{"id":27,"date":"2018-01-16T21:14:51","date_gmt":"2018-01-16T21:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssrc.ie\/blog\/?p=27"},"modified":"2020-01-31T14:03:34","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T14:03:34","slug":"the-rise-of-google-a-brief-exploration-of-the-past-present-and-future-of-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ssrc.ie\/blog\/2018\/01\/16\/the-rise-of-google-a-brief-exploration-of-the-past-present-and-future-of-google\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of Google – A Brief Exploration of the Past, Present and Future of Google"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/strong>
\nThroughout my attendance of the Digital Citizenship module classes in NUIG and further studies on the various topics discussed in class, I noticed that technology and the Internet were key topics associated with the digital age. For me, and I am sure for many others also, I cannot think of the Internet without Google also coming to mind. Google itself seems to be the Internet, two inseparable bodies. In this blog I wish to delve into the history of Google- its past and its humble beginnings, its present and what it is like today with its numerous successes and failures and finally, I wish to explore the possible future of Google and gain an insider\u2019s look into its fate. Overall, a brief but nonetheless, hopefully insightful exploration. Google Inc. was formally incorporated on September 7, 1998 (McCullough, 2017) by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Now under the parent company Alphabet Inc., Google undoubtedly is the top search engine in the world (Bhangu, 2017). It has successfully infiltrated itself into everyday life, becoming a popular household name. However, Google is more than simply Google the search engine. The company also provides a range of services online, some a success for the company, others not so much. These services include but are not restricted to Gmail, Google Drive, Google Plus, Google Translate, Google Maps etc. Google has become a versatile tool to assist that is used worldwide and \u201cgoogle is on the frontline of technological development\u201d contends Kiss (2017). At the end of 2016, Google employed over 70000 full time employees all around the world (Farfan, 2017). Google\u2019s achievement in filtering through our lives has been a fluctuation of both highs and lows for the company, with an enormous amount of time, money and energy being invested into it in order to keep it at its number one place.<\/p>\n

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\nThe Past<\/strong>
\nGoogle originally was not set out to be Google. Its birth begins with two Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who later co-founded Google. The two students instantly became an inseparable pair and would work together on their dissertations in Office 360 in the newly opened William Gates Computer Science building on Stanford\u2019s campus, named after Bill Gates co-founder of Microsoft which proves to be ironic since the birth of Microsoft’s biggest contender \u201cfor dominance of the tech industry\u201d began in a building named after Microsoft\u2019s co-founder (McCullough, 2017). Even before Google was established it was clear that whatever Larry Page and Sergey Brin came up with, it would be something that would take the world by storm. McCullough highlights that \u201ctheir intellectual fearlessness overlapped in such a way that their conflicting personalities actually ended up complimenting each other\u201d (2017). Upon simply noticing the lack of relevant links that appeared when using the available search engines online at the time, which included WebCrawler, Lycos, AltaVista, Excite and Yahoo etc (Lee, 2015), an idea to map the web\u2019s links was mulled over, later leading to the introduction of the project Backrub by Larry Page. Search bots, known as \u201cspiders,\u201d were sent out into the web to find all the links of the Internet. Following Sergey Brin\u2019s quick joining in of the project came PageRank. \u201cPageRank is used by Google together with a number of different factors, including standard IR measures, proximity, and anchor text (text of links pointing to Web pages) in order to find most relevant answers to a given query\u201d (Bianchini, 2005). PageRank didn\u2019t find things that other search engines could not, it just simply found the top most relevant result and placed it on the first page. The idea that Larry Page and Sergey Brin came up with was ingenious, however they faced difficulties in getting investment. Instead of despairing however, they launched the search engine to the general public in 1997. \u201cThrough nothing but word of mouth, the service grew increasingly popular, serving more than ten thousand queries a day by late 1998\u201d (McCullough, 2017). \u201cWe chose our system name, Google, because it is a common spelling of googol, or 10100 and fits well with our goal of building very large-scale search engines.\u201d (Brin and Page, 1998). Larry Page and Sergey Brin invested all the money they had into the project and later received $25 million from Kleiner’s John Doeer and Seequoia\u2019 Mike Mortiz (McCullough, 2017). A partnership with Yahoo was made official in June of 2000. This deal \u201callowed for a \u201cpowered by Google\u201d logo to appear on Yahoo\u2019s search pages, thereby introducing the Google brand to millions more mainstream web users\u201d McCullough (2017) describes, \u201callowing daily searches served by Google to rise from 18-million a day before the Yahoo deal, to 60 million a day afterwards.\u201d By early 2001, Google would pass the 100 million searches per day milestone. Despite some struggles in the early 2000s financial wise, Larry Page and Sergey Brin worked on Adwords, an improvement on a new Internet advertising model called Overture. \u201cBy improving on Overture\u2019s pioneering work with paid links, Google was able to achieve something just as amazing: it made the internet profitable\u201d (McCullough, 2017)\u201d. This was the game changer. From then on, it can be said, the rest is history.<\/p>\n

The Present<\/strong>
\nAt present Google now equips the Internet with a range of online applications. Though useful features allow us to explore the city of Tokyo on Google Maps or translate Irish into Swedish using Google Translate etc, there is a rising cause for concern with the amount of power Google now has. Every Google application requires personal details that include home addresses and sometimes credit card details etc. A rather startling discovery I noted was on Google Maps. Under the options setting I noticed features titled \u201cYour Places\u201d and \u201cYour Timeline\u201d. As an Android user which is the mobile smartphone software Google owns, it seems every time I use Google Maps, it is recorded. The timeline feature recorded that I was searching for a particular venue in say Cork, for example, on a particular day at a particular time. It has lines drawn showing where I travelled from to where I travelled to. Why? I do not know. Why does Google feel the need to record this information? Perhaps some perceive it as a handy tool that allows them to see all the places they have been and the routes they have taken. This also gives rise to the question as to how many people actually know about this feature? I only recently discovered it by complete accident. To have Google know exactly where my home address is and to have it know that I am indeed home is a scary thought. Similarly, Gmail is another application of Google that requires a lot of its user\u2019s personal information in order to be used. It can be said that privacy is basically non-existent on the Internet and knowing there are those who have access to private details is another worrisome topic. This brings up the question of Google security. How secure is it now? And how long before the levels of security deteriorate even further? With the mention of privacy also comes to mind the failure of Google Glass. Failure may be too strong of a word, it perhaps was just before its time. Undoubtedly though a revival of Google Glass will be seen in the future for a personal use, as the digital age continues. \u201cWe define smart glasses as wearable computers with a mobile Internet connection that are worn like glasses or that mount on regular glasses to display information in the user\u2019s view field\u201d (Brem et al, 2015). Brem et al further explains that \u201ca camera, a microphone, and a GPS receiver capture information from the physical world. A prism positioned in front of the user\u2019s right eye displays virtual information in the user\u2019s view field\u201d (2015). Google, in 2013, introduced the concept of the Google Glass launch which would be the first smart glass to be used for personal use. Google Glass was test marketed to a small number of people in the US and announced it would be launched fully to the US towards late 2014 (Google, 2014). The usage of Google Glass has been revived however, in a business sense. \u201cGoogle Glass 2.0 is a hardware revamp of the Glass in a similar design. Now it’s being targeted as a wearable for business use\u201d (Stein, 2017). Stein further elaborates \u201cGlass Enterprise Edition, as it’s being called, is only available via what it calls Glass Partners, companies that are making specific, customized versions for clients\u201d (2017). This failure turned somewhat success is typical for Google. Larry Page and Sergey Brin when employing their masses, employed people who had the same mindset as them, to never give up and persevere no matter what the challenge ahead may have been.<\/p>\n

The Future<\/strong>
\nGoogle\u2019s future relies largely on its second current CEO Sundar Pichai who follows in the footsteps of Larry Page (who is now CEO of Alphabet Inc.). In an interview that questioned the initiative to reach the \u201cnext billion\u201d smartphone users in India which was referred to as a \u201ckind of technological imperialism, bulldozing a way into the developing world\u201d Sundar Pichai responded that he wanted Google to be \u201ca global company\u201d (Kiss, 2017). \u201cWhen Pichai talks about the next billion people about to come online with smartphones, I get the impression that, for him, Google\u2019s monetization strategy really is secondary to Pichai’s stated goal: giving people everywhere the power of Google’s machine learning whenever and wherever they need it. He’s clearly proud of the fact that Google’s products work the same whether you’re a billionaire or a rural farmer in a far-flung place. And Pichai’s vision is to ensure that dedication becomes a part of everything Google makes\u201d (Bohn, 2015).
\nSundar Pichai is highly regarded in Google, having joined over 10 years ago in 2004. He is thoughtful and considerate and has made several contributions to Google\u2019s overall success. He was involved in a team that ultimately lead to the release of Google Chrome. \u201cChrome was released in 2008 and now accounts for nearly 60% of the market, according to NetMarketShare, while Internet Explorer languishes on less than 16%\u201d (Kiss, 2017). This huge success as well as Sundar Pichai\u2019s own ambition has led him to be the perfect successor of Larry Page. He proves himself often, perhaps even more so than Larry Page and Sergey Brin did. Google is now in its peak which, as Sundar Pichai highlights has its own difficulties. \u201cAs a company, we end up being a symbol for many things…When we make mistakes it is very costly.\u201d Kiss further describes how Sundar Pichai fired an engineer who penned a 10-page memo claiming that \u201cthe lack of women in tech was due to biological differences\u201d (2017). Sundar Pichai works relentlessly to ensure equality and fairness is to the forefront of Google\u2019s image. At its annual developer conference, Google I\/O, Sundar Pichai stated \u201cWe are focused on our core mission of organising the world\u2019s information for everyone and approach this by applying deep computer science and technical insights to solve problems at scale\u201d (Solon, 2017). Google I\/O also gave an insight as to what else Google plans to do in the future. Lens will be a feature that will work to \u201cunderstand\u201d what you\u2019re looking at. Thus, you can point the camera at a flower and it will identify the species or automatically connect to a wifi network by showing the camera the login details printed on the sticker on the router. You can also hold your camera up to a restaurant in the street and see reviews\u201d (Solon, 2017). Following Lens there shall be an upgrade to Google\u2019s version of the iPhone\u2019s Siri, Google Home. \u201cGoogle Home will offer \u201cproactive assistance\u201d rather than waiting for you to say \u201cOK, Google\u201d to wake it up\u201d (Solon, 2017). Solon further elaborates with the example that Google Home \u201cmight notify you if you have to leave your house earlier than expected because traffic is particularly heavy\u201d (2017). This concept though useful, does create fears.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong>
\nGoogle, though only officially \u201calive\u201d for less than twenty years, has already lived a vivid life. At the top of its game we digital citizens can only watch it and see where it shall be in another twenty years to come. What started off as a humble search engine project in a dorm room in Stanford University, Google has taken the world by storm and will likely continue to do so for years to come, accumulating an even more varied and rich history in its progress under the watchful eyes of Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Sundar Pichai.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n