You may have noticed it while doing searches on September 27, this somewhat curious dynamic Doodle (see below)replacing the usual Google logo. It came to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the famous search engine.
The story behind Google’s success
Google turned 25 last September! More precisely, there were two birthdays in September: September 4 and September 27. September 4, 1998 marked the official creation of Google in California by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two American IT specialists. So, why September 27? The company, which always seeks originality, decided in 2005 to move its anniversary to September 27, to make this date coincide with that of the public announcement whereby it was no longer going to display the number of pages indexed by the search engine, this having reached a record (and, among other things, surpassed Yahoo).
When the company was created, Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted above all to make the web more accessible to everyone. It was the time of Yahoo!, a directory which provided access to Internet sites. The two men therefore worked to improve the data classification system and to design a more efficient research tool.
Like other companies working in the field, Google was born in a garage, thanks to the fortunate investment of Andy Bechtolsheim who first believed in the project. He was right: a few months after its launch, the search engine already had 500,000 daily queries. Today, Google is the most visited website in the world with 8.5 billion searches per day. The company generates more than $282 billion in revenue (2022), including $162 billion for Google search.
But its success is not only linked to the search engine. If the company is today number 1 in the world with a 93% market share, it is also because it has made itself indispensable in our professional and everyday life, with many other tools .
It therefore offers a wide range of products dedicated to digital technology, from the Google Drive office suite, which allows you to share documents and collaborate online, to Youtube, a video hosting website purchased for $1.65 billion in 2006, including Google Maps (online mapping service), Google Earth, Google Meet, Google Photos, Google Play, etc. With a Google account, the user can have access to all services in a convenient manner and on any device or platform. Furthermore, its Chrome browser is completely customizable with numerous tools for monitoring, productivity, social networks, etc., available in the “Chrome Web Store”. Google is so successful that its name even became a common verb for some people.
Unsurprisingly, Google Drive reached the billion users in 2018 and Gmail has more than 1.8 billion users, including businesses. As for Android, sponsored by Google, it has exceeded 3 billion active devices.
The company’s economic model is largely based on Google Ads, its online advertising platform created in 2000 which allows to monetize search through pay-per-click advertising. The advertisements are not chosen at random: the words are auctioned and a quality score of the ad is calculated, which gives a certain relevance in the results provided to the user without interfering with navigation.
A company at the cutting edge of innovation
Innovation is at the heart of Google’s business. To this end, the company has adopted a special management style to encourage creativity among its employees, which makes it one of the most attractive companies for applicants. At Google, employees are encouraged to communicate and are given time to work on projects that are not related to their jobs. This is how the famous Gmail and Google Street View messaging were born.
Google currently holds more than 110,000 patents worldwide and continues to innovate. Its search engine is regularly updated in order to refine search results and provide the best answer, as quickly as possible.
Today, the digital dominant players are experimenting the field of artificial intelligence. Despite the difficult launch of Bard, Google’s chatbot which aims to compete with ChatGPT (OpenAI), Google is one of the leaders and continues its work in generative and conversational AI.
Discover the demonstration of the Google Assistant by Sundar Pichai, Managing Director of the Alphabet Group, in May 2018:
Some new tools developed by Google place it as a pioneer in the fight against natural disasters: flood forecasting (Flood Hub), extreme heat alerts, tools to determine where to prioritize tree planting in a city, management of urban flows with the “Green Light” project to reduce waiting times at traffic lights and CO2 emissions, etc.
Among the projects launched by Google, not all of them had the expected success and some were discontinued. Google has nevertheless chosen to give them special significance by dedicating a “cemetery” to them. Today, nearly 300 abandoned services and projects rest in this cemetery and contribute to the company’s history, such as the old iGoogle page (killed 10 years ago) or Hangouts. Additions are planned for 2024, such as the Google Podcasts application or the collaborative whiteboard Jamboard.
Link to access: https://killedbygoogle.com/
Google is also… fun and culture
Gamers may be familiar with the T-rex no-internet game, which exists since 2014. It was designed specifically to accompany you when your Internet connection is interrupted. You will find it in full page here: chrome://dino/
Google finally has the originality of regularly creating new Doodles, these modifications made to its logo that you find on the home page of the search engine, to celebrate birthdays, events (such as elections, world cups, etc.), or commemorate the lives of famous people (artists, scientists, etc.). When the user clicks on a Doodle, they usually land on the corresponding search page to learn more about the subject. Some of them are interactive, like the Valentine’s Day 2022 Doodle or, more impressive, the July 23, 2021 Doodle Champions Island Games which includes 7 sports mini-games and many quests to complete, for several hours of play. Without forgetting the iconic Doodle Pacman…
For fun, the Doodles are all archived on this page.
The search engine is full of tips and gold nuggets and we won’t mention all of them: calculator, tuner for musical instrument, random drawing tool (type “Google spinner” in the search bar), etc. We’ll leave you to discover those on your own.
