Google: How One Factor Might Have Contributed To Their Early Success
Hey how’s it going. This video is about Google. And I’m going to tell you a quick but interesting story about Google that a lot of people don’t realize. Welcome to Leonard Innovation where we work together to solve the problems of everyday entrepreneurs. My name is Justin Leonard. Thank you for tuning in. I started my online business in 1998, while serving in the United States Air Force. I joined the military about a year and a half earlier, or around the middle of 1996. It was an interesting time during the tech boom. Ebay was the top online shopping destination at the time. An interesting fact: today they are the number 2 online shopping destination. By the way, Yahoo was the top search engine at the time. And many are aware that it was Google that powered the Yahoo search engine. But one thing I remember from my days in the military is that Google was the preferred search engine among servicemembers where I worked… and it wasn’t because Google was better. In fact, at the time, Yahoo was better. But the reason Google was preferred among servicemembers had to do with the simplicity of Google search pages. The military is a highly professional environment. The military is very rigid and serious about everything, all the time, and you don’t want to create the appearance that you are having too much fun at your desk, playing on the internet. Ya see, Yahoo had things like flashy banner ads on their homepage, tabloid news, pop-ups, and just things that didn’t fit into the professional environment of the military. However, Google’s search pages were very subdued and muted. At the time, it was all text and no ads. Of course, now they have tons of ads, but it was much different back then. So I’m wondering if this had something to do with how they kinda overtook Yahoo to ultimately become the number one search engine and one of the largest companies in the world. Because if you’re using Google search at work everyday, you might eventually get used to it. And do you take that home with you? Do you maybe tell your family and friends about it, and eventually they become regular users of Google? So do you think it is possible that this workplace preference to use Google over Yahoo search was a factor in their early success? I’m sure it was a part of it, but most likely only Google knows how much their minimalist appearance helped to propel them to number one.
