The 15 Most Important Technologies of the Last 15 Years – #4: Google

As the World Wide Web grew at hyper speed in the mid 1990’s, people quickly realized just how difficult it was to find information. Early search engines like Yahoo and Alta Vista filled in that gap, but there was still plenty of room for innovation to improve the results of those searches. A little startup called Google emerged in the late 1990’s, with the first version of their system housed entirely in a garage. Google steadily gained users over the next few years due to its simplicity and quality of search results. However, it wasn’t until 2001 that Google hired their first CEO and 2003 that they moved in to their current headquarters. As the profitability from their AdWords product piled up, Google became the dominant search engine in the mid-2000’s. Now Google is the most visited site on the Internet and the word has become a verb. “Google it” is now a common part of our language.

The simplicity to which we can find the relevant information we are seeking has been the secret to Google’s success. All the information in the world isn’t useful to us if we can’t find it quickly and easily and Google has made it possible to do just that, changing the world in the process. Literally the world’s information is only a Google search away, but that has only been a reality in the last fifteen years. I think it is fitting that there’s not much else to say about Google because what they provide to us is so simple and important, we almost take it for granted.

Can you imagine life without Google? Do you remember the first time you used Google? Comment below and let us know how Google changed the way you search for information online.