Google

From ArticleWorld

It’s name, comes from Milton Sirrota’s way of describing the number 1 followed by one hundred noughts, “Googol”. Google’s use of this name is said to reflect their mission to make the vast amount of information on the internet available to all. The original name for Google, was “BackRub”, because of the way the search engine checked backlinks to guage a site’s relevance. Page and Sergy Brin started Google as a research project for their Ph.D.

Contents 1 Google today 2 Services 3 Culture and philosophy 4 Finance

Google today

With billions of web pages, Google’s index is the largest in the world. Google employs more than 2,688 “Googlers” who work at the Google HQ, named “The Googleplex”.

When performing a Google search, users can choose to search in 35 languages, as well as English. Google also has a Klingon interface, which can be found at http://www.google.com/intl/xx-klingon. Other interfaces have been made, such as the “haxor” interface which makes use of “leet-speak”.

Services

Apart from the standard Google search, Google Inc. provides a number of other services, such as Google Adsense, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Desktop, orkut, Google page creator, Google calendar, Google Sketchup, Google Co-op, Google notebook and Gmail (Googlemail in the UK, due to a recent court case).

Culture and philosophy

Google has often been perceived as a relaxed, laid-back company, with it’s philosophies built upon casual principles. The “ten things” that Google lists as it’s philosophies, are:

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There’s always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn’t good enough.

You can read in more detail about these statements here: http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html

Google’s cultural image as far as the public has been concerned, has been somewhat damaged recently, due to Google simply bowing to China’s internet censorship program, more fondly called, “The great firewall of China”.

Finance

Originally, when Google first started out, the salaries paid to it’s “Googlers” were fairly low by industry standards. However, the incredible rate at which Google’s market value has risen, has made up for these meagre beginnings. Google now offers higher salaries to it’s new employees, and provides many other incentives. The prestige of working for Google can also look very good on a CV, due to Google’s strong branding.