Google's Innovation and Expansion

In our Media Law and Literacy class, we discussed Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations in terms of communication innovations. In the recent past, we have seen new technologies quickly on the rise that have transformed the way we live our lives. One technology that has dominated the market through innovation and expansion is Google.

Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations has four main factors:

1) The innovation attributes: I think that Google's main attribute is convenience. With just a few clicks, you can search for information on any idea, place, or person. And, with Google's expansion to have subsidiaries such as YouTube as well as other business partners, you can use a single Google account to access many websites and apps. I believe that both convenience and the wide array of information available through Google's platforms are the main reasons that the early adopters and those following in their footsteps began to use Google.

2) Communication channels: Although I do not have a first-hand perspective from when Google first communicated their product, I can imagine that they used a variety of press (such as newspapers and magazines), ads on the World Wide Web, and word of mouth from the first consumers (pioneers and early adopters) to their families and friends. Now, Google not only continues to market their products but serves as a platform for other companies to do the same.

3) Passage of Time: Google has been around for just over 20 years, after being founded in 1998. They have quickly expanded to fulfill their mission statement "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." According to Dr. Dean Smith, Google has now reached a point of saturation, where the majority of the United States population uses this service as their search engine of choice. We have to think critically; however, if this near monopoly can become a danger to how we perceive information, as we are sometimes only absorbing information from Google's perspective.

4) Social Networks: Not only is Google continuing to increase in popularity because of their expansion of products, but because of the modernization of communicating and networking. Now social networks such as family and friends are connected by more than just face-to-face dialogue but by a consistent flow of information distributed online via social media networks (some of which Google owns). Google has marketed itself effectively to a variety of social networks to increase brand presence.

Google, as a modern communication innovation, has shaped (and will continue to shape) the way we learn, process, and communicate information across the globe.

That's all for now!