A Decade in Search – 2005

Remember 2005? No? It was only 4 years ago!

2005 was, once again, the year of Google. It all began with exciting news from Microsoft, Bill Gates unveiled their “revolutionary” search engine called… well…. MSN Search. What was its secret weapon? Encarta. Yes, really. While it was a good idea to include factual answer in SERPs, the idea never really gained any popularity and Encarta was soon forgotten by most of the world.

But going back to Google, it was its year because of the amount of amazing products that they launched. It all started with iGoogle. While the service was not a success at first, it was a clever move from the big G. The ability of adding widgets and integrate all your google products in the homepage was the first step of many to come towards a more personalised experience in search engines.

It was quickly followed by Google Reader and Google Talk. RSS readers and instant messaging was nothing new, many services provided similar functionalities. However, none of their competitors had such a strong platform to launch their services. Again, while these were not a massive success at first, they slowly gained reputation and trust from happy costumers and end up becoming very succesfull services.

Google would later launch Google Blogs, a search engine only for blogs. This was significant for two reasons. One, Google started to recognise the power of social media and give it its own space, something that Google has had in mind since then. And two… erm… well, you know, it was a big year for blogs.

But the big (and I mean BIG) thing in 2005 was Maps. Google Maps was the first real, free and complete map service on the internet. Remember when we all spent hours and hours in front of the screen finding new and exciting places in Google maps?

But wait! There is ONE MORE THING. Google Analytics. Having acquired Urchin on March, it was only a matter of time until this service was released. It was the first time that such an advanced analytics system was free and available to all. Its intuitive usability and great interface was a recipe for success.

Lastly, here is a video from 2005 that shows the views from the “experts” at the time: