# Has Google actually invented anything? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 30, 2014, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967 "2014-11-30T19:27:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/41 "2014-12-01T18:14:52Z")
Edison is a particularly apt comparison, since Edison himself didn’t invent most of the technologies that came out of his labs. Edison got the credit for the work of his entire team. And Edison didn’t often come up with entirely new categories of technology, instead he took ideas and improved them to the point they could be profitable consumer goods. Edison’s lab didn’t invent the light bulb, they invented a type of light bulb that was durable enough and cheap enough that it was worth buying. So Edison invented the light bulb in exactly the same way Larry Page and Sergey Brin invented the search engine. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/42 "2014-12-01T19:14:35Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Yes, in part. > > But in larger part, I think it was the cutesy, easy-to-remember name (a name that became a verb and a meme _very_ quickly). It really wasn’t. I mean, I like the name as much as anyone, and I think they made a lot of good aesthetic choices (that clean look compared to everyone else), but at the end of the day, it was just a fantastically better product–so much better that it needed a new verb because using the internet became different. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2014, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/43 "2014-12-01T19:25:19Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > So Edison invented the light bulb in exactly the same way Larry Page and Sergey Brin invented the search engine. I wouldn’t say that. It wasn’t like PageRank was invented by some anonymous coder working in some Google sweatshop only to have the founders slap their name on it later. Page and Brin developed the algorithm at Stanford in the 90s and Google the company was pretty much founded to productize the concept. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/44 "2014-12-01T21:41:05Z")
If you were a member of this message board when Google debuted, it was easy to see how much things had changed. Threads in General Questions started to get much shorter. Rather than relying on the collective knowledge and memories of thread participants it was suddenly stupefyingly easy to get a quick, accurate answer. I seem to remember that there was some anger toward **Duck Duck Goose** for continually Googling answers! I was away from the SDMB for a few years, and I honestly was surprised to see that GQ was still a forum, I would have thought Google would have killed it. I was pleasantly surprised and I love that the forum has become the home for those questions not so easily Googled. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2014, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/45 "2014-12-01T21:50:46Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Yes, in part. > > But in larger part, I think it was the cutesy, easy-to-remember name (a name that became a verb and a meme _very_ quickly). Was [hotbot.com](http://hotbot.com) or [askjeeves.com](http://askjeeves.com) any less cutesy or easy to remember? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/46 "2014-12-01T22:12:25Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > This is what made Google. They were a revolution in the search engine business. If you want to argue that since then, Google hasn’t added much to society, I won’t argue. If you want to say that, since then, Google has been a bigger negative that a positive, you may well have a case. But if you’re argument is that Google hasn’t done anything beneficial, then you’re way wrong. Searching before Google was awful. This > [@pulykamell](#): > > This was my recollection, as well. Altavista actually was pretty decent for fine-tuned searches and was my search engine of choice (and I’d use Yahoo for very general searches), but as you said, there was a level of sophistication you needed to have to really work it well. But I remember once Google came out, I adopted it within a couple weeks and dumped pretty much all other search engines, it was that much better than any of them at delivering high-quality results with minimum digging. And this > [@KarlGauss](#): > > Yes, in part. > > But in larger part, I think it was the cutesy, easy-to-remember name (a name that became a verb and a meme _very_ quickly). No, not at all. I used to use three or four search engines. And I knew which ones were better for what kind of search. And I changed my set of go-to search engines every few months as algorithms improved or ads got distracting. And then Google came along. And it was almost always better than any of the others. Within a few months, I rarely used any other search engine. I can promise you that had nothing to do with how cute the names were, and everything to do with how happy I was with the results. Google also monetized search in a way that was USEFUL to the searcher. Sometimes I am searching to buy stuff, and Google conveniently put THOSE hits over to the side, where they were easy to browse if I wanted them, and inobtrusive if I didn’t. That was brilliant. Google has also driven a great deal of development and improvement in Android. It was barely usable when they acquired it. Yes, one of the things they did was to acquire people who had worked on other operating systems (notably, the human-interface team that had worked for Palm and developed Web-OS). But Google supported them in an environment where they could make those ideas work in the marketplace. They’ve done the same in other fields, but those are two areas I am most familiar with. Google may well be an evil company intent on world domination, but they’ve made the world a much shinier place in the process. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2014, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/47 "2014-12-01T22:46:18Z")
> [@zbuzz](#): > > Was [hotbot.com](http://hotbot.com) or [askjeeves.com](http://askjeeves.com) any less cutesy or easy to remember? To quote Bill Maher: “If I want to see uncaring, money-making machines with cutesy names, I go to a strip club.” ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/48 "2014-12-01T23:25:56Z")
> [@August\_West](#): > > If you were a member of this message board when Google debuted, it was easy to see how much things had changed. Google predates the SDMB by about a year. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2014, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/49 "2014-12-01T23:37:30Z")
Invention, if this stretches to making some pretty powerful and in some cases unique algorithms then yes. ---
**Author:** ![BOOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/50 "2014-12-02T01:21:06Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > Besides, all software, fundamentally, is “methodology”. If methodologies are not inventions, then no one has ever invented a piece of software ever. Well, exactly. You write it. Maybe like you write a book or play - is Shakespeare an inventor? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/51 "2014-12-02T01:41:50Z")
> [@BOOM](#): > > Well, exactly. You write it. Maybe like you write a book or play - is Shakespeare an inventor? Maybe but they that still isn’t a good analogy. Writing software is the same as building any other complex piece of machinery only the pieces you work with are (mostly) virtual. Literature is an art. Writing software is sometimes called an art as well because there are multiple ways to get to the same end result and some are more elegant and/or maintainable than others but, in the end, it is the same as building anything else and the absolute most important thing is if it actually functions effectively for the intended purpose. The logical and factual errors that Shakespeare let slip into his works didn’t cause the whole play to stop functioning as soon as the reader came to that paragraph. That is exactly what will happen with even a single misplaced character or logical flaw in software. My job is systems analysis and software architecture. Just because the design isn’t visible to a normal person doesn’t mean that it isn’t just as detailed as a new type of machinery. It can even be represented in multiple dimensions as an architectural drawing with a platform, engine(s) and even add-on components to add various features just like a new type of car. ---
**Author:** ![BOOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/52 "2014-12-02T02:33:21Z")
I understand what you’re saying - and have written programs myself, little ones for sure - but I can’t see it as ‘inventing’. The analogy with builing sophisticated machines seems to work - was the Saturn5 an invention? Just can’t quite buy it … ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/53 "2014-12-02T02:35:32Z")
I spent the month of Jan. 1997 visiting Sergey’s advisor and some time during that month, Sergey gave a talk on what eventually got called PageRank, although I don’t recall he named it, just described it as a new way to build a search engine. Have I kicked myself for not asking him if I could invest if he ever made it into a company? That was clearly the most important invention. Incidentally, if a patent is issued to a company, they invented it. Issuance and ownership are two different things. ---
**Author:** ![dofe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@dofe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dofe)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/54 "2014-12-02T02:59:48Z")
> [@BOOM](#): > > I understand what you’re saying - and have written programs myself, little ones for sure - but I can’t see it as ‘inventing’. > > The analogy with builing sophisticated machines seems to work - was the Saturn5 an invention? > > Just can’t quite buy it … What is your definition of “invention?” ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/55 "2014-12-02T03:14:36Z")
> [@BOOM](#): > > I understand what you’re saying - and have written programs myself, little ones for sure - but I can’t see it as ‘inventing’. > > The analogy with builing sophisticated machines seems to work - was the Saturn5 an invention? > > Just can’t quite buy it … Let’s go back to my earlier example of detecting duplicates in a very large collection of documents (say around 500 million or so). It is simply not possible to solve this problem by comparing every pair. If someone comes up with a way to identify pairs that are not similar by looking at each document once, how is that not an invention? ---
**Author:** ![dofe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@dofe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dofe)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/56 "2014-12-02T03:23:51Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Google is more an expert organizer than an inventor. Scholar, books, images, and shopping were all developed in-house, I believe. While they’re not revolutionary ideas, their implementation on a global scale is an incredibly difficult problem and Google tackled them with great success. > > Their other products also have significant impact, but as you said most of them were purchased and then iterated upon. Google (not just Goggle Scholar) is usually so on-point that I almost never use Westlaw for preliminary legal research anymore. I still use Westlaw for Keycite or for statutory research, but Scholar does 90% of what I used to do in Westlaw. It’s not surprising, really, if you think about how legal citations are well suited to Google’s strengths. Like academic/scholarly literature, the “relevance” of a court’s decision can, theoretically speaking, be determined by how often it is cited by other courts. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/57 "2014-12-02T05:04:57Z")
Money. They make lotza lotza money, seemingly out of thin air. Now there’s an invention. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/58 "2014-12-02T14:24:48Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > Google predates the SDMB by about a year. No kidding? That is interesting, because I certainly don’t remember it being referenced here very much until maybe 2001-2002? That is purely from my admittedly leaky memory. I wish it were possible to search the archives for a specific time period and see how often the word “Google” appeared here before, say 2001. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/59 "2014-12-02T14:34:05Z")
> [@August\_West](#): > > No kidding? That is interesting, because I certainly don’t remember it being referenced here very much until maybe 2001-2002? That is purely from my admittedly leaky memory. > > I wish it were possible to search the archives for a specific time period and see how often the word “Google” appeared here before, say 2001. You can use the board search, select “10 years,” “and older,” and rank results ascending. Now, there is no guarantee this search is particularly accurate, knowing this board’s search function, but I see two threads in 2000 with “google” in them, seven in 2001, and then it explodes with results in 2002. [Here is one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=50577&highlight=Google) from December 2000, where the OP is asking what is so good about Google. It was around for a couple years by then (as mentioned in the thread), so it hadn’t quite taken over as the master search engine. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967/60 "2014-12-02T14:42:09Z")
Ha, I was just using the date filter on Google, which I didn’t know existed until now. Google finds no results before 1/1/2000 and a bunch after that. So my memory was off by a year or so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-google-actually-invented-anything/705967.md?page=4)