At first there were WebCrawler, AltaVista, Excite, Lycos and many others. As the algorithms that run them became more complex and technology evolved, a Darwin-style process began to kill those who failed to adapt to an ever-changing virtual climate. And then there were two.
Microsoft knows this position very well. They are in a constant stalemate with Sony to see who will emerge victorious in the field of video games. Then there’s the endless battle of PC vs. Mac, powered by Apple’s constant barrage of best-selling innovations (iPod, iPhone, iPad…you get the iDea). Microsoft bought Yahoo! in an attempt to narrow the playing field against the competition.
Sign in to Google. Hot on the heels of the launch of its Google Chrome search engine and Android operating system, a company from humble beginnings has grown into a tech giant. Google survived its search and did so through a simplicity… well, at least to the naked eye. Google search is related to a series of complex formulas that no one really knows except Google. Whatever it is, they work… because more people use Google search than any other search engine.
The Microsoft story is one we all know. Founded by college dropout Bill Gates with his friend Paul Allen in 1975, Microsoft was the world’s first developer of computer languages. Since then, the Redmond, Washington-based corporation has grown to become one of the largest and most influential companies in the world.
They also own the patents for Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, and Windows. 20 years after Microsoft’s inception, Bill Gates pitched his “Internet Tidal Wave Memo” to the company and the rest is history. MSN (Microsoft Network) was launched on August 24, 1995 to compete with AOL and has come to dominate all of its competitors… except one.
Google was started by two college classmates, Larry Page and Sergei Brin PhD, in March 1996 as a research project for school. Google wasn’t always Google. It started with another name, “BackRub”. Page and Brin decided that the name should be changed a year after its inception to something a little catchier… Google. Google comes from the word googolplex, which means 1 followed by 100 zeros. All this was part of the philosophy that the founders of Google wanted to convey to users. They were going to change the way we search, and they weren’t going away anytime soon.
The first search engine ever created did not belong to Microsoft or Google. A Montreal student named Alan Emtage created Archie in 1990. Archie, short for archives, was an internet database of file names that would match user searches. Subsequently, two more search engines were created under the names of Veronica and Jughead, both characters from the popular Archie comics.
Start of a new era
The World Wide Web was born in 1991 when Tim-Berners Lee decided to merge hypertext with DNS and FTP servers. The first website in the history of websites (http://info.cern.ch/) went online on August 6, 1991. Berners-Lee founded the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) at MIT in 1994. By the end of the year, there were about 10 different search engines, including Excite, Lycos, Yahoo!, LookSmart, and WebCrawler.
I feel lucky?
When Google came online in 1996, it was one of many portals that people could use to navigate through the growing number of websites. Many people were confused by Google’s surprisingly simple page. It had the Google Beta logo and a search box with no images, just some links and two buttons: “Google Search” and “I’m getting lucky.” The Google home page has remained largely unchanged to date. Microsoft’s MSN search was already a year ahead of them, but still not their biggest competition.
To make way for progress, Google had to beat the little guys. They did this very effectively by indexing more websites and returning more relevant results to user queries. Its lack of frills and quick, concise responses drew 84.7% of all web searches between its home page and partner sites in early 2004. This led Yahoo to remove its name from Google’s partner list and act on your own. Not by force, but through intelligence, Google prevails. Google’s code of conduct is “Don’t Be Evil”.
If you buy the sites people go to, you can control the Web.
YouTube is one of the most viewed sites on the internet, due to user-submitted clips and viral videos covering virtually every topic imaginable. Google bought YouTube in 2006 for a whopping $1.65 billion. That wasn’t his only key power play. Google also bought Pyra Labs, maker of Blogger, in 2003, a small part of AOL in 2005 and, more recently, 3D desktop software maker ClickBump in 2010. This has been just part of Google’s push to stay on top. .
secured and loaded
It wasn’t until 2010 that Microsoft swooped in and bought Yahoo! and changed the game with what they called “the first decision engine”, Bing. Bing takes a more visual approach to searching the web and even has comedic TV ads to prove it. After all, it’s pretty obvious now that Microsoft has its sites set up on Google. $47.2 billion to stay at the table and see the cards. Microsoft can do that. Bill Gates was recently demoted to the second richest man in the world.
What does this mean for those of us innocent bystanders simply searching the web for fun and work? For now, better and faster search results. As Microsoft and Google battle it out, both companies will have to push themselves to provide better services to grab their market share. If you don’t like any of the search engines, the other types like Excite and AltaVista are still around. They just aren’t used as much anymore. As for Google or Microsoft giving up, they are too entrenched in technology for this to be likely in the near future. There is too much ammunition and too big a fight in the hearts of both sides. The battle lines have been drawn and now all we can do is watch the carnage unfold.
Article by Peter Boimare
