1995-1997 1995 Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford. Larry, 22, a U Michigan grad, is considering the school; Sergey, 21, is assigned to show him around. 1996 Larry and Sergey begin collaborating on a search engine called BackRub . BackRub operates on Stanford servers for more than a year—eventually taking up too much bandwidth. 1997 Google is REGISTERED as a domain on September 15. The name—a play on the word googol, a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros—reflects Larry and Sergeys mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web. Back to top 1998 April Larry launches a monthly Google Friends Newsletter to inform fans about company news. (Weve since shut down Google Friends Newsletter in favor of blogs, Google+ and other methods of sharing news .) August Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim writes a check for $100,000 to an entity that doesnt exist yet—a company called Google Inc. Before heading to the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, Larry and Sergey incorporate the iconic Man into the logo to keep people informed about where the Google crew would be for a few days—our first doodle . September On September 4, Google files for incorporation in California. Larry and Sergey open a bank account in the newly-established companys name and deposit Andy Bechtolsheims check. Google sets up workspace in Susan Wojcickis garage on Santa Margarita Ave., Menlo Park, Calif. Larry and Sergey hire their first employee. Craig Silverstein is a fellow CS grad student at Stanford who works at Google for 10+ years before joining education startup Khan Academy. December PC Magazine reports that Google has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results and recognizes us as the search engine of choice in the Top 100 Web Sites for 1998. Back to top 1999 February We outgrow our garage office and move to new digs at 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto with just eight employees. April Yoshka, our first company dog, comes to work with our senior vice president of operations, Urs Hölzle. May Omid Kordestani joins to run sales—employee #11. Ten years later, Omid steps down from his active role in the company, becoming a senior advisor. June Our first press release announces a $25 million round from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins; John Doerr and Michael Moritz join the board. August We move to our first Mountain View location: 2400 Bayshore . Mountain View is a few miles south of Stanford University, and north of the older towns of Silicon Valley: Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Jose. November We hire our first chef, Charlie Ayers (his previous claim to fame was catering for the Grateful Dead; he now owns a cafe in Palo Alto). Today Googles food programs focus on providing healthy, sustainably sourced food to fuel Googlers around the world. Back to top 2000 April We announce the MentalPlex : Googles ability to read your mind as you visualize the search results you want. Thus begins our annual foray in the Silicon Valley tradition of April 1 hoaxes. May We win our first Webby Awards: Technical Achievement (voted by judges) and Peoples Voice (voted by users). We run a series of doodles featuring a little alien—our first doodle series and the first doodle not associated with any particular event. The first 10 language versions of Google are released : French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish. Today, search is available in 150+ languages. July Our first international doodle celebrates Bastille Day in France. September Google New York starts in a Starbucks on 86th Street with a one-person sales team. Today, more than 4,000 Googlers work in our New York office, a former Port Authority building at 111 Eighth Avenue. We start offering search in Chinese, Japanese and Korean—bringing our total number of supported languages to 15. October Google AdWords launches with 350 customers. The self-service ad program promises online activation with a credit card, keyword targeting and performance feedback. The first doodle by a guest artist, Lorie Loeb , goes live. Since then, many artists have lent their talents to the Google homepage, from Wayne Thiebaud to Christoph Niemann to Eric Carle. December Google Toolbar is released—a browser plug-in that makes it possible to search without visiting the Google homepage. Back to top 2001 February In our first public acquisition, we acquire Dejas Usenet Discussion Service, an archive of 500 million Usenet discussions dating back to 1995. We add search and browse features and launch it as Google Groups . March Eric Schmidt is named chairman of the board of directors. April Swedish Chef becomes a language preference in search. We offer several joke languages, including Klingon. July Google Images launches, initially offering access to 250 million images. August We open our first international office, in Tokyo, Japan . Eric Schmidt becomes our CEO. Larry and Sergey are named presidents of products and technology, respectively. December We release our first annual Google Zeitgeist , a visual look at what millions of people searched for over the year just ending. Its a revealing look at the year that was, from Harry Potter to Osama Bin Laden. We continue to release Zeitgeist every year. Back to top 2002 February The first Google product for enterprises is released: the Google Search Appliance is a yellow box that businesses can plug into their computer network to enable search capabilities for their own documents. We release a major overhaul for AdWords , including new cost-per-click pricing. April We release the first set of Google APIs, enabling developers to query more than 2 billion web documents and program in their favorite environment, including Java, Perl and Visual Studio. May We release Google Labs, which let people try out beta technologies and was the proving ground for many Google features, such as Google Transit, Google Scholar and Google Trends. Nearly 10 years later, we wind down Google Labs in order to prioritize our product efforts. September Google News launches with 4,000 news sources. Today Google News includes 50,000+ news sources, with 70 regional editions in different languages. All told, Google News and other services send publishers 6 billion clicks per month as of 2012. October A few months after our first employee in Australia starts selling AdWords from her lounge room, we open our office in Sydney —the second office after Japan in APAC. Our first local AdWords client is eBay Australia. December With the launch of Froogle (which became Google Shopping in 2012), people can search for stuff to buy. Back to top 2003 February We acquire Pyra Labs, the creators of Blogger . Nearly as old as Google itself (Blogger started in 1999), today more than 300 million people visit Blogger every month. March We announce Google AdSense , a new content-targeted advertising service that enables publishers large and small to access Googles vast network of advertisers. (The following month, we acquire Applied Semantics, whose technology bolsters the service named AdSense.) April We launch Google Grants —the nonprofit edition of AdWords, which provides nonprofit organizations with $10,000 per month in in-kind AdWords advertising to promote their iniatives. October Registration opens for programmers to compete for cash prizes and recognition at the first ever Code Jam. Today, Google Code Jam attracts tens of thousands of contestants each year, and the finals have traveled to Tokyo, Dublin, London and New York City. December We launch Google Print (now known as Google Books ), indexing small excerpts from books to appear in search results. In 2004, the program expands through digital scanning partnerships with libraries. To date, weve scanned more than 20 million books. Back to top 2004 January We launch Orkut , in its heyday the most important social network in several countries. March We move to the new Googleplex at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View with 800+ employees. We introduce Google Local, offering relevant neighborhood business listings, maps, and directions. (Eventually, Local is combined with Google Maps.) April We launch Gmail on April Fools Day. At first invite-only, today it boasts more than 425 million users. Fun fact: our internal code name for Gmail was Caribou, inspired by a Dilbert cartoon. The Official Google Blog goes live. Today, we offer a wide variety of ways —including Google+ pages and Twitter accounts—for people to get news from Google, in many different languages. May We announce the first winners of the Google Anita Borg Scholarship , awarded to outstanding women studying computer science. Today these scholarships are open to students in Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, India, Middle East, New Zealand, and the United States. July We acquire Picasa , which helps people organize and display photos online. August Our Initial Public Offering of 19,605,052 shares of Class A common stock takes place on Wall Street. Opening price: $85 per share. September Our Hong Kong office is the first Google office to open in the Greater China region. October We acquire Keyhole, a digital mapping company whose technology will later become Google Earth . We launch Google Scholar in beta. This free service helps people search scholarly literature such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports. Google SMS launches. This service enabled users to send text search queries to GOOGL or 466453 on mobile devices. We formally open our European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland , with 150 multilingual Googlers, a visit from Sergey and Larry, and recognition from the Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland, Mary Harney. We open our new offices in Bangalore and Hyderabad , India. Googlers in India have worked on products ranging from Map Maker to ads to Chrome. December We establish Google.org , dedicated to the idea that technology can help make the world a better place. Back to top 2005 February Google Maps goes live. Just two months later, we add satellite views and directions to the product. April Google Maps comes to mobile phones in the U.S., offering driving directions and local information to people on the go. Our first Google Maps release in Europe is geared to U.K. users. France, Germany, Italy and Spain follow in 2006. Today, we offer driving directions in 190+ countries around the world. The first video goes up on YouTube (not yet part of Google). Today, 100+ hours of video are uploaded every minute and people watch 6 billion hours of video per month! May Personalized Homepage (later iGoogle and no longer available as of November 2013) was designed for people to customize their own Google homepage with content modules. June Google Mobile Web Search is released, specially formulated for viewing search results on mobile phones. We unveil Google Earth , a satellite imagery-based mapping service that lets you take a virtual journey to any location in the world. Google Earth has since been downloaded more than 1 billion times. The Google Maps API is released; developers can embed Google Maps on many kinds of mapping services and sites. Today there are 1 million active websites and apps using the API, reaching 1 billion people every week. August We launch Google Talk, a downloadable application that lets Gmail users to talk or instant message with friends quickly and easily; Chat comes to Gmail the following year. In 2013, we announce that Talk will be rolled into Hangouts , Googles new single communications system. October Googlers volunteer to produce an author event with Malcolm Gladwell in Mountain View. Since then, the Talks at Google program has hosted 1,500+ authors and other thought leaders in 18 offices. November We release Google Analytics for measuring the impact of websites and marketing campaigns. Analytics is based on Urchin, a company we acquired in March 2005. We announce the opening of our offices in São Paulo and Mexico City —our first in Latin America. The first Doodle 4 Google contest takes place in the United Kingdom. Since then, weve run Doodle 4 Google contests in countries across six continents, with more than 1 million doodles submitted by students eager for the chance to see their artwork on the Google homepage. December Google Transit launches in the Portland, Ore. metro area. Today, Transit has schedules for more than 1 million public transit stops worldwide. Gmail for mobile launches in the United States. Back to top 2006 March Google Finance launches—complete with interactive charts and related headlines from Google News—to help people to find financial information more easily. April We launch Google Calendar to help you keep track of events, special occasions and appointments, and to share schedules with others. Google Translate launches, offering translations between Arabic and English. Today our machine translation service provides translations between 70+ different languages. May We release Google Trends , a way to visualize the popularity of searches over time. Gmail launches in Arabic and Hebrew, bringing the number of interfaces up to 40. June We announce Google Checkout, a fast and easy way to pay for online purchases which paved the way for broader payments with Google Wallet . Picasa Web Albums enables Picasa users to upload and share their photos online. The Oxford English Dictionary adds the word Google (as a verb). August Google Apps for Your Domain is released. This suite of applications, including Gmail and Calendar, is the precursor to Google Apps Premier Edition , which launched later in the year and brings cloud computing to businesses. Today, more than 5 million businesses are using Google Apps. October We launch Apps for Education ; our first deployment is to Arizona State University. Today Apps for EDU has more than 25 million users, and is being used by 74 of the top 100 universities. We release web-based applications Docs & Spreadsheets (now called Docs and Sheets ). Docs is a reworking of Writely (acquired in March). We announce our acquisition of YouTube . Back to top 2007 January Fortune announces its annual list of Best Companies to Work For and Google is #1 (weve been on top of the list three other years since). Were proud weve been able to create a company culture where employees are empowered to do cool things that matter. February This year’s Valentines Day doodle causes a stir. Many people think we left out the l and linked it to a 17th century poet named Googe; others think its homage to a band called My Bloody Valentine (the bassists last name is Googe). Many of the 2008 Presidential candidates—including then-Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain—visit the Googleplex throughout the campaign. We add traffic information to Google Maps for 30+ cities around the U.S. Today, live traffic data is available in 50+ countries, covering highways, streets and more in 600+ major cities. March The first gBikes appear on campus, giving Googlers an efficient, convenient and healthy way to get to and from meetings. Today around 700 bikes are on campus at any given moment—just one sign of Googles cycling-friendly culture. April This April Fools Day is extra busy: not only do we introduce the Gmail Paper Archive and TiSP (Toilet Internet Service Provider) —we lose (and find) a real snake in our New York office! GOOG-411 enabled people to dial a phone number and speak a search for local information. May Street View debuts in Google Maps in five U.S. cities: New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver. Today, Street View is available in more than 50 countries. We kick off an effort to help protect people from malicious content on the Internet. Today, approximately 1 billion people use Google Safe Browsing , which extends not only to Google’s search results and ads, but also to popular web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Safari, on mobile and desktop. We expand the YouTube Partnership Program to include some of the most popular and prolific original content creators from the YouTube community. Today more than 1 million channels earn revenue from the program. We announce new strides taken towards universal search. Now video, news, books, image and local results are all integrated together in one search result. June We install solar panels on our Mountain View campus—the largest corporate solar panel installation of its kind at the time. Today the solar panels power 30 percent of the buildings they sit on. We unveil a new green initiative aimed at accelerating the adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. We later retire the RechargeIT initiative , though we continue to OFFER electric vehicles as part of our employee car sharing service. September AdSense for Mobile is introduced, giving sites optimized for mobile browsers the ability to host the same ads as standard websites. We add a new application for making slide presentations to Google Docs. November We announce Android —the first open platform for mobile devices—and a collaboration with other companies in the Open Handset Alliance. Renewable Energy Less Than Coal (RE
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 16:40:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015