Today when I opened my Google Doodle homepage I were curious to find out what the Google Doodle was all about. Google usually don’t have a Google Doodle that is about them, but today is different, today google is celebrating their 15th Birthday.
Google’s 15th Birthday Google Doodle 27 September 2013
I almost immediately phoned a friend to tell him that today is Google’s 15th Birthday, and him being not in the internet industry before 2000 thought that Google were actually much older his immediate word were “are Google only 15 years old, and yet in only 15 years they have managed to become THE most powerful and influential online company in the world”.
It is quite amazing if you think about it, in the older days (15 years ago) it were almost unheard of, of any company rising to such tremendous power in such a short space of time. Yet if you live a digital life online you would know companies can go from zero to hero in only a short space of time.
Any case, when I was thinking about “Google” and its 15th Birthday I realized that I have also aged 15 years since I have seen google for the first time. I can almost not believe that Google is turning 15 today and I am 15 years older, so I had to write it twice.
In the early days, when there was no Google there were companies like AltaVista, Hotbox, Yahoo, Microsoft and Excite that ruled the internet search space, and Microsoft and Netscape were in fierce competition to create the best browsers.
I remember that for me the hottest search engine were “AltaVista” you could type something into their search box and seconds later you will sort of get what you wanted. (Although the quality of sites in those days were not that informative). Slowly people jumped on board, and small entrepreneurs and site builders realized that they could easily influence the results that these early search engines spit out, and as a result the search results from “AltaVista and the other Search Engines got so degraded that it were almost not worth using a search engine to find something online”.
I distinctly remembered the email that I have received from an online friend I have never met before except for talking to him on Mirc, (In those days, still can’t believe it is 15 years ago, Mirc were the Black Berry or Whatapp chat hip thing at the time). He said that I need to go check out Google it is a simple search engine that just launched but their search results were pretty good.
If you think you can type “Google” fast today, it were the same for “Altavista” or “Hotbot” or “Excite” they have just missed it to become a noun, but it were almost as common those days to type their names than it is to type Google.
So at first I kept on going to these search engines first and then to Google, and I cannot exactly remember the precise day or month, but at some point I just realized that it is easier to go to Google straight than to even bother with these other search engines.
Today looking back 15 years at the birth of Google I realize that the biggest key to Google’s success were to make exceptional things easy to use and as plain and simple as possible hiding the advanced technology, algorithms and workings away from users.
Using Google is easy, it just WORKS, and I think this were key to their success. Today Google have a VERY LONG list of stunning applications, search engines, email, video , YouTube and Google+ to name a few that I cannot go without a day, and these are the things that keeps Google on the edge and why people use them every day, and I think as long as Google can do advanced things making it dead simple to do, they will continue to dominate the market.
Can you remember how you started using Google for the first time, and which search engines did you use most, let us know in the comments section below!
To everyone making a living from Google, Google Employees, Larry Page and Sergy Brin we here at Car Site would like to wish you all a Happy Birthday with the Birth of Google, may the search engine for years still be as relevant as it is today!
Happy Birthday Google!
