> In 1998 (before even starting the firm) the founders received $100,000 dollars from Sun Microsystems co-founder.In 1999 the founders,so as not to disturb their studies, decided to sell Google to a slew of companies (Alta Vista,Yahoo,Excite) for just $1 million.But all of them rejected the offer.Now while some of those companies cease to exist,Yahoo's worth is just $20 billion, whereas Google has grown up to $200 billion.This should be one of the stupidest business decisions by Yahoo.
> The biggest misconception is that Google's search technology of Page Rank is called so because it ranks the web'pages'.While it was named so after the name of its inventor and one of the founders- Larry Page.
> Google's traffic almost doubled when they introduced their much improved spell checker giving birth to the “Did you mean…” feature. This was a giant leap in search usage.
> One third of search queries in Google turn out to be unique,which means a string of words have been used together for the first time.Google is thus creating its own language called 'Keywords' to understand the search query.
> Google uses artificial intelligence and neural networks technology extensively to understand the various accents in voice searches.This means Google has actually created a man-made brain network,which learns itself every time it finds a new accent.
> For doodles fans:
The first Google doodle(in 1998) was a Burning Man symbol.It was actually designed to let their users know that all Googlers (the guys working in Google) were out of office along with Page and Brin and so they can't fix any technical problems.But now doodles are used to mark significant events and anniversaries. The first playable doodle was Pac-man doodle,launched to mark Pac-Man's 30th birthday in May 2010.It had 250 complete levels and became so famous that it has a permanent link now.[Click here for link]
> Eric Schmidt,CEO of Google was the only candidate (among the candidates being interviewed) who had been to the Burning Man,an annual art event in Nevada.So this gave him advantage for being hired as CEO.
> The Gmail logo was designed literally the night before the product was launched.Well, a common trait in engineers :-)
> Gmail was used internally for nearly 2 years prior to launch to the public.
> Google rents around 200 goats from a company called 'California Grazing' to cut down the weeds and grass at its HQ because 'it's lot cuter to watch than lawn movers' in Goolgers' words.
> Google brought android only to make sure that mobiles search using Google while market experts believed that Google was planning to enter the mobile industry with its own handsets.But finally their 'prophecy' turned true when Google released its own Nexus series handsets in 2010.
> Merriam-Webster and Oxford English Dictionary adding "google" as a verb to their lexicons in 2006. But Google was not pleased with the development because it feared that google would "slip from trademarked status into common usage." Seven years later we can find people saying 'just google it'.
> Google is sometimes nicknamed the “Mountain View Chocolate Factory” not because it gives its employees lot of chocolates but because of similarity in the cultures of Google and Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory (they both employ strange eccentric but dedicated engineers).
> Google pays Mozilla Millions of dollars a year.Not because it stole any software from Mozilla! but because Google and Mozilla see themselves as partners in development of opensource.In return Firefox browser makes Google the default search provider.
> If a Google employee dies, their spouse gets half the pay for 10 years.
> There is a cognitive bias called Google effect where a person tends to forget information that can be easily found using a search engine.
> Some core Google services went down recently for 5 mins, causing worldwide internet traffic to drop off by a pretty huge 40 per cent.
> The infamous “I feel lucky” is nearly never used by users. However, constant user surveys have proved that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it to be there as a comfort button.
> Google advocates bringing dogs to work and there is even a “company dog” called Yoshka. But Google discourages bringing cats to work quoting that "We like cats, but we're a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out."
> Google offices do not have a dress code. A Googler can wear anything to the office. even body-paint !
> Google has the largest network of translators (people) who help melt the world’s boundaries. One can translate from 345 source language to 345 target languages from this network.
> If you go to www.google.co.in/settings/ads you can see all the categories that Google have predicted you based on your search history and browsing behaviors.It even predicts your gender,interests,age based on your search history
> Search for the following Google Products that are little known but can be very useful and interesting:
#Google think insights
#Google public data explorer
#Get your business online
#Google fonts
#Google sky
*> Interesting searches in Google:
#If you search 'who is the cutest' using Google's 'I'm feeling lucky' it says 'you are'
#By searching 'Atari break out' in Google one can play its abridged version in Google using search results.
#If you type 'do a barrel roll' in Google the whole page will spin.
#If a Google employee dies , their spouse gets half the pay for 10 years.
#Search 'askew' in Google the page will tilt slightly clockwise.
#Type in Google 'zerg rush', Google will eat the search page.
#If one asks for directions from the shire to Mordar in Google maps,you are offered the warning: "Use caution-One does not simply walk into Mordar." the famous line spoken by Boromir in 'The Lord of the Rings'.
**> Coming to numbers:[stats by end of 2012 December]
#Google has 90,000 servers located worldwide placed in high security buildings.
#Google search handles around 40000 search per second worldwide.
65% of searches are handled by Google while its nearest Chinese competitor handles around 8.2%.
#620 million people visit Google daily.
#97% of revenue comes from advertising.
#270000 words per minute are written in blogger
#200000 apps available in android market
#146 million Gmail users worldwide
#100 million activated android phones worldwide
#Google processes around 20 petabytes or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of information (data) daily.
*Last time tested on 1 Nov,2013
**Tend to change with time