one.

Everyone needs to consider the following before passing a judgement on Lance Armstrong-

• There are doping tests that are conducted before the cycle races. All these test results have been negative.
• All throughout his career, he has taken around 600 drug tests and never been tested positive.
• Why is this issue coming up after his retirement in 2005 and after winning 7 Tour de France titles without being tested positive for any drugs?

The coming week, Lance Armstrong is being interviewed by Operah Winfrey. People are anticipating  Lance Armstrong to be grilled by Operah. But I believe only one thing- Lance has won the titles fair and square. Nothing has been proved against him during his career. Even if he is charged with doping, he still has won his titles in accordance with the rules of the race.

Fighting cancer and making a career comeback is no joke. He has also done a lot for cancer patients and the Society through his "Lance Armstrong Foundation". I would say that there has been a lot of injustice done to him. He may have doped, but he really has been duped. But he has already proven to the World that he is a Fighter and a Winner! It is truly said-

"Winners make Goals, while Losers make Excuses."