What Eight Google Products Looked Like When They Were Brand-New
Google didn’t always get design. In fact, the earliest versions of some of its top products were downright homely
By JR Raphael
A lot can change in 20 years. Helpless newborns become campus-dwelling scholars, carefree twentysomethings turn into responsible adults, and tiny tech startups grow into colossal corporations — complete with sprawling portfolios of polished products.
Yes, indeed: Just as hominids mature over the course of two decades, Google — which is officially marking its 20th birthday on Thursday — has undergone quite the dramatic transformation since its founding. Heck, even Google products that launched 10 years ago are now barely recognizable from their infant forms.
Let’s take a journey back through time to see how some of the company’s most popular products looked at their onset — and just how far they’ve come to reach their current-day states.
Google.com
Google.com — the website and search engine, which represented all Google had to offer in the beginning — began as a research project called BackRub, the brainchild of Stanford PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Once it had morphed into Google, early…
