All About Google 8

2008

January
The BOLD Internship program launches, providing opportunities to students historically underrepresented in tech. Combined with our other internships, over the years thousands of students have had the chance have an impact at Google, on projects from engineering to sales.

March
Complete the acquisition of DoubleClick, a digital marketing company that provides ad management technology for agencies, marketers and publishers.

May
host the first Google I/O, our annual developer conference, in San Francisco. I/O has grown since then; in addition to the thousands of developers who join us in person every year, millions of people tune in via live stream to hear the latest news on products.

June
The first GoogleServe—our global week of service—takes place. Every year, Googlers leave their inboxes behind to participate in projects that give back to the community.

Google Map Maker launches, enabling people to directly update geographic information in Google Maps and Google Earth—helping ensure that the map accurately reflects the world. Today Map Maker is available in 200+ countries and territories across the globe.

July
Provide Street View for the entire 2008 Tour de France route—the first launch of Street View imagery in Europe.

first downloadable iPhone app, enabling quicker mobile searching, debuts with the launch of the Apple 3G iPhone.

August
launch a site dedicated to the 2008 U.S. elections. In 2012, we take this effort to the next level with Google.com/elections, providing news and online tools for elections worldwide.

Google Suggest (later called Autocomplete) arrives on Google.com, helping formulate queries, reduce spelling errors and reducing keystrokes.

Street View is available in several cities in Japan and Australia—the first time it's appeared outside of North America or Europe.

September
T-Mobile announces the G1, the first phone built on the Android operating system.

Google Chrome becomes available for download, one day after a comic book announcing our new browser leaks onto the web. Five years later, Chrome boasts more than 750 million users.

November
The updated Google Mobile App for iPhone makes it possible for you to do a Google web search using only your voice.

After Google discover a correlation between certain search queries and CDC data on flu symptoms, we release Google Flu Trends, an indicator of flu activity around the U.S. as much as two weeks earlier than traditional flu surveillance systems.