Google's 19th Birthday

September 2017 is Google’s 19th birthday. When I saw the doodle this morning I lost myself for a minute. It’s crazy to think Google has been around that long. (Not to mention the empire it’s created along the way.) It feels like yesterday Larry Page and Sergey Brin dropped their Ph.D. project on us - and yet, most of my students don’t know a life without Google. 

There, over my kitchen table waiting for coffee, I found myself re-living the first time I used it. 1999. I was in 7th grade and our school’s media center (then referred to as a... library) had just installed a bunch of brand new PCs, running on a fresh version of Windows 98. When you loaded your browser, it took a few minutes just to open. Chrome wasn’t a thing either. (But I’m sure they had plans in progress.)

The only two features Google had were “Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky” buttons. There were no doodles. No Drive, Gmail, or Translate. YouTube wasn’t a thing yet and neither was Blogger. It was a simple search engine for a simple internet. Googleplex was a garage. Simple times, indeed.

There were a few other search engines available, too. Though none seemed to live up to the hype of Google. Some of you might recall the "dot-com bubble."

I remembered my Language Arts teacher, Ms. Clancy, expressing her preference for AskJeeves, but allowing us to use Google for differentiation. She thought it was a gimmick.

If I close my eyes, I can picture typing in the search bar, with that super-slow user interface (in comparison to now), hoping that “I’m Feeling Lucky” would bring up the hockey scores from the night before. Usually to no avail. Back then it usually took a day or so for the search results to reflect the updated news. (Streaming? Like a river?)

One time she caught me waiting for the webpage to load. I couldn’t close the window fast enough. There were no ‘tabs’ and she snuck right up behind me. I got detention and had to complete my book/author report after school. Not-so-ironically, it was also my first time taking the Late Bus.

“This is why Jeeves is the better choice,” she said. “Less distractions.”

Now I realize that she was referring to the few search results and sedated servers. Later this turned into Ask.com, and Jeeves retired in 2006, leaving the search results left open to mostly user input. 

It’s funny how one little factoid can spark a chain of otherwise insignificant memory sequence. I can only imagine where Google will be in the next 20 years They’re already everywhere, listening and watching everything you do. Maybe by 2040 their AI will be implanted into our brains at birth. Maybe their soon-to-be cybernetic enhancements will spark a SkyNet revolution and exterminate human consciousness. (Remember Google Glass?) Or maybe their parent company, Alphabet, runs them into the ground as Elon Musk and Space X relocate us to Mars.

Who knows? Dwelling on the future creates anxiety and, as a practicing teacher, I don’t have time for that.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some kids to annoy about researching NFL and NBA scores instead of their homework assignments.

Some things never change.