Google: Celebrating 10 years, with $10m 'do-gooder' pledge

Celebrating its recent anniversary, Google has published a guided tour of its 10 years in business and launched its Project 10 to the 100th to try to improve the world.

The anniversary site offers a timeline that spotlights historical moments such as Andy Bechtolsheim's $100,000 spur-of-the-moment investment in 1998, the date in 2000 when it reached one billion pages in its index of the web, the 2002 adoption of a pay-per-click model for AdWords advertisers using the search engine for ads, the 2004 filing for an initial public offering, iGoogle and Mobile Web Search in 2005, Google Finance and Google Docs in 2006, and Universal Search and Gears in 2007.

Project 10 to the 100th which refers to a googol, the number of one followed by 100 zeros - aims to let people help each other, part of the company's do-good ethos. People can submit their ideas by 20 October, and Google will fund the best with $10m. An advisory board will select up to five winning ideas.

Google said: "Beyond a certain very basic level of material wealth, the only thing that increases individual happiness over time is helping other people. If you have an idea that you believe would help somebody, we want to hear about it. We're looking for ideas that help as many people as possible, in any way, and we're committing the funding to launch them. You can submit your ideas and help vote on ideas from others."

The top 100 ideas will be announced 27 January, 2009, at which point people may vote on the top 20, Google said.

Original article: Google launches 10th anniversary site, help-the-world project from CNET News.com