Today, September 27, Google officially celebrates its 25th anniversary. Although founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page registered their company with the American Chamber of Commerce on September 4, 1998, Google itself keeps September 27 as the official date. Today the homepage of the search engine will also be brightened up with the festive birthday variant of the ‘Google Doodle’:
A lot has changed in the past 25 years, not only in the Internet, but also in our lives, and Google has played an important role in this. What started as a classic story: a few nerds in a garage working on an Internet browser search bar, has now grown into a billion-dollar company that is deeply entrenched in our daily lives. Google is everywhere. Because where would we be without Android on your phone, Google Maps in the car, without the smart home products in your living room and the computers at the children’s school. ‘Googling’ has become a frequently used verb.
And the success seems to continue. After a difficult start, the ship came in with money. In the second quarter of this year, Google even recorded a net profit of $18.4 billion, an increase of almost 15 percent compared to the profit in the first quarter.
And the prospects also seem good: Bing’s attack seems to have been repelled, the revenue stream from advertising is still increasing, many schools and universities are using the free software and Google is about to launch Gemini (artificial intelligence software), an AI model that will compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4 model.
Google from different angles
At the same time, criticism of Google and Big Tech is increasing. Various countries, led by the European Union, are considering or are proposing laws to limit the power of Big Tech, there are concerns about the way in which Big Tech companies deal with privacy and the number of lawsuits about unfair competition is increasing.
In short, there is plenty to say about Google. In the coming days we will therefore take a closer look at Google’s power, Google’s invisible influence, the success factors, the growing criticism and Google’s prospects for the coming years.
