Background:

Would you give your company such a funny name? What does it mean? It doesn't say what we do after all! What the heck is a google anyway? Yes, ladies and gentlemen. A quiet little search engine company with this name has become one of the world's most recognizable brands in record time. All while competing against other leading, and much older, names in cyberspace for attention.

First of all, Google is a either a coined word from, or a misspelling of, the mathematical term "googol"...which is any number followed by 100 zeros. At least this is the popular story we hear, rather than it is derived from "googul" a kind of myrh gum tree. Regardless, it is a great addition to the English language and Registered Trademark directories of the world. Short and sweet with a "sticky" consonant too. Beautiful. Who tried to say all the good names were taken?

Now as for the logo....boy are they having fun with that. But it is done so tastefully you almost want to search for something every special holoiday, just to see the clever figures in the Google logo! We have never before seen this done anywhere so succesfully....in fact it is way beyond the comprehension and organizational structure of most companies to allow this. And to think it all started with one engineer with a sense of fun and a little graphics talent - backed up by an executive who can appreciate it and single-handedly OK it.

We hesitated about giving them a full 10 points for the logo, as you might say which logo! But suffice to say, this category is really for presentation, and they excel and set the standard for the whole online world here. Just like people talk about offering their own customers a Starbucks-like experience, or customer service like Nordstrom's, so too are people already designing systems to be the "Google" of whatever. Imitation is once again the sincerest form of flattery.

You probably already use them a lot, as they service 150 million requests a day, but if not, the are at www.google.com when you want a fast, uncluttered, powerful, US-centric search of the web.

PS And it works great as a verb. What an added bonus!