Google is 25 years old. The company that started in a garage today generates over $200 billion in annual revenue and has become fourth most valuable company in the world.
As the name, which today is practically synonymous with research, celebrates its 25th anniversary, we decided to collect some of the many curiosities that have accompanied the company’s history over a quarter of a century.
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Google turns 25: interesting facts from its history
Here they are curiosity about google what we have collected:
BackRub is the name of Google
Before officially becoming Google, Google was originally called BackRub.
Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin they started the project in 1996 while studying at Stanford University.
The name “BackRub” indicates the primary importance of backlink analysis in determining the importance of websites. The name was later changed to the one we all know today.
Google turns 25 (and one day it was “turned off”)
Google rarely fails, but when it does, the world suffers. On August 16, 2013, a brief five-minute outage caused all Google services to go down.
Result?
A staggering 40% drop in global internet traffic. This incident underscored how much we depend on Google services, from search to Gmail and beyond.
J. Lo’s dress and the birth of Google Images
Green dress from Jennifer Lopez at the 2000 Grammy Awards, it not only spawned many newspaper headlines, but also spawned the world’s most popular image search tool.
The dress has become the most popular search term of the time, but people wanted to see images, not just text results. Google Image Search was created to meet this demand.
The company launched the feature in 2001, starting with a whopping 250 million images from day one.
Google has officially become a verb
Google’s influence on our lives is so profound that it has become a verb. In 2006, the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster University Dictionary officially recognized the word “google” as a verb. “Googlare” is the reference expression for web searches today, demonstrating how deeply Google is ingrained in our daily habits.
You start in a garage
A typical Silicon Valley startup story: Google’s first office was a rented garage. The company has been operating since September 1998 in the garage of St. Susan Wojcicki in Menlo Park, California.
Wojcicki, now CEO of YouTube, was Google’s first marketing manager. The garage was later bought by Google and filled with candy, snacks, and lava lamps, making it an iconic piece of Google history.
Launching Gmail as April Fool’s Day
gmail, Google’s email service, was launched on April 1, 2004. The ad was worded in such a way that many at first thought it was a joke. The “imitation hoax” started a service that now serves millions of people around the world every day.
Googlers go for a ride with gBikes
Google’s unusual culture extends to its campus, where employees they ride around the Googleplex on colorful “gBikes”. This unique program started in 2007.
Interestingly, none of these bikes have a lock; employees simply rent them and leave them conveniently near the entrance to the office for others to use.
He bought YouTube at a diner
Have you ever wondered where Google was in talks to take over YouTube?
The answer may surprise you. This was not in a flashy corporate office, but at Denny’s in Palo Alto, California.
Under mozzarella and handshakes, co-founders of YouTube and Google signed an important agreement Acquisition for $1.65 billion in 2006.a move that would make YouTube the most viewed video platform on the web.
Alleged Murder on Google Maps
In 2013, Internet sleuths picked up magnifying glasses when a woman posted a screenshot Google Street View which appeared to show a man carrying a corpse.
The footage looked like a trail of blood running along the pier in Almere. city in the Netherlands.
The image quickly went viral, sparking a lot of controversy, until it was revealed that a wet dog named Rama was the culprit, and the “blood” was nothing but water.
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Google Search highlights and news
When Google launched 25 years ago, it was far from being the number one search engine. However, Google search has quickly become known for its ability to find people exactly the information they are looking for, faster than they could ever imagine.
Google search has changed a lot in recent years. Here are some of the goals and innovations realized over the years.
Graph of changes in Google Search
- 2001: advent of Google Images
- 2001: The film “Maybe You’ve Been Looking For” is introduced.
- 2002: Google News
- 2003: First Easter Egg
- 2004: Automatic completion of queries
- 2004: Information georeference
- 2006: Google Translate
- 2006: Google Trends
- 2007: Universal Search
- 2008: Google mobile application
- 2008: Voice search
- 2009: Emergency hotlines
- 2011: Image search
- 2012: Knowledge Graph
- 2015: Peak hours on Maps and Search
- 2016: Google Discover
- 2017: Google Lens
- 2018: Flood forecasting models
- 2019: BERT
- 2020: Shopping schedule
- 2020: Sing and Seek
- 2021: Information about the results
- 2022: Multiple Search
- 2023: Search Laboratories and Generative Research Experience (SGE)
Google Turns 25: Letter from Sundar Pichai
In honor of the 25th anniversary of Google Sundar Pichai thanked everyone who contributed to the success of the company.
In his message, he highlights how technology has changed in 25 years and how generations are quickly adapting to it.
Pichai recalls that using email in the past was a difficult process and compares the experience of communicating with his father to that of his son, noting how new generations quickly get used to advanced technologies.
He then highlights the importance of continued innovation and how Google, with its goal of organizing the world’s information and making it available to the public, started out as a search engine that answers people’s questions.
It describes Google’s evolutionary path and how search remains central to the company’s mission, while noting that Google now offers a wide range of products and services that serve billions of users.
Pichai mentions the critical role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the growth of Google and how the company has implemented artificial intelligence into various products and services, improving the user experience.
Finally, Pichai looks to the future and asks how AI can be used to improve people’s lives in innovative ways. It deals with such important issues as access to education, clean energy, product design and adaptation of sectors such as transport and agriculture.
He concluded by stating that technological progress will continue for years to come and that Google will continually seek answers to these important questions.
In short, Sundar Pichai’s message is one of gratitude for the past, reflection on the present, and vision for a future where AI is at the heart of Google’s innovation.