Google Milestones
2001
January
We announce the hire of Silicon Valley veteran Wayne Rosing as our first VP of engineering operations.
February
Our first public acquisition: Deja.com's Usenet Discussion Service, an archive of 500 million Usenet discussions dating back to 1995. We add search and browse features and launch it as Google Groups.
March
Eric Schmidt is named chairman of the board of directors.
Google.com is available in 26 languages.
April
Swedish Chef becomes a language preference.
July
Image Search launches, offering access to 250 million images.
August
We open our first international office, in Tokyo.
Eric Schmidt becomes our CEO. Larry and Sergey are named presidents of products and technology, respectively.
October
A new partnership with Universo Online (UOL) makes Google the major search service for millions of Latin Americans.
December
Keeping track: Our index size grows to 3 billion web documents.
2002
February
Klingon becomes one of 72 language interfaces.
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.
We release a major overhaul for AdWords, including new cost-per-click pricing.
April
For April Fool's Day, we announce that pigeons power our search results.
We release a set of APIs, enabling developers to query more than 2 billion Web documents and program in their favorite environment, including Java, Perl and Visual Studio.
May
We announce a major partnership with AOL to offer Google search and sponsored links to 34 million customers using CompuServe, Netscape and AOL.com.
We release Google Labs for users to try out beta technologies fresh from our R&D team.
September
Google News launches with 4000 news sources.
October
We open our first Australian office in Sydney.
December
Users can now search for stuff to buy with Froogle (later called Google Product Search).
2003
January
American Dialect Society members vote "google" the "most useful" Word of the Year for 2002.
February
We acquire Pyra Labs, the creators of Blogger.
March
We announce a new content-targeted advertising service, enabling publishers large and small to access Google's vast network of advertisers. (Weeks later, on April 23, we acquired Applied Semantics, whose technology bolsters the service named AdSense.)
April
We launch Google Grants, our in-kind advertising program for nonprofit organizations to run in-kind ad campaigns for their cause.
October
Registration opens for programmers to compete for cash prizes and recognition at our first-ever Code Jam. Coders can work in Java, C++, C# or VB.NET.
December
We launch Google Print (which later becomes Google Book Search), indexing small excerpts from books to appear in search results.
2004
January
orkut launches as a way for us to tap into the sphere of social networking.
February
Larry Page is inducted into the National Academy of Engineering.
Our search index hits a new milestone: 6 billion items, including 4.28 billion web pages and 880 million images.
March
We move to our new "Googleplex" at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, giving 800+ employees a campus environment.
We formalize our enterprise unit with the hire of Dave Girouard as general manager; reporters begin reporting in April about our vision for the enterprise search business.
We introduce Google Local, offering relevant neighborhood business listings, maps, and directions. (Later, Local is combined with Google Maps.)
April
For April Fool's we announce plans to open the Googlunaplex, a new research facility on the Moon.
May
We announce the first winners of the Google Anita Borg Scholarship, awarded to outstanding women studying computer science. Today these scholarships are open to students in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe.
August
Our 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.
September
There are more than 100 Google domains (Norway and Kenya are #102 and #103). The list has since grown to more than 150.
October
We formally open our office in Dublin, Ireland, with 150 multilingual Googlers, a visit from Sergey and Larry, and recognition from the Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland, Mary Harney.
Google SMS (short message service) launches; send your text search queries to GOOGL or 466453 on your mobile device.
Larry and Sergey are named Fellows by the Marconi Society, which recognizes "lasting scientific contributions to human progress in the field of communications science and the Internet."
We spotlight our new engineering offices in Bangalore and Hyderabad, India with a visit from Sergey and Larry.
Google Desktop Search is introduced: users can now search for files and documents stored on their own hard drive using Google technology.
We launch the beta version of Google Scholar, a free service that helps users search scholarly literature such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports.
We acquire Keyhole, a digital mapping company whose technology will later become Google Earth.
November
Our index of web pages reaches 8 billion.
December
We open our Tokyo R&D (research & development) center to attract the best and brightest among Japanese and other Asian engineers.
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
February
We hit a milestone in Image Search: 1.1 billion images indexed.
Google Maps goes live.
March
We launch code.google.com, a new place for developer-oriented resources, including all of our APIs.
Some 14,000 programmers from six countries compete for cash prizes and recognition at our first coding competition in India, with top scores going to Ardian Kristanto Poernomo of Singapore.
We acquire Urchin, a web analytics company whose technology is used to create Google Analytics.
April
Our first Google Maps release in Europe is geared to U.K. users.
For April Fool's, we announce a magical beverage that makes its imbibers more intelligent, and therefore better capable of properly using search results.
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.
We release Site Targeting, an AdWords feature giving advertisers the ability to better target their ads to specific content sites.
May
We release Blogger Mobile, enabling bloggers to use their mobile phones to post and send photos to their blogs.
Google Scholar adds support for institutional access: searchers can now locate journal articles within their own libraries.
Personalized Homepage (now iGoogle ) is designed for people to customize their own Google homepage with content modules they choose.
June
We hold our first Summer of Code, a 3-month $2 million program that aims to help computer science students contribute to open source software development.
Google Mobile Web Search is released, specially formulated for viewing search results on mobile phones.
We unveil Google Earth: a satellite imagery-based mapping service combining 3D buildings and terrain with mapping capabilities and Google search.
We release Personalized Search in Labs: over time, your (opt-in) search history will closely reflect your interests.
API for Maps released; developers can embed Google Maps on many kinds of mapping services and sites.
August
Google scores well in the U.S. government's 2005 machine translation evaluation. (We've done so in subsequent years as well.)
We launch Google Talk, a downloadable Windows application that enables Gmail users to talk or IM with friends quickly and easily talk using a computer microphone and speaker (no phone required) for free.
September
Overlays in Google Earth illuminate the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina around New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Some rescue teams use these tools to locate stranded victims.
DARPA veteran Vint Cerf joins Google to carry on his quest for a global open Internet.
Dr. Kai-Fu Lee begins work at our new Research and Development Center in China.
Google Blog Search goes live; it's the way to find current and relevant blog postings on particular topics throughout the enormous blogosphere.
October
Feed aficionados rejoice as Google Reader, a feed reader, is introduced at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.
Googlers volunteer to produce the first Mountain View book event with Malcolm Gladwell, author of "Blink" and "The Tipping Point." Since then, the Authors@Google program has hosted more than 480 authors in 12 offices across the U.S., Europe and India.
November
We release Google Analytics, formerly known as Urchin, for measuring the impact of websites and marketing campaigns.
We announce the opening of our first offices in São Paulo and Mexico City.
December
Google Transit launches in Labs. People in the Portland, Oregon metro area can now plan their trips on public transportation at one site.
Gmail for mobile launches in the United States.
(Countinue wait for the next post plz.........)
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