Introduction
With the development of technology and internet, there is an increase amount of people who are able to access to the internet and the World Wide Web. The internet has provide a medium for people from all around the world to be connected and engaged in a whole list of activities that include online shopping, online chat, information search and etc.
As seen in the case study, Grace Morrish was engaging herself in some forms of information search before she was performed a purchase of the toaster online at Amazon.com. The tool that she uses for information search was the Google search engine, Google directory and the Epinions. After she had searched for her information, she engaged herself in online shopping and purchasing at www.epinions.com and www.amazon.com. The following provides an overview of the tools that Grace had used in her process of information search and online shopping.
A brief background about Google and Google directory
Google Inc was set up back in September 1998; Google designs and manages search engines that are commonly used on the internet. The business model of Goggle mainly revolved around its search engine and a list of tools that assist the consumers in searching of various sources of information like images, updated news and etc.
The search engine is widely used by users online as a gateway to information. It is believed that the Google search engine received approximately a billion of search request everyday. And the popularity of the search engine can be seen from the study done by AC Nielsen cited from Wikipedia, "According to the Nielsen cabinet, Google is the most popular search engine on the web with a 54% market share, ahead of Yahoo! (23%) and MSN (13%)." (Wikipedia contributors, 30 July 2006, " ...