Have you ever mistakenly typed just one letter into Google? I know I have.
What if you’ve done it using Google Suggests?
Back in 2003 in a random post on his blog Doc Searles mentioned that he accidentally typed just the letter “O” into Google and got the O’Reilly web site.
Buster McLeod (aka Eric Benson) picked up on this and in 2004 the first Google Alphabet was born.
In 2005 Nathan Dintenfass, a web developer and blogger posted the 2005 edition of the Google Alphabet on ChangeMedia.
Now, Brady Forest over at O’Reilly Radar brings us the 2008 edition:
A = amazon
B = bebo
C = craigslist (in 2004 this was cnn)
D = dictionary
E = ebay
F = facebook (in 2004 this was firefox’s turf)
G = gmail
H = hotmail
I = ikea
J = john lewis (the first result is for John Lewis, a UK retailer that I had never heard of till now)
K = kelly blue book
L = limewire
M = myspace
N = nbc olympics
O = olympics
P = photobucket (over Paypal and beating out 2004’s Paris HIlton)
Q = quotes (the first result is for The Quotations Page; I hadn’t realized how popular quotes were)
R = runescape
S = sears (I am impressed that Sears is able to beat second-place Skype; 2004 winner Spybot is gone)
T = target
U = utube (you know your site is popular when a misspelling is a top searched term; Google’s spell corrector doesn’t even try to stop this misspelling)
V = verizon wireless
W = wikipedia (www.youtube.com was ninth on this list)
X = xbox
Y = youtube (not a surprise with all the foreshadowing, but this does mean that Yahoo! is no longer on the list)
Z = zip codes
The one surprise: G = gmail. Where is Google?
It would be great to see a visual version of this alphabet comprised of the logo’s of the companies mentioned.