102. Google 101 Facts(part 3 : 36-69 Random Facts about the Google Chocolate Factory)
Many people wonder why the Google homepage is
so sparse, when the actual technology is so advanced. The reason being that when Google was started its founders did not know enough HTML to design a fancy page, and they just wanted to create a quick interface they could use without any instruction.
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Over the years, the founders still prefer
Over the years, the founders still prefer and insist to keep the home page simple and they insist that the words on the home page do not exceed 28 words.
The constant user surveys have proved that
the “I am feeling Lucky” button is seldom used by its users, but still the users prefer to have it on the page.
Google’s traffic doubled when
the “did you mean,“option was introduced. This feature was achieved through the introduction of advanced spell checkers and helped users find suggestions to their search requirements.
Google homepage was initially launched with a
Beta label, which was removed on 21st September 1999, and that was when Google became the father of the search engine technology.
Google Now makes intuitive use of the data it collects about its users
If a user uses Google Calendar, Google can use their schedule, through Google Now, to remind them of upcoming appointments and even travel directions and traffic information just before you need to leave for the meeting. The videos users watch on YouTube and the books they read on Google books can provide suggestions to search results for other items the user would be interested in.
In 2013 Google gets the most search requests for
Nelson Mandel, Paul Walker, iPhone 5, Cory Monteith, Harlem Shak, Boston Marathon, Royal Baby, Samsung Galaxy S, PlayStation 4, North Korea. The list is similar to Google's top searches from 2012, which included Whitney Houston, Gangnam Style, iPad, Olympics. Its not a surprise under generic searches its things like Facebook, Amazon and pornography that are searched for.
Many of Google’s products spend a long time in
Beta phase. Google encourages its employees to spend at least 20% of their time developing an independent idea. Some of them are so interesting that Google takes them up officially resulting in so many beta products.
The word Google is now a 
formal English word, and was included in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006. Now, you can listen to more and more people saying “google it" used as a synonym for general web searching.
The first Google Doodle was a
vacation announcement. It was a stick man standing in the company logo and was an announcement that the founders were going to attend burning man in the year 1998. What started as a fun indulgence went on to become a creative obsession.
Google is based
in Mountain View, near San Francisco.
Google’s unofficial slogan says
"Don't be evil". Google tries hard to contribute to the good causes, be it humanitarian or environmental.
Susan Wojcicki, one of the Vice Presidents of the company, has
been named the “most important Googler you have never heard about”. It is a rare tag but a well deserved one.
Susan Wojcicki was on the
16th position of the Forbes magazine’s list of “World’s 100 most powerful women” in the year 2011.
All the letters in the
word Google have been copyrighted by Google.
620 million users
visit www.google.com daily. Does that number stand for half the world’s population? Maybe not, but it definitely stands for almost all the people who use the Internet.
Up to 97% of
Google’s revenue comes from advertisements.
In 2011, Google had more than
31,000 employees (25,000 full time, 6000, engineers, 9,000 research ). Google has more than 2000 Indians employees as well.
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Eric Schmidt was the only
candidate (among the candidates being interviewed) who had been to the Burning Man, which got him an instant brownie point and he was hired as the chairman in the year 2001.
Google estimates that an ad on its homepage would cost around
$10 million, but the page is still not for sale. The founders of the company want to keep the page as it started years ago.
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The Google homepage can also be viewed in the language of
Klingon (from Star Trek), in case the aliens attack the world and need Google to navigate through the situation. The Google make the Klingon homepage available at https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-klingon
Google estimates that the "I'm feeling lucky!" button has cost
approximately $100 million dollars in lost ad revenue, but Google still keeps the button because the users like it.
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Google first tweeted
the binary form of ‘I am feeling lucky’ on Thursday, 26 February 2009.
“I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010″
If you convert all the 1′s and 0′s in a byte into ascii characters, the message is:I’m F E E L I N G L U C K Y.
The private planes of Sergey Brin and Larry page land on
the strips of NASA HQ, where no other planes can land. Talk about royalty - Googlers are having the best of it.
Google written backwards is elgooG, btu did you know you could
search backwards too at http://elgoog.im
During the Egypt crisis in the year 2011-2012, Google
worked with Twitter to provide people without an Internet connection to send Tweets by dialing a phone number and leaving a message. This voicemail was automatically translated into messages on Twitter.
Google Earth reached
1-billion downloads in 2011.
In the November of 2011, Google broadcasted the
Haj Pilgrimage Live on YouTube for the very first time (first time for HAJ as well as YouTube).
Google is a voracious buyer of
other technology companies. It now owns many companies now and some of the famous names are Picassa, Keyhole Inc., Android, Youtube and Motorola Mobility.
Google’s toughest competitors are
Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Mozilla. There are many more names to the list but these names can safely be attributed as the toughest competitors.
YouTube makes money through
advertisements that are placed near the videos. It works like Google itself. It further earns money through sponsored competition on the website. Google paid $1.65 Billion to purchase Youtube on October 9, 2006, even though they had an in house product called Google Video.
Did you know that Google pays Mozilla Millions of dollars a year?
A heavy sum? Why? Google and Mozilla see themselves as partners, not competitors, to make the web better so Google's contribution provides nearly all of Mozilla's revenue. As part of the deal Mozilla makes Google the default search provider in its Firefox web browser and some speculate the partnership also protects Google from antitrust comaplaints.
There are some people who believe
if you cannot find something on Google then it does not exist.
In April 2004, Google announced
In April 2004, Google announced to open a research facility on the moon, called Googlunaplex.
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