25th anniversary of Google on 27th September’23, Most important facts to know about Google

They worked towards making the World Wide Web more accessible to people and started developing a prototype for a better search engine, said the blog, adding that while the duo started their work from their dorm rooms, they later shifted their operations to a rented garage, which became Google’s first office.

“Much has changed since 1998 — including our logo as seen in today’s Doodle — but the mission has remained the same: to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Billions of people from all over the globe use Google to search, connect, work, play, and SO much more! Thank you for evolving with us over the past 25 years. We can’t wait to see where the future takes us, together,” read the post.

The concept of doodle came by as the founders wanted to show their attendance at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert before the company’s beginning. The first doodle was a stick figure drawing behind the 2nd “o” in the word, Google and the logo comically showed that the founders were “out of office”.

Later, Dennis Hwang, who was then an intern at the company but went on to become Google’s doodler, was asked to produce a doodle for Bastille Day in 2000, which was well received by users. Since then, Google started coming up with doodles. So far Google’s team of illustrators and engineers have created more than 5,000 doodles.

September 27, 2023, is big occasion in the tech world – Google’s 25th birthday. The journey of this American multinational tech company had humble beginnings and the entire journey is nothing short of remarkable.

In the mid-’90s, two bright minds, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, crossed paths as doctoral students in Stanford University’s computer science program. Little did they know that their collaboration would change the digital landscape of the world forever. They started a research project initially called “BackRub,” which eventually turned into the search engine we now know as Google.

Larry Page explored the mathematical intricacies of the World Wide Web’s link structure. He laid the foundation for a revolutionary search algorithm that made Google the search giant we know today. By 1998, their project had evolved into Google, a name inspired by ‘Googol’- a mathematical term that represents a very large number.

In August 1998, Google Inc. received its official birth certificate in the form of a $100,000 check from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. From their Stanford dorm room, Page and Brin moved to their first “office” – a rented garage in Menlo Park, California. The office had both computers and a ping pong table, which turned into their home for the next few years as they worked to realize their vision of a sorted internet.

Beyond Search

Today, Google’s impact extends far beyond its search engine. With products like YouTube, Android, Gmail, and Google Maps, Google has become an integral part of daily life for billions across the globe.

Google’s influence in the tech world spread when it became the default search engine for Yahoo in 2000. AdWords was launched in October 2000, thereby laying the foundation for Google’s online advertising dominance.

The next big development came in 2004 when Google announced that Gmail will offer a staggering 1GB of storage capacity, thereby making Gmail an integral part of our lives, and helped push back the competition from the likes of YahooMail and Microsoft’s Hotmail. The company went public in August of the same year.

Birth of Google’s Android and YouTube

Google’s innovation didn’t stop with search and email. It ventured into mobile with the acquisition of Android in 2005 and the launch of Google Talk. The acquisition of YouTube in 2006 signaled Google’s entry into the online video space.

Google’s acquisition spree continued with DoubleClick in 2007, expanding its influence in online advertising. Universal search, introduced in 2007, allowed users to access a wide range of content types in one search.

In 2008, Google unveiled its first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, and introduced the world to the Chrome web browser. The following years saw the launch of Google Glass, the acquisition of mapping startup Waze, and the creation of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, with Sundar Pichai taking the helm as CEO of Google.

Google’s Future as described by the CEO on 25th anniversary of Google

Earlier this month, Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, shared his thoughts on the company’s future, particularly its opportunities with AI, in a blog post. Google is entering its next quarter-century where it is contending with other powerhouses in each and every product segment. AI is one of the biggest opportunities Google is trying to tap into and it is already among the top names in this field. The next 25 years could demand even more innovation and impact from Google to retain its top spot.

“In a blog post celebrating the 25th birthday of Google, the company wrote, “We may be a technology company, but Google is what it is today because of people: Our employees, our partners, and most importantly, all the people who use our products. So as we celebrate our 25th birthday today, we’re also celebrating 25 years of your curiosity. After all, your curiosity is what has fueled us — and our progress.”

Sundar Pichai’s message on 25th anniversary of Google:

In a post on X, celebrating 25th anniversary of Google, CEO Sundar Pichai wrote, “Happy 25th birthday @Google! 🎂 Thanks to everyone who uses our products and challenges us to keep innovating and to all Googlers!”

Pichai also shared the Doodle for the day that shows the evolution of Google’s logo in the last 25 years.

In a 2,400-word memo written earlier this month, commemorating Google’s 25th birth anniversary, Pichai had wrote, “Over time, AI will be the biggest technological shift we see in our lifetimes. It’s bigger than the shift from desktop computing to mobile, and it may be bigger than the internet itself. It’s a fundamental rewiring of technology and an incredible accelerant of human ingenuity.”

Google was designed to manage the enormous amount of online information. Later, its ad-based income strategy went public in 2004 as it was quickly gaining prominence. It developed services outside search over time, including Gmail, Android, and Chrome. Alphabet Inc. became the parent company of Google after a corporate restructuring in 2015. Today, Google is a major player in the global digital industry with a focus on hardware, search, advertising, and cutting-edge technologies like AI and self-driving cars.

Some interesting facts about Google on 25th anniversary of Google

1. Google was formerly known as Backrub. Later, the business changed its name to Google, a typo of the word googol. The term refers to the mathematical concept ‘one with a hundred zeros’ which symbolizes the company’s goal of ensuring that all information is available to everyone.
2. Around 8.5 billion searches are made on Google every day. The world experienced a search frenzy in 2022 with 99,000 searches per second, which is astounding. Also, out of all 15% of all Google searches are always unique.
3. The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary recognized “Google” as a verb in 2006. The fact that “Googling” has become the default term for conducting an online search demonstrates how ingrained Google has become in our daily lives.
4. The first Google office was located in Susan Wojcicki’s garage, who founded YouTube. A specially designed Lego cabinet was used to store the first Google server.
5. In order to achieve its 2030 objective of having net-zero emissions across all operations and value chains, Google has invested in “adaptive reuse projects,” in which new offices are built in existing structures rather than new constructions.
6. Google launched its first overseas office in Tokyo in 2001, Japan, and in 2002, it opened a second one in Hamburg, Germany. They now have locations with offices and data centres in more than 200 cities worldwide and across six continents.
7. In Belo Horizonte, the first urban farm in Latin America is housed in the same building as the Google Brazil office. So, all the meals served here are fresh from the farm.
8. GBikes were introduced in 2007 to help Googlers. And around 1.9 million trips were successfully completed in 2019 throughout the whole GBike fleet, totalling 765,000 miles—or over 31 Earth rotations!
9. The ‘Google Doodle’ was on the homepage in 1998 to celebrate the Burning Man Festival. The company’s founders wanted everyone to understand their absence from the office.
10. There is a massive T-Rex statue at the Googleplex that is frequently covered in flamingos. It serves as a prompt for Google staff to prevent the company from going out of business(extinct).
11. The first major tech business to provide free meals and allow employees to bring their dogs to work was Google. The nature-inspired offices of Google hire goats to keep the grass trimmed instead of lawnmowers.

What Is A Google Doodle on 25th anniversary of Google?

A Google Doodle is a limited edition illustration incorporating the Google logo on its home pages to reflect birthdays, holidays and celebrated days.

The search engine company first came up with this idea back in 1998, before the company was even incorporated.

Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin attended the infamous Burning Man festival and wanted to show they were out of the office. They decided to ‘tweak’ the Google home page logo as a statement to reflect they were at the festival. And, after that, the idea progressed.

It was a few years before another Doodle was created for Bastille day by the then intern Dennis Hwang. After this, Hwang was appointed ‘Head Doodler’ and the Google Doodle began to make a regular appearance.

Google Doodles are now created by a team of illustrators and engineers and used for things like commemorating achievements (both within and outside the company), honoring the birthdays of important people, and celebrating holidays.

To date, there have been more than 5,000 unique doodles on Google’s homepages worldwide. From Lego, Pac Man, SOPA, Keith Haring, London tube, Sir Isaac Newton, Alan Turing to the The Great Wave Off Kanagawa and more.

 

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