Rant #2,227: Searchin'

Today, September 27, is pretty much like any other day on the calendar, with a bit of a twist.

That is because today is a day that changed all of our lives.

I don't know if it changed all of our lives for the better, but it did change our lives.

Twenty years ago today, in 1998, the Google Internet search engine was officially born.

If you are reading this blog, you have, sometime in your life, used the Google search engine to find something that you needed to know about.

Even if you prefer Yahoo, which I personally do, you cannot deny that you have used Google at least once in a while to find things on the Internet.

I don't know how many cumulative times Google has been used, but it probably goes into the trillions of times by now.

And even if you don't use Google regularly, you probably use its myriad of other services during your day.

YouTube is one of those services, and you might not know it, but the very "Blogger" service that I use for this Blog is a Google service, so right as you are reading this, you are using Google.

Heck, the name has become so associated with Internet searches that the very term of Google is not only a noun but has become sort of a slang-ish verb, such as in the sentence, "Go Google it," using the word as an action word.

As much as I prefer Yahoo--I think you get better searches and I also prefer its home page, with all the real and fake news on it--nobody says, "Go Yahoo it," so Google has itself one up on its main search competitor, at least in that regard.

And what actually does the word "Google" mean?

It is sort of a play on words.

It is derived from the word "googol," which means the digit one followed by 100 zeroes, a very high number in the grand scheme of things which is only used by scientists and mathematicians.

But even some people dispute that link between the two words--although in the past, Google has acknowledged this link--so it is really up to interpretation what the actual word "Google" means.

But the word falls off the tongue in a nice way, so whatever it means, it is easy to remember and a fun word to say and use.

And yes, today is acknowledged as its birthday, and if you go to its start-up search page, you will see "Google" spelled "G20OGLE" to honor itself on its birthday.

Yes, the Internet has changed our lives, and there are pieces of the Internet that have also changed ourselves forever, and who can deny that Google is one of those items?

So today, even if you don't use Google regularly, saunter over to the site and do a search, just to acknowledge it and its birthday.

I think that I will do that later today.

Why not?