Year looks good for Google as it sharpens its act

Already, this year is shaping up to be the Year of Google as the search and advertising giant starts to advertise itself.

Facing increasing pressure from the reinvention of Facebook and the rise of Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, Google made its first foray into advertising with a Super Bowl advertisement in 2010 about a young couple falling in love.

The New York Times reported that Google had begun a more focused United States-directed television campaign, as well as taking on other efforts such as hosting Google-themed conferences in an effort to represent its online brand in an offline world.

Although Google is a household name, it needs to tell its story now for a few reasons.
It needs new businesses such as Chrome browser and the Google Plus social network to succeed if it is going to find sources of revenue beyond search advertisements, Claire Cain Miller writes.

Google co-founder and chief executive Larry Page is paring down the company's offerings and making Google products more attractive, intuitive and integrated with one another.

Also, as Google comes under attack from anti-trust regulators, it will not hurt to tell heartwarming stories about Google to wider audiences.

Ms Cain Miller writes that viewers will be hard-pressed to keep their eyes dry after watching "Dear Sophie", Google's advertisement for Chrome in which a father sends multimedia messages to his baby daughter.

An advertisement for Google Plus shows the arc of a couple's courtship without spoken words.

The man places the woman in a social circle titled "love of my life", but he starts out in her circle called "creepers".

Over time, though, he graduates to "book club", "ski house" and eventually "keepers".

Mackline is finding Google more useful as the weeks go on. The changes to Gmail are encouraging, with the markers indicating that email is important because it comes from a trusted source or has key words in the subject line.

It also groups all emails from the same person into a theme. While it has always done that, the latest innovation is much easier to read.

Hotmail also has new innovations that let you flag mail that automatically is kept at the top of the inbox and cannot be purged by a "click all" and delete.

However, Google will make the running this year. That is a Mackline forecast.

dene.mackenzie@odt.co.nz

Twitter: @mackersline