[ad_1]
Many things can change in 20 years. The defenseless newborns become on-campus researchers, the under-20s become responsible adults and the tiny technology startups become colossal corporations, with extended portfolios of polished products.
Yes, indeed: just as hominids are ripening over the last two decades, Google – which officially celebrates its 20th anniversary on Thursday – has undergone a dramatic transformation since its inception. Heck, even Google products that launched ten Years ago, you hardly recognize their children anymore.
Let's take a trip back in time to see how some of the company's most popular products have looked at their appearance and how far they have reached their current states.
Google.com
Google.com – the website and search engine, which represented everything Google had to offer at the beginning – was originally a research project called BackRub, designed by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Once they turned into Google, the first versions of the site displayed a page devoid of plain text text, "Welcome to Google" and links to a prototype classic search engine and a "might-work-some" – the version of time ".
By clicking on the standard prototype link, you've come to a fragmented page with a rudimentary version of the Google logo (with a Yahoo style exclamation mark at knew it must have been exciting!). The page is touted as the nascent search engine contained about 25 million pages, a number "soon a lot bigger," the company promised.
And it was not a lie: two years ago, Google had trillion pages, depending on Earth search engine. Today, the company is a little more modest, with a public estimate that its index contains "hundreds of billions of web pages," or more than 100 million gigabytes of data.
Oh, and that 1998 binds to the prototype "could-work-one-of-the-type-of-the-type"? He stopped – what else? – a beta version of Google's namesake service.
Related: How did I go from Google intern to Google Maps?
Gmail
When Google announced Gmail on April 1, 2004, many people thought it was a joke. After all, the company was known for its April Fools pranks, and the official Gmail announcement seemed suspicious for both its seemingly outrageous claims (one gigabyte of storage – per user?) And for the silly tone with which it was written.
In reality, of course, there was nothing to laugh about: even in its earliest forms, Gmail reorganized the expectations of a web-based mail system, not just with the amount of storage its threading organization conversational type.
The concept of archiving messages instead of deleting them was a wild concept at a time when most webmail services provided only megabytes of storage. From the outset, Gmail has provided users with tools to manage this ever-expanding communication story, such as the unusual label system of the department instead of the folders, its "All Mail" section and its superb and extremely sophisticated search technology. fast.
Then there were the ads – a point of contention between privacy advocates from the start. (Google has stopped scanning email for targeting ads in 2017, but continues to show ads in parts of the Gmail interface today.)
Google Talk
The saga of Google messaging applications began with the arrival of its Google Talk client in 2005. Talk was initially available as a Windows-only application, but non-Windows users could also access the service through a set of clients. third.
The first Talk client allows you to connect with any of your Gmail contacts, a "great way to communicate with your friends without having to leave your computer," as Google has told the company. ;time. The application even included an internet call feature that promised to make your voice "much better than on answering machines" (what a relief!).
Before long, Google Talk was integrated with Gmail, where it was often called "Google Chat" or "gChat" by users (although no service with these names has ever existed). Talk eventually merged with Hangouts, which is gradually migrating to a corporate product, while Android messages (and, to a lesser extent, Allo) take over the main messaging role.
Google Maps
Maps found its place in Google's product portfolio in 2005, when MapQuest was the industry leader and printable textual instructions were the norm. Maps' oldest design featured movable interactive maps that were loaded almost instantly when you moved your mouse – a detail now commonplace, anything but ordinary at the time.
From the first day, Maps allowed you to search for a neighborhood not only for business names or addresses, but also for vague concepts such as "banks", "pizza" or "Wi-Fi access points" . Mobile data access was a rarity and public access points were still relatively difficult to find.
And, of course, the biggest innovation of Maps: the service has allowed you to see the instructions step by step as an overlay on a real map. That was, I say, revolutionary.
Youtube
At first, YouTube did not look much like the service we know today. The first screenshots available, from 2005 – while YouTube was still an independent effort – show a fragmented site focused on video dating. Users have been encouraged to upload their videos and search for potential matches.
In the space of a few months, however, the site had become a more familiar video site. And by the time Google acquired YouTube in 2006, the service was using the "Broadcast Yourself" slogan – which it adhered to until 2012 – and had an entertainment-centric setup that featured creative videos and often wacky. center.
Google Docs
Google Docs is from a web-based word processor called Writely. Google bought the app in March 2006, while Microsoft Word was the undisputed champion of productivity and Web-based alternatives were barely on the radar. The company continued to operate the application under the name Writely last October.
In the first months under Google's wing, Writely did not look much like the Docs we know today:
Once Google has combined Writely with another The application that she had acquired and worked as an experimental version of Google Spreadsheets, however, bringing the two entities under the Google Docs banner, all took on a more recognizable form. Nevertheless, the Docs interface has remained steadfastly basic and its set of functions limited, with the main focus being on the service's unrivaled collaboration system.
The co-founder of the company even told CNET that "the last thing he wanted his application to do" was to "compete with Microsoft" – a mentality that would not last long.
Google Calendar
Unlike other products in this story, the original Google Calendar design, when the service was launched in 2006, seems likely familiar. This is because the application has not changed much until its redesign, long awaited, last year.
These images of the Calendar 2006 product tour should bring back not so distant memories:
Android
Finally, a Google product has undergone one of the most dramatic developments in modern technology: Android. The first version of Android, in 2008, did not even have a desserts-themed code name, but it featured a customizable home screen with screen backgrounds, shortcuts, and a range. limited system widgets.
Notifications and multitasking were at the heart of the platform's concerns, even though things seemed teensy little different from what we are used to today.
Only the Android version 1.5 Cupcake of the following year that fundamental elements such as the onscreen keyboard, voice input and video recording have appeared in the platform.
It may all seem like a life, but it's only been nine years – a powerful reminder of the speed with which technology has advanced and the difference between the world and the creation of Google and its different products.
[ad_2]
Source link
