Type something into Google, anything. Go on. Now click on the top menu option that says Images. If you did that correctly you will now be seeing a plethora of pictures that are relevant to your search phrase. Nifty, right? Well you have none other than pop star Jennifer Lopez to thank for this simple, but specific, research system.
It seems mum-of-two, Jennifer Lopez, will soon be adopting a new moniker. Forget Jenny from the Block, she will, from now on, be known as Jenny from the Internet as it transpires that the Latina singer is the reason Google Images was created – take that Kim Kardashian!
Fifteen years ago, back in 2000 at the Grammy Awards, Jennifer wore a very revealing green Versace dress. The navel-baring gown captivated a world-wide audience so big that it attracted the attention of Google executive, Eric Schmidt, who recently revealed that the craze to see the sultry star in that dress inspired the idea to create Google Images.
“People wanted more than just text,” Eric Schmidt wrote in an essay post on Project Syndicate. “This first became apparent after the 2000 Grammy Awards, where Jennifer Lopez wore a green dress that, well, caught the world’s attention. At the time, it was the most popular search query we had ever seen. But we had no surefire way of getting users exactly what they wanted: JLo wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born.”
“When Google was launched, people were amazed that they were able to find out about almost anything by typing just a few words into a computer,” he continued.
Google Images was eventually launched in 2001 and offered access to 25 million images. That figure is now at more than 10 billion!
Clearly elated to hear that she had such an impact on the world wide web, an excited Jennifer Lopez took to social media to share the news… well, it’s certainly better than breaking the internet.
Jennifer Lopez reposted the infamous image on her instagram account
