Google targets a narrow audience with its annual report. This is not a tool for communicating with your customers and consumers, with the media or with your employees. It is narrowly focused on exactly two audiences: Google investors and the US federal government. The main reason why the annual report does not attempt to address other audiences as well is the difference in the type and amount of detail required by each audience. Investors look for this information to decide whether to buy, sell or hold their stocks. The government, particularly the Securities and Exchange Commission, wants this information to ensure that Google is operating in compliance with federal law. Both of these groups require highly detailed financial information for their purposes. Among Google's other audiences, some groups such as employees or the media may be interested in some financial information. For example, if the company does poorly, some employees may lose their jobs. The media will take note if Google reports profits. However, neither group really requires the level of detail required by government and investors. Other audiences, such as customers and consumers, have little to no interest in financial information of any kind and only care about new products and features. The company has other channels and formats to communicate with these other audiences. Instead of making an even longer long report trying to satisfy the different needs and desires of all their audiences, Google's annual report focuses on two audiences interested in the same information. When we look at the characteristics of these two audiences, we find that the government and investors have other things in common. For example, both of these groups are cheat…half paper…fast. In this case, the information in this annual report is a valuable resource that Google controls and that these two audiences need. As far as I know, this publication is effective in reaching the target audience. The report was filed directly with the SEC and is readily available to investors in the Investor Relations section of Google's website. It appears to go beyond the most basic requirements of such a report and offers additional information on a long list of risk factors for the company. The report is visually appealing and easy to read thanks to good formatting and font choice. Only a financial expert would be able to say whether the report covers absolutely everything investors and the government might want, but Google's continued success in 2009 suggests that this report contained everything these two target audiences needed to know.