For these pages, arbitrary makes sense.


I readily acknowledge that the Boidem's date postings are on the whole arbitrary. To the best of my knowledge, the events to which I choose to connect each column's posting date really took place on those dates, but the dates noted for posting are determined more by finding an interesting event than by the actual FTPing of each column. And that being the case, this month's tie-in is particularly fitting.

Somewhere along the line Google decided, retroactively, that September 27 was its birthday. This year numerous web pages acknowledged the 27th while also noting that the precise birthday has changed over the years. In a short Washington Post article published on September 27, 2013 Andrea Peterson reviewed some of the different dates on which Google has "celebrated" (quoted here, links included, in full):
Google's doodle celebrates 15 years of the company Friday. But while the search giant has celebrated Sept. 27 as its birthday for the past few years, it's not entirely clear where that date comes from. In fact, they've used some other dates in the past, and there are a few days that could arguably make a better claim to the title.

Google incorporated on Sept. 4, 1998, but the domain name Google.com was registered back on Sept. 15, 1997 by their own account. And Google doodles haven't been entirely consistent on the birthday. The first birthday doodle, celebrating their fourth birthday, used the 27th in 2002.

But the next year, the birthday doodle was on Sept. 8, while in 2004 they celebrated it on Sept. 7. And in 2005 they celebrated on Sept. 26. But by 2006 they were back to using the 27th, and have stuck with that date since.
So while it may have taken a number of years to decide upon a definitive date, the 27th has (finally?) become Google's "real" birthday. And though we may be substantially removed from the days of "Don't be Evil", there's no reason why we can't take the opportunity to wish them a happy birthday.



Go to: How to write a Boidem column.