Google. That one weird word has somehow found its way into the everyday English vocabulary. And not only do we use it as a noun, it’s become a verb as well. If you don’t believe us, Google it.
By the way, as funny-sounding as the name “Google” is for something that pretty much everyone uses every day, did you know that when Google was created back in 1995 by two tech guys on the campus of Stanford University, its original name was BackRub?
What if that name stuck? Would we all just BackRub it every time we need to know when dental floss was invented , or how many teeth a rattlesnake has , when human beings discovered fire ? Would we all be using BMail, and BackRub Maps? Just doesn’t sound the same, does it?
Actually, when we say “everyone” uses Google, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Google may seem like it’s everywhere, but according to recent figures, Google’s “market share” of all searches performed by internet users at the end of 2013 was 67.3 percent.
That makes Google by far the dominant search engine online. But it also means that more than three of every 10 internet users search for information using a service other than Google.
Microsoft’s Bing search engine comes in second at 18.2 percent. Yahoo!, the internet’s first search engine, created in 1994 — also at Stanford University — which once dominated the search field, now commands just 10.8 percent of the search market. And that number is sinking.
Here’s something else you probably didn’t know about Google. In addition to dominating the world of online search, Google is also a pretty cool toy. There are dozens of secret tricks that Google can do — but doesn’t tell you about.
But we will. Courtesy of our friends at BuzzFeed , this short video will introduce you just some of the fun and interesting, and in some cases even useful, secrets of Google.
Happy Googling!
