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Google Serving 1,000,000,000 People Per Week

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US

Google yesterday launched Google Instant, a feature that gives you immediate search results as you're typing your query. However, embedded in that announcement was another little announcement: Google is now serving one billion people per week.

Google Instant wasn't the only thing Marissa Meyer was excited about at yesterday's event in the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco. Meyer revealed that 2010 is the best year so far for Google Search and that the company has already blown past 2009's number of 500 UI changes. However, the most mind-blowing fact was probably that Google now serves one billion people a week. That's nearly a sixth of the population of the world.

But why stop at a billion? With Google Instant, Co-founder Sergey Brin told Bloomberg that the company will reach even more people. Meyer said yesterday that the new feature will save users 11 hours per second, and Brin thinks that people will search more, because they have more time.

"Ultimately I think that if people are able to search faster, then they're going to be able to search more and they're going to be able to research more topics that are important to them," Brin told Bloomberg. "Ultimately I think that's going to draw more users, more activity and that's going to be good for us, for advertisers and most importantly for users themselves."

Have you tried Google Instant yet? What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

There are 36 Comments. B
Top Comments
  • 22 Ð
    kriswitak , September 10, 2010 7:12 AM
    The Fact that I don't have to rephrase my search and re-click in the box after my search doesn't return what I am looking for is worth it alone. I think this is where that time lost comes from. If you don't get what you want, just backspace and retype in literally half the time. You don't have to move your other hand to the mouse to get another result. I know a lot of people are knocking it b/c they don't like it, but it's a nice feature to have, and I'm glad they have developed it.
Other Comments
  • -9 Ð
    anonymous@guest , September 10, 2010 6:56 AM
    google instant is just epic. so mind blowing. otherwordly feature id say
  • 22 Ð
    kriswitak , September 10, 2010 7:12 AM
    The Fact that I don't have to rephrase my search and re-click in the box after my search doesn't return what I am looking for is worth it alone. I think this is where that time lost comes from. If you don't get what you want, just backspace and retype in literally half the time. You don't have to move your other hand to the mouse to get another result. I know a lot of people are knocking it b/c they don't like it, but it's a nice feature to have, and I'm glad they have developed it.
  • -7 Ð
    stingstang , September 10, 2010 7:15 AM
    Oh come on. It's not a billion different people a week. It's 200 million people 5 times a week.
  • -4 Ð
    Pyroflea , September 10, 2010 7:40 AM
    xerroztrust me, its nota billion people? unlikely, its prob 145 million people a day


    It's not individuals obviously, just 1,000,000,000 search queries I'd assume. *Shrugs*
  • 3 Ð
    czar1020 , September 10, 2010 8:08 AM
    "Meyer said yesterday that the new feature will save users 11 hours per second, and Brin thinks that people will search more, because they have more time."

    Did i miss something? 11 hours per second?
  • 1 Ð
    cronik93 , September 10, 2010 8:15 AM
    That "Instant search" thing really pissed me off last night.

    Its so damn useless.
  • 5 Ð
    dapneym , September 10, 2010 8:31 AM
    I'm actually rather liking Instant Search when I've used it. The results come quick, and they've generally been what I'd like. I don't really care about hitting the search button since it gets me to where I would have gone anyway.

    czar1020"Meyer said yesterday that the new feature will save users 11 hours per second, and Brin thinks that people will search more, because they have more time." Did i miss something? 11 hours per second?


    By 11 hours per second he meant that when you combine all the time saved (they estimate 3-5 seconds per search) that every second users performing searches would, on the whole, save 11 hours.
  • 2 Ð
    NeeKo , September 10, 2010 8:37 AM
    You got it right about the savings dapneym, they clarified yesterday. Its not so really hard to think it instead of coming to bitch in the comments.
  • 1 Ð
    sabot00 , September 10, 2010 8:38 AM
    czar1020"Meyer said yesterday that the new feature will save users 11 hours per second, and Brin thinks that people will search more, because they have more time." Did i miss something? 11 hours per second?

    Google's saying that every search added up will save 11 hours per second.
    Even if you only save say 0.001 seconds per second all the queries added up "per second" would be a lot.
  • 0 Ð
    leo2kp , September 10, 2010 8:45 AM
    czar1020"Meyer said yesterday that the new feature will save users 11 hours per second, and Brin thinks that people will search more, because they have more time." Did i miss something? 11 hours per second?



    Total time saved for each user adds up to 11 hours per second.
  • 0 Ð
    Cyex , September 10, 2010 9:15 AM
    Overall I like it, but when I have typed half a word (and the other half shows in grey), it would be good if the END key would go to the end of that word, turning the grey characters to black. But instead the END key just goes to the end of the black letters you've been typing.
  • 0 Ð
    jefe323 , September 10, 2010 10:19 AM
    i tried using instant with suggestions at the same time and they dont work together.

    i'll stick to suggestions for now, i like it better...
  • 0 Ð
    JOSHSKORN , September 10, 2010 10:53 AM
    I seriously hope there's a script to disable Google Instant. I can press the key just fine, thank you. This is just annoying. Otherwise, I'm going to start using Bing or go back to Yahoo!.
  • 0 Ð
    screechy , September 10, 2010 11:31 AM
    I would love to know how they figured 1 billion PEOPLE a week. This sounds unreasonable. I don't eve think 1/6 of the world have Internet.
  • 1 Ð
    dalauder , September 10, 2010 12:20 PM
    xerroztrust me, its nota billion people? unlikely, its prob 145 millionjavascript:%20void(0); people a day

    You do realize that 145 million a day equals 1 billion a week, right? Because the title of the article says 1,000,000,000 Per Week.
  • 1 Ð
    randomizer , September 10, 2010 1:23 PM
    Google poached the Instant Search idea anyway.

    http://www.istartedsomething.com/livesearch
  • 0 Ð
    rzilla91 , September 10, 2010 2:09 PM
    11 hours per second? Nice.
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