Google filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to sell as much as $2.7 billion in stock in an IPO. They will be auctioning shares. Earned $105.6 million on revenue of $961.8 million in the 2003 fiscal year. In the first quarter of 2004, they earned $25.8 million on revenue of $178.9 million.

In a 1996 deal, the royalties were evenly split three ways among Mr. Brin and Mr. Page, the computer science department and the university's engineering school. David R. Cheriton, a computer science professor at Stanford, introduced Mr. Bechtolsheim to Google's founders. In August 1998, the four sat on the porch of Mr. Cheriton's Palo Alto home, where Mr. Page and Mr. Brin tried to demonstrate their product for Mr. Bechtolsheim. Before the pair could finish, he had decided to write them the first of two $100,000 checks. "They needed money to pay the lawyers to incorporate the company," he said. "And I wanted to make sure I was part of this company."

Part of their s1 [yes, it *IS* a long form - as Sergey Brin said!]: Last year we created Google Grants - a growing program in which hundreds of non-profits addressing issues, including the environment, poverty and human rights, receive free advertising. And now, we are in the process of establishing the Google Foundation. We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world's problems.

That huge! But the question is if you would buy their stock? CNN analyzes this question in their Once hot, now not article along with an interesting chart of the symbols that have been hot once in their lifetime.

Key Dates for Google [Forbes]: Engine created '96, Incorporated '98, IPO '04.

Now that the gmail is out, Jason Kottke thinks that they're building GooOS, the Google Operating System: "So. They have this huge map of the Web and are aware of how people move around in the virtual space it represents. They have the perfect place to store this map (one of the world's largest computers that's all but incapable of crashing). And they are clever at reading this map. Google knows what people write about, what they search for, what they shop for, they know who wants to advertise and how effective those advertisements are, and they're about to know how we communicate with friends and loved ones. What can they do with all that? Just about anything that collection of Ph.Ds can dream up."

Well, Jason, let me add that they now know all about our geographical, background and interests information, and that's what exactly an ad company -as you mentioned- wishes for. Just think about combining all that data, and connection gmail accounts with Orkut's and running ads on both. Viola!

Side: Googlemania on Wired has everything and anything about Google. Very interesting stuff.

I finally got to play around and discover the various features of Gmail. Here's a small list of my findings along with a quick review:

Sweet things:

1. Address completion [screenshot]
2. Javascript hacks makes it very fast and easy to use
3. Trying to navigate out of an unsent message triggers an "Are you sure you want to discard the message?" alert. [screenshot]
4. E-mail snippet makes it very easy to browse through messages.
5. Keyboard shortcuts are absolutely the best thing Gmail has offered. They ROCK if you are a hardcore unix user.
6. "Personal level indicators" feature is a great one, indicating if a message is sent only to you or to a bunch of people.
7. Starring (tagging) messages is fast. Something like what orkut uses to rank your friends.
8. Wow! The fastest and the most sophisticated email spell checker in the world. It's like running your spell checking application on your machine! [screenshot]

Bitter things:

1. Javascript errors: Search for a keyword and click on a message that is in your sent-item folder. Gmail couldn't open it in my case. [screenshot]
2. Message sent to some_address@yahoo.com is displayed only as to: some_address - is it intentional? [screenshot]
3. Account settings is tied to the google accounts (which is cool) but opens still feels like a separate system since it opens in a separate window :(
4. Contacts opening in a new window. Again, an approach to have a system-wide contact list. Same for other upper menu settings...
5. Why did they use the word "Label" instead of "Folder"?
6. Last but not least, my Google account is not tied to my Gmail account although they share a common e-mail address.

Overall, Gmail is a very fast, easy to use webmail service and has introduced a number of great new features. It has given a new meaning to the "web application" term using excellent javascript hacks, which makes you feel you are browsing your e-mail using an offline e-mail client.

Gmail logo is courtesy of Google, Inc.