Inside Out

Notes on seeking wisdom and crafting software

Google : Interesting facts

Did you know !@#?

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The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. Infact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.

  • Google uses the 20% / 5% rules. If at least 20% of people use a feature, then it will be included. At least 5% of people need to use a particular search preference before it will make it into the ‘Advanced Preferences’.
  • The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’ 
  • Gmail was used internally for nearly 2years prior to launch to the public. They discovered there was approximately 6 types of email users, and Gmail has been designed to accommodate these 6.
  • Google makes changes small-and-often. They will sometimes trial a particular feature with a set of users from a given network subnet; for example Excite@Home users often get to see new features. They aren’t told of this, just presented with the new UI and observed how they use it.

And the last one...

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> Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own > projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew > from this working model.  > >

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Thats makes Google so creative !!

*More of these facts are [here](http://alan.blog-city.com/an_evening_with_googles_marissa_mayer.htm)*

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