Saturday 15 September 2007

Happy Birthday Google

Today they are 10 years old.

It was on September 15, 1997 that Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two 24-year-old Stanford University students, registered the domain name of "google.com." And like most 10 year olds, have saved up their pocket money. They are worth $196 billion AUD.



Google started life in a garage in California as a simple search engine. They've grown into a electronic repository of knowledge by indexing the web, it's images, books and video.


The lads co-wrote the now famous Anatomy of a Search Engine. The prototype with a full text and hyperlink database of at least 24 million pages is still available.

The word "google" is a variation of 'googol,' which refers to the number 10 to the power of 100, a term popularised by US mathematician Edward Kasner. With an informal company motto of Don't be Evil, 500 million visitors a day look at Google.com. Shares when they went public in 2004 were $US85, and today they are valued at $525. Last year they reached $US13.4 billion in revenue, a third from Internet ads, and profit of $4 billion. Sergey and Larry now have $18 billion in personal wealth.

They have 13,700 employees, a number in their Sydney office. Every employee is asked to dedicate 20% of their time to develop ideas. Imagine if your boss said you should do that?

With the incredibly ambitious Google Earth project, where every street in the world was photographed, has been criticised, but also admired. For Google nerds, here's their history, the timeline, and their orginal Search Engine prototype

I might just send the boys a birthday cake, as they sponsor this blog.

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