A simple picture of a cake is Google's homepage doodle today, marking the company's 12th birthday. It's been a long road since the company was started in September 1998 by then Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page; a time before the search engine giant became a household name.

Google started as a search engine, and PCMag reported in December 1998 that Google "has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results" - earning the company a spot as the search engine of choice in our Top 100 Web Sites for 1998.

Before long, however, the company branched out into other features. In 2001, Google launched Image Search. The following year, it released Google Labs and Google News. Google Maps hit the Web in February 2005 and Google Talk came along six months later. That year also saw the release of Google Reader, Google Analytics, and Gmail for mobile, though Gmail did not go public for everyone until February 2007. More recently, Google has introduced its Android mobile operating system, Google Buzz, and Google Voice.

This isn't the first time a Google doodle has been in the news this year. This May, in honor of Pac-Man's 30th anniversary, Google turned its homepage into a massively popular playable Pac-Man game. Earlier this month, the homepage was interactive again. In conjunction with the launch of Google Instant, fast-moving colorful balls spelled out the world "Google,"and moved when users hovered their mouse over the name.

For the past three years, Google has also hosted "Doodle 4 Google," a competition in which students submit their own original designs for the homepage, and winners are awarded scholarships and technology grants. Makenzie Melton, a third grader from Missouri, was this year's winner.

Today's doodle was created by 89-year-old Los Angeles painter Wayne Thiebaud. A single candle takes the place of the "l" in Google. In its short lifetime, Google has extended its influence across the globe, processing more than a billion search requests a day. The word "Google" even has a place in the Oxford English dictionary.

Source
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369743,00.asp
DeLeTeD Reviewed by DeLeTeD on . Google's 12th Birthday A simple picture of a cake is Google's homepage doodle today, marking the company's 12th birthday. It's been a long road since the company was started in September 1998 by then Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page; a time before the search engine giant became a household name. Google started as a search engine, and PCMag reported in December 1998 that Google "has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results" - earning the company a spot as the search engine of Rating: 5