Google It: How Two Friends Changed the Internet
Before the turn of the century, many people turned to books for specific information.
Today, things are different — and quicker. How tall is a giraffe? Google it. What's the distance between London and Manchester? Google it.
With billions of daily searches, Google has made people's lives a lot easier. And it all began with two friends, and a search engine they called "BackRub."
Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University, California, in 1995. As their friendship grew, they started thinking of ways to find data on the internet.
Search engines already existed back then — "Archie," created in 1990, is often credited with being the first.
While other search engines presented data based on how often a search phrase was used, Page and Brin wanted to create one that would present it in order of importance and relevance.
That's where the name BackRub came from. The program analyzed the internet's "back links" — the number of other pages linked to them — to determine how important a website was.
The name was changed to "Google" in 1997, based on the word "googol" — a mathematical word for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. The name represented the large number of results the search engine could generate.
In 1998, Page and Brin incorporated the company, after receiving funding from investors, one of whom was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
They first operated out of a garage, but they quickly outgrew the space, eventually settling in what is now their headquarters in Mountain View, California.
From there, they continued to grow. By 2004, the search engine had 200 million searches a day. The company started offering new services, like Gmail in 2004, Google Maps in 2005, and Google Chrome in 2008. Google also acquired other businesses, like YouTube.
In 2015, after some restructuring, the parent company Alphabet Inc. was created, with Google as its largest subsidiary. Today, Alphabet Inc. is among the world's most valuable companies, worth nearly $1.6 trillion.
And if you don't believe that, google it.
1. What did you know about Google before reading this article?
2. Do you remember the first time you used Google? What did you make of it then?
3. Have you used any search engines other than Google? How did you find them?
4. Is there anything about Google that you find annoying?
5. Do you think Google will remain the most popular search engine for the foreseeable future?
6. How much time per day do you spend browsing the internet?
7. What do you imagine are your most visited websites?
8. How do you imagine you'd cope if the internet stopped working for a week?
9. Who are the most tech-savvy people you know?
10. Do you know anyone who works in the tech industry?