Google 2001-2008 “Not Too Evil”

This is just more information from the mouth of Google. I tried to chomp out the pieces that were more relevant to most people . I’ve left out the philanthropic angle and focused more on the acquisitions and applications that have redefined how we work, live and play.

Some of these features you may think just came out. In fact, they many have been around longer than you think.

In the next post I’ll get a little more ‘controversial’.

2001

* first public acquisition: Deja.com’s Usenet Discussion Service, an archive of 500 million Usenet discussions dating back to 1995.

* Google.com is available in 26 languages.

* Image Search launches, offering access to 250 million images.

* index size grows to 3 billion web documents.

2002

* The first Google hardware is released: it’s a yellow box called the Google Search Appliance that businesses can plug into their computer network to enable search capabilities for their own documents.

* release a major overhaul for AdWords, including new cost-per-click pricing.

* Wannounce a major partnership with AOL to offer Google search and sponsored links to 34 million customers using CompuServe, Netscape and AOL.com.

* release Google Labs for users to try out beta technologies fresh from our R&D team.

* Google News launches with 4000 news sources.

* open our first Australian office in Sydney.

* Users can now search for stuff to buy with Froogle (later called Google Product Search).

2003

* American Dialect Society members vote “google” the “most useful” Word of the Year for 2002.

* acquire Pyra Labs, the creators of Blogger.

* announce a new content-targeted advertising service, enabling publishers large and small to access Google’s vast network of advertisers.

* launch Google Grants, our in-kind advertising program for nonprofit organizations to run in-kind ad campaigns for their cause.

* launch Google Print (which later becomes Google Book Search), indexing small excerpts from books to appear in search results.

2004

* search index hits a new milestone: 6 billion items, including 4.28 billion web pages and 880 million images.

* new “Googleplex” at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, giving 800+ employees a campus environment.

* introduce Google Local, offering relevant neighborhood business listings, maps, and directions. (Later, Local is combined with Google Maps.)

* Initial Public Offering of 19,605,052 shares of Class A common stock takes place on Wall Street on August 18. Opening price: $85 per share.

* Google SMS (short message service) launches; send your text search queries to GOOGL or 466453 on your mobile device.

* Google Desktop Search is introduced: users can now search for files and documents stored on their own hard drive using Google technology.

* acquire Keyhole, a digital mapping company whose technology will later become Google Earth.

* Our index of web pages reaches 8 billion.
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* The Google Print Program (since renamed Google Book Search) expands through digital scanning partnerships with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, University of Michigan, and Oxford plus the New York Public Library.

2005

* Image Search: 1.1 billion images indexed.

* Google Maps goes live.

* acquire Urchin, a web analytics company whose technology is used to create Google Analytics.

* Google Maps now features satellite views and directions.

* Google Local goes mobile, and includes SMS driving directions.

* My Search History launches in Labs, allowing users to view all the web pages they’ve visited and Google searches they’ve made over time.

* release Site Targeting, an AdWords feature giving advertisers the ability to better target their ads to specific content sites.

* release Blogger Mobile, enabling bloggers to use their mobile phones to post and send photos to their blogs.

* Personalized Homepage (now iGoogle ) is designed for people to customize their own Google homepage with content modules they choose.

* Google Mobile Web Search is released, specially formulated for viewing search results on mobile phones.

* Google Earth: a satellite imagery-based mapping service combining 3D buildings and terrain with mapping capabilities and Google search.

* Google Blog Search goes live; it’s the way to find current and relevant blog postings on particular topics throughout the enormous blogosphere.

* Google Reader, a feed reader, is introduced at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

* introduce Picasa in 25 more languages, including Polish, Thai and Vietnamese.

* release Chat in Gmail, using the instant messaging tools from Google Talk.

* announce the acquisition of Writely, a web-based word processing application that subsequently becomes the basis for Google Docs.

* launch Google Calendar, complete with sharing and group features.

* Google Trends, a way to visualize the popularity of searches over time.

* Picasa Web Albums, allowing Picasa users to upload and share their photos online.

* The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) adds “Google” as a verb.

* At Google Code Jam Europe, nearly 10,000 programmers from 31 countries compete at Google Dublin for the top prizes; Tomasz Czajka from Poland wins the final round.

* Google News, with more than 200 years of historical articles.

* acquisition of YouTube for 1 Billion US.

* acquire JotSpot, a collaborative wiki platform, which later becomes Google Sites.

* release Patent Search in the U.S., indexing more than 7 million patents dating back to 1790.

* We announce a partnership with China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile telecom carrier, to provide mobile and Internet search services in China.

* For Valentine’s Day, open up Gmail to everyone.

* Google Hot Trends launches, listing the current 100 most active queries, showing what people are searching for at the moment.

* Street View debuts in Google Maps in five U.S. cities: New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver.

* On Developer Day, we announce Google Gears (now known just as Gears), an open source technology for creating offline web applications.

* Google Maps gets prime placement on the original Apple iPhone.

* The first CNN/YouTube debate takes place between the eight U.S. Democratic Presidential candidates. (

* Android, the first open platform for mobile devices, and a collaboration with other companies in the Open Handset Alliance, is announced.

2008

* Google Sites, a revamp of the acquisition JotSpot, debuts. Sites enables users to create collaborative websites with embedded videos, documents, and calendars.

* Google Website Optimizer comes out of beta, expanding from an AdWords-only product. It’s a free website-testing tool with which users can continually test different combinations of their website content (such as images and text), to see which ones yield themost sales, sign-ups, leads or other goals.

* first downloadable iPhone app, featuring My Location and word suggestions for quicker mobile searching, debuts with the launch of the Apple 3G iPhone.

* Google Suggest feature arrives on Google.com, helping formulate queries, reduce spelling errors, and reduce keystrokes.

* Word gets out about Chrome a bit ahead of schedule and released in Beta on Sept 2nd.

* Google News Archive helps to make more old newspapers accessible and searchable online by partnering with newspaper publishers to digitize millions of pages of news archives.

* T-Mobile announces the G1, the first phone built on the Android operating system.