By, Jennifer Lipman
1 min read
ByJennifer Lipman, Jennifer Lipman
Mazel Tov Google, today you become a man.
The internet search giant is celebrating its 13th birthday today and has marked the occasion with a party-themed version of its iconic logo.
The company was founded by two Stanford University students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both of whom came from Jewish families.
They met in 1995 and began collaborating on computer research, officially launching their site on September 27 1998. The name came from a mistake in the spelling of the mathematical term for a large number.
In 13 years, the company has made its mark in almost every area, from email service Gmail to Google Maps and video sharing site YouTube, which was acquired in 2006.
There is an Israeli version of the site and its translation service can turn an English phrase into Yiddish and vice versa.
The verb "to google" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning: "To use the Google search engine to obtain information on the internet."