The Ingenuity of Millions

The release of the Google API in April 2002 inspired hundreds of people all over the Web to try their hand at tapping Google's data source, including yours truly. Some of the earliest applications were tapping into Google's results and including them on a web page, or integrating Google results with content management tools like Movable Type and Radio Userland. Then as more people experimented with the API, the variety of applications grew from the seriously useful to the amazingly silly. (We've created a special section of the tutorial for the amazingly silly ones.)