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National World - National Videos
  • 10 months ago
How long has Google been doing the Doodle?
Transcript
00:00So we all know the Google Doodle, right? It's one of the search engine signature
00:06features, but it has quite a surprising history and it's been around for a lot
00:11longer than you think. I personally sort of thought it was from the 2010s, I'm not
00:15really sure why. It feels like a 2010s thing. It feels like, you know, that was the
00:20real bursting of the internet age and it feels like it would fit then. But
00:24actually the first Google Doodle was in 1998. Yeah, you heard that correctly, 1998.
00:31And it was to celebrate Burning Man, which is a sort of arts festival in the
00:37desert in the US, which has been running for a long time. So it was to celebrate the
00:41edition of that long-running festival in 1998. And the first animated one, so not
00:48just a picture, you know, animated, it's live, was actually in the year 2000. So
00:53just at the start of the millennium. And it was for Halloween in the year 2000,
00:58which is kind of crazy. Like, it feels like that would have been so futuristic
01:03at the time. I mean, imagine if you were there, do you remember it? If you
01:06remember it, reach out. That would be a cool story. But also, it's, yeah, it's been
01:13running for so long now. There's so many different types of Google Doodles. You've
01:17obviously got your pictures, which celebrate something or other. There's the
01:20animated ones. There's also interactive games. So in 2024, there's been one called
01:25Rise of the Half Moon, which comes with the last half moon of every month. And
01:31it's like kind of tarot card inspired. And you play against the moon, testing
01:37your knowledge of the lunar cycle. And there's like nine levels. And yeah, you get to do
01:42it every month and have just fun with that. And according to Wikipedia, at
01:49least, there's been 5,000 different Google Doodles made for homepages across
01:54the world, which is crazy. And that's as of 2024. So that's numbers only going to
02:00go up. And also, they do regional specific ones. So it's not just, you know, if you
02:06if you travel to Lithuania, you might see one that's exclusive to Lithuania, if
02:10it's celebrating an important milestone in Lithuania. Or, you know, if it's Hogmanay
02:15in Scotland, then you might get one of those in the British Isles, but not elsewhere. So
02:21yeah, it's really fascinating. And they've been around a lot longer than you might
02:25think. Yeah, so it's almost, what, 26 years? Yeah, 1998 is 26. So wow. So not that long
02:32before it's 30 years of Google Doodles. So hi, I've been tech writer Matt Mohn-Hickson,
02:37and this is a surprising history of Google Doodles.

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