The invention of Google Maps

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2005, a revolutionary online mapping service called Google Maps went live for the first time. It introduced searchable, scrollable, interactive maps to a wider public, but required so much computing power that Google's servers nearly collapsed under the strain. Lars Rasmussen, one of the inventors of Google Maps, talks to Ashley Byrne. The programme is a Made-in-Manchester Production.

PHOTO: Google Maps being used on a mobile phone (Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. Hello you're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:46.0	I'm Ashley Byrne and today we're taking you back to 2005
0:50.0	and the launch of a groundbreaking internet service that is now used by over a billion
0:54.5	people across the globe. I've been speaking to Lars Rasmussen about his memories of
1:00.1	creating Google Maps. On the 8th of February 2005, the world awoke to a game-changing new feature on the Google search engine.
1:17.0	The amount of luck and the amount of like different things that happened in very different areas in the world that was just right for
1:24.3	this all to come together it's quite astounding actually. Software designer Lars Rasmussen
1:29.1	was one of the original developers. It made names for us and not instantly by the way, you know, it took a while for
1:36.1	word to come out. How did it feel to launch this into the world? It's a tremendous
1:41.5	source of joy and pride for us.
1:46.0	Born in Denmark, Lars Rasmussen moved to California in the mid 90s to study at Berkeley.
1:51.0	The campus near San Francisco was a hotbed of new tech ideas
1:55.9	and one of his professors spotted his potential.
1:58.9	There was a tremendous dot-com bubble where a bunch of like web companies were starting to take off and
2:05.6	several of those were started by academics and just as I graduated professor down the hall
2:11.2	Mike Luby he started a company called Digital Fountain.
2:14.3	He hired me as his first engineer.
	...

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