The founders of Google, the world's most popular search engine

The world's most popular internet search engine, Google, has confirmed that it's to float on the Stock Market. It's stock is expected to be worth many billions of dollars. This report from Jannat Jalil:

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The company's expected to float in the market in the next few months. Its owners are exploring ways of selling the shares on the internet to ensure small investors get a look in. There are hopes that this could help to revive the internet and technology sector which has been depressed since the dotcom crash of 2000.

Analysts say Google's flotation could help other internet companies to take the plunge into the stock market, but none of them are likely to have the star appear of Google which could end up being valued at twenty billion dollars or more.

Jannat Jalil, BBC

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the dotcom bubble burst
the dotcom (.com) bubble was the huge overvaluation of internet companies which were not actually making any money. This could not continue and many investors lost a lot of money and many internet companies went out of business around the year 2000

founders
the people who started something

set the search engine up
if you ‘set something up’, you begin it, it’s your project

a worldwide phenomenon
something that has unexpectedly become a big success very quickly around the world

a household word
a name that is known by a large number of people, not only those in the business

get a look in
have a chance

to revive the internet and technology sector
to give some encouragement and hope to the IT business

the dotcom crash
the time when the dot com bubble burst (see above)

to take the plunge
to become involved in something which seems to be possibly risky

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