On September 15, 1998, two US students registered a website. Today, Sergey Brin and Larry Page are multi-billionaires. Their domain was called www.google.com. Since then, the word "google" has become synonymous with searching the web. The term Google goes back to the word googol. In mathematics in the USA, it is the term for the number 10 to the power of 100 - i.e. a 1 with 100 zeros. The name was intended to stand for the immense amount of knowledge that the Internet contains. The aim of the search engine was to make this amount of information accessible to everyone.
Google was a project of the students Page and Brin at Stanford University. Stanford is particularly open to research projects that lead to the founding of companies. Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems, for example, were also founded here. Even as a twelve-year-old, Larry Page had big plans: "I understood that I wanted to invent things. But I also wanted to change the world." He has not only succeeded in doing this by providing 7000 people around the world with work and a livelihood. While Microsoft's share price stagnated between 1998, the year Google was founded, and 2005, and the dotcom bubble burst, the Californian search engine grew from nothing - or more precisely, from a garage - into a company worth over 157 billion dollars today.
Google has changed the world by making knowledge accessible to everyone. Google is also "democratizing" advertising, as Thomas Hanan, Head of Sales Switzerland, explains (see also Head of the Week, page 40). With AdWords, Google's online advertising program, small local businesses can also place targeted advertising in their area. The text ads appear next to or above a Google search result only in URL regions that make sense for the advertiser. You only have to pay when such a text ad is clicked on. The price is determined by the advertiser himself, in a kind of auction. It is not only the price that determines whether an ad is displayed at the top of the search results. An important factor for Google
Another criterion is the quality of the information. If it offers the search engine user added value, the customer has to pay less for their ad. "The user is the focus" is the most important philosophy at the world's largest search engine. Google therefore emphatically denies that the search information appearing alongside the ads can be manipulated upwards with money.
The two ambitious founders Page and Brin were not driven by greed, as is confirmed in several biographies, but by an idea. Before Google found its way into paid advertising, it was not clear for a long time how the company would earn money. It was only against resistance and when Google had already successfully raised its research money on the stock market that Page and Brin are said to have incorporated the idea of AdWords, developed by Ouverture founder Bill Gross and paid according to click rates, into their system. Today, advertising with AdWords is the main source of income with which Google can finance itself sustainably and thus continue to develop for the future. AdWords advertising can now also be linked via Google to other portals such as newspapers, communities or any other type of website that wishes to advertise, using an intelligent system. Google thus offers the world's largest network, through which 80 percent of all Internet users can be reached.

Software idea born out of frustration with the flood of emailsAfter the flagship search engine, countless other services for image and video searches, calendars and email followed, for example under the name G-Mail. Google's software, which can be downloaded free of charge from the Internet, can be used to edit texts and spreadsheets. Google Earth brings the world from space to your computer. Users can embed Google Maps in their own websites. Google News searches for links to relevant news from a defined area of interest. Google Scholar offers help with scientific research. With Google SMS, search queries can be sent via cell phone. And in combination with such mobile gadgets, development will continue at breakneck speed - because at 20, the Internet is still only just coming of age and at ten, Google has not even reached puberty yet.
If you google the history of search engines, you will learn that it started with AltaVista at a lunch table. The technicians at Digital Company were discussing how best to demonstrate the fantastic performance of their Alpha 8400 turbolaser. And because databases were one of the most common applications at the time, it was obvious to create a huge database with all the pages of the Internet. However, the engineers quickly came to the conclusion that a database was not the right approach. The data on the Internet is too unstructured. A full-text index, which makes it possible to track down every word on every page, was chosen as the more suitable demonstration. Coincidentally, one of the employees had written powerful email indexing software because he was tired of digging through his correspondence for a particular email. This model was then transferred to a larger index. A kind of electronic robot was constructed to search for all the information. The first Scooter robot was sent out in August 1995 to see what information could be found "out there".
Content instead of search expertise was AltaVista's downfallAt the time, Scooter had to search around 80,000 servers and 30 million documents on the World Wide Web. The company was christened AltaVista and quickly became the most widely used search engine. However, the sale to the hardware manufacturer Compaq soon brought the economic crisis. AltaVista followed the trend of the large portals and increasingly inflated its site with content. This not only cost too much, but also shifted the focus away from search. At the same time, Google was catching up technologically and concentrating exclusively on this core competence. Altavista only remained the leading search engine until 1999. Today it is practically irrelevant. The Internet search engine Google has been changing the planet ever since. And there seems to be no end in sight to the Google boom, either on the Internet or on the stock market.
Andreas Panzeri

Heavy thunderstorms paralyzed Radio Zürisee's main transmitter on Tuesday evening. There was a two-and-a-half-hour program outage that temporarily affected the entire broadcasting area.
Between 6.10 p.m. and 8.45 p.m., the station could not be received on the 107.4 MHz frequency, as Radio Zürisee reported on Wednesday. The thunderstorm had done all the work: In addition to the transmission link between the studios in Rapperswil and the main transmitter on the Bachtel, the emergency system also failed.

The data protection scandal is taking on ever greater dimensions: According to experts, the addresses of all German citizens are in circulation for marketing purposes. The data is mainly used for telephone sales, games of chance and competitions as well as online sales exchanges.
At the same time, according to experts, around ten to twenty million German citizens' account details are currently being traded illegally. They are mainly used by call centers for dubious business practices, said Thilo Weichert, head of the Independent State Center for Data Protection in Schleswig-Holstein, in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday.
The authorities are only just beginning to uncover the scandal surrounding the millions of cases of trading in partially stolen data. "We are now seeing more and more of the tip of the iceberg," said Weichert. Meanwhile, Renate Künast, chairwoman of the Green Party parliamentary group in the Bundestag, is calling for higher penalties and stricter controls in the area of data protection. The Basic Law must be amended accordingly, she told the Financial Times Deutschland.

In Switzerland, 65% of all used batteries are already disposed of correctly. This is an environmentally friendly figure, but if you take aluminum cans and pet bottles as a comparison, it can certainly be increased even further. The necessary infrastructure would be in place. As all stores in Switzerland that sell batteries must also take back old batteries, our country can boast a density of 12,000 collection points that is unique in the world. In short, wherever you are in Switzerland, you are never more than a battery's throw away from the nearest collection point. If you don't bring your old batteries back, you must have a good, "yes, a very good excuse", says Wirz Werbung. And wittily warns that such excuses are no longer accepted by the Battery Disposal Interest Group (Inobat).creative play of the elementsWhat such excuses sound like is shown in two brand new commercials shot by Wirz Werbung in collaboration with director Tobias Fueter. With a lot of humor and in an extremely unique narrative style, young people give excuses that are really weird and shrill, so that no one in the young target group can think of a moralistic admonishing finger. The TV campaign is accompanied by a web game (www.keine-Ausreden.ch). This takes up the basic theme and allows the stories to be spun further online. Gamers are asked to make up their own excuses and publish them.
With this style and its interactive media, the current campaign is aimed specifically at young people who need more and more batteries for music devices and various toys in their everyday lives. In the last campaign for Inobat, Wirz wanted to appeal more to a general and older audience with a "Yay" effect about dogs. What's more, the idea with the "cute" doggies that give out batteries was so successful that CD Matthias Freuler didn't just want to follow up with a half-hearted copy.
The commercials, which mix the elements of film and comic in a very creative gimmick, have the potential to become a longer series. Naturally, they should also find their way online as viral messages. Tobias Fueter filmed with his characters in front of a bluescreen. The main work was then done on the computer, putting the scenes together with the many photos and drawings. Director Tobias Fueter has already recommended himself for such a style with his commercial for the Winterthur Short Film Festival. He won an Edi with his similarly meticulously designed film "Der Kürzer". Batteries are no longer as toxic as they used to be. However, recycling still makes sense because valuable materials are recovered from the waste. Manhole covers, for example, are also made from old batteries.
Andreas Panzeri

On August 27, 1973 - 35 years ago - the first issue of Werbewoche appeared. It was the brainchild of Detlef Thierling, a critical thinker who was never afraid to make a splash. Since then, there have been several adjustments to the graphic design, but also constant changes to the editorial content. The last comprehensive relaunch took place in January 2003. At the beginning of 2008, we decided to give Werbewoche a comprehensive makeover. We wanted a lasting change, not just a graphic relaunch.
First, however, we wanted to know what our readers think of Advertising Week. What they find good, what they find bad and where they see potential for improvement. The results from the focus groups with readers and non-readers showed us strengths and weaknesses - in terms of content and form. They gave us valuable pointers as to the direction in which Werbewoche should develop in order to consolidate and further expand its leading position in the market. And not only in the printed edition, but also online. Jörg Künkel from the KünkelLopka agency in Heidelberg designed the new look of Werbewoche and implemented it with us.
Today, Werbewoche appears in a completely new design and, for the first time in its history, gets a logo - the "W" in a red circle. We are deliberately dispensing with the previous rigid magazine structure and becoming considerably more magazine-like. The big stories are identified as so-called top stories and are geared towards more utility value.
Linking print and online is an important element for us. Whenever possible, you will find further, additional information online about the articles in the magazine. On werbewoche.ch, there should also be a dialog between you, dear readers, and the editorial team. You can comment on articles and give us feedback. In the next few weeks, we'll be adding a few new things to the online section - let us surprise you.
Our goal is to make an advertising week that is more surprising, more provocative and also more critical in terms of content. Werbewoche doesn't mince words and says what's what. And it does so in print and online. And it does all this according to journalistic criteria. As the only independent Swiss weekly newspaper in the field of communications, we owe that to our readership.
The relaunch of Werbewoche was exciting. It was fun, it cost nerves, and a lot of heart and soul was poured into it. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved. Now I'm looking forward to hearing how you like the new Werbewoche. Let me know how you like it.
Pierre C. Meier

Helvepharm, the main sponsor of FC Münchwilen's veterans, has launched a new round of campaigns to mark the start of the season. The pharmaceutical company launched a game in which you can bet on the results of the next matches. There is no money to be won, but there are fan scarves knitted by the players themselves and autographed bath towels for the team.
Two new commercials from the Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett agency are intended to draw fans' attention to this football pools.

The sanitary technology manufacturer Geberit plans to focus on innovation. To communicate this, the Zurich agency Seed, under the direction of Felix Courvoisier, has produced a film. It developed the concept, researched the stories, wrote the script and carried out the filming in Switzerland and Germany.
Three stories are told: that of a product innovation, that of a radical renewal of the production process and that of a method for developing products virtually. The entire film shows how the processes in research and development are accelerated many times over. Geberit employees illustrate some of the processes directly at their workplace.
The innovation film is available on the Seed and Geberit websites as well as on DVD. Internally, it is distributed as a supplement to the employee magazine and is given to customers and visitors as a give-away.

The NZZ is further expanding its offering in the reader and advertising market. The first issue of the new publication series NZZ Chronik will be published on December 17. It will be published as a perfect-bound magazine with a print run of more than 170,000 copies. The approximately 140-page "NZZ Chronik" will in future be enclosed with the NZZ before Christmas and will also be distributed abroad and via newsstands. The new magazine will clearly summarize the most important national and international events from politics, business, culture and sport and will be supplemented by picture series. There will also be editorials and commentaries that analyze important events of the year in depth. In addition, texts from the newspaper's collection, written 100, 200 or even 225 years ago, will give the "NZZ Chronicle" a special character. An outlook for 2009 rounds off the contemporary document. Advertisements are sold by NZZ Media.

Folker Wrage has been on board at Publicis Dialog Switzerland as Head of Creative since August 1, 2008. As a member of the management board, he represents the creative interests of the agency network. The 46-year-old has many years of experience in direct marketing, according to a press release issued on Thursday. He began his career at Ogilvy One, where he was most recently Deputy Managing Director Creative. This was followed by positions at Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi X and most recently at Publicis in Hamburg as Creative Director. He was a jury member for various competitions. Last year he was appointed to the jury of the Cannes Direct Lions.

The Publiposte advertising platform is expanding its sales apparatus and appointing Mediaimpact as its partner for promotions. The acceptance of advertising in post offices is very high, according to a press release issued by Swiss Post on Thursday. This potential is to be exploited together with Mediaimpact. Publiposte offers various promotional opportunities in 2,400 post offices throughout Switzerland. This means that regionally restricted poster displays can be booked as well as nationwide network campaigns. The post offices can be selected and combined as desired.

Ogilvy & Mather Zurich has a new client: The agency has recently started working for Siemens' Building Technologies Division. According to a press release issued on Thursday, the agency is working on a print campaign that will be seen worldwide from the fall.

After expanding the editorial capacity of the NZZ Campus brand launched in 2006, the cross-media offering for students and graduates is now being extended. From September 6, a new NZZ Campus page will appear every week in the Saturday edition of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and in the NZZ am Sonntag on the back page of the Executive-Stellenbund. On this page, students will find current topics from the world of higher education, columns, portraits and information on the range of Bachelor's degree courses on offer, according to a press release issued on Thursday. Another new feature is the increased publication frequency of the NZZ Campus magazine. Four issues will be published in 2009. The magazine will be published as a supplement to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and an additional 30,000 copies will be distributed directly to students at universities and universities of applied sciences.