5 Things You Did Not Know about Google

Information today has become as available as the internet, literally; but where would the world be without the revolutionary invention that made this happen? Nobody (except maybe Google) knows.

And since Google makes it its business to know all about everybody, have you ever wondered how much you know about the world’s most popular search engine? (If you haven’t, now is probably a good time to start).

Marissa Mayer, the vice president of local, maps, and localization at Google, has been on Google’s team from the second year after the search engine launched. Being on the team for so long has let her see Google’s growth first-hand, and in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, she listed out five things you probably didn’t know about the search engine.

Here are the five so-far-unknown insider anecdotes about Google

1. Why so much of Google’s homepage is white:

Google's dependence on white space on its homepage was one that arose purely out of necessity, and not because it wanted to be minimalist in design. According to Mayer, Sergey Brin, Google co-founder explained “We don’t have a webmaster and I don’t do HTML.”

2. How Google's AdSense happened:

Mayer, in the interview, said she almost killed the idea of targeting ads based on users’ e-mails, because she (at first) thought the idea was “creepy”. However, a colleague working an all-nighter overlooked her dismissal of the idea, and thus started ads-in-e-mail.

Today, Google’s AdSense is a multi-billion dollar business.

3. How much would it take to occupy some white space?

According to Google’s calculation, an ad on its home page would cost at least $10 million, if not more, apparently.

If only the space were for sale! (But then again, the only white space humankind knows on the internet would be cluttered with stuff we see everywhere else).

4. Why did the Google homepage have a copyright symbol on it?

Talking about the white space on Google—the page had the copyright symbol installed after initial test users did nothing but stare at the home page, “waiting for the rest of it to load,” Mayer said. It’s not necessary, but the symbol served as a sign that the minimal page had finished loading and was ready for a search entry.

5. And about acquiring things...

Mayer once had an extreme fascination for Motorola’s circa-1996 StarTAC mobile phone; she even bought used models of the phone on e-Bay to try and build up a collection.
But any resemblance to the incident, whether from fiction or real-life (read “Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility") is like when you happen to hoard a product and then come to a point years later where you buy the company that makes said product— it’spurely coincidental.