8 Years of Google

Google wanted to celebrate their September anniversary today with a special logo. From 1998, the company has evolved a lot. I've compiled some excerpts from the news about Google, published in September, to show a glimpse from its evolution. The last snippet is from Google Groups.

"As will undoubtedly make the rounds everywhere in the blogosphere today, Google has just launched Google Blog Search. Google's perhaps the single company most identitied with search, so their entrance into the blog search space is a big milestone even though the idea of blog search has been around for years." (September 2005)

"Today, Google launched a number of significant upgrades to Google Local, Google's local search service. These enhancements and new features are a result of Google's continuing effort to develop Google Local and make local information even more accessible and useful. The new improvements include (...) a new, cleaner design [with] maps on results pages displaying the location of businesses in the search results" (September 2004)

"Google, one of the most aggressive staff recruiters in Silicon Valley, is putting on a programming contest worth up to $10,000 and a possible career at the search company." (September 2003)

"Google News (...) has had a major facelift. The service is still in beta and still free. But now it is linked prominently from Google's top page, which means that millions of people will try it. Google News is an automated aggregator. In its earlier incarnation, Google spidered some 150 news sites, updating once an hour, and determined which stories were the most covered; it built a page with summaries and links, all generated without benefit of a human editor. Now Google spiders 4,000 news sites and updates every 15 minutes. The resulting news page is refreshingly free of blinking ads and pop-unders, as all of Google has been since its inception." (September 2002)

"In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, popular news Web sites such as CNN.com and ABCNEWS.com were overwhelmed with a deluge of people grasping for the latest information. For many, the sites were inaccessible. Into the breach stepped Google Inc., the search engine company. It had made copies of the news pages before the crush and offered them up on its site." (September 2001)

"Using a new search algorithm that Google launched Friday, users can input numbers directly into their cellular phones, and the Google algorithm intelligently figures out what words they represent." (September 2000)

"Suppose you had a search engine that could steer straight through the oceans of inanities on the Net. The Web's meandering masses would soon make a beeline for it, clamoring for their daily fix of relevant search results. It would be manna for the mind, and everyone would love it. But would you have a business?" (September 1999)

"I've used it several times over the last few months. I think right now it's still one of those things that only people "in the know" use, although it's beginning to get some press now. It really reminds me of that other Stanford offshoot....Yahoo.... It runs on Linux and you actually find what you're looking for on the Net with it. Damn, I wish I had some spare money floating about to invest in it once it becomes a company." (September 1998)