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Google manage to do no evil, even whilst “stealing” ideas

3 comments so far | by Dave Shaw

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Welcome to 10 over 100, an honest effort started by 2 guys who want to make the world a better, more giving place. How do we plan to do it? Watch this!

Sound familiar? You might have read something like this on the Official Google blog on Wednesday when Google announced ‘Project 10^100′ (that’s “ten to the hundredth”). However its actually from a site set up by two guys back in 2005, 10over100.org, which has a suspiciously similar name and aim as Google’s project.

So what’s going on? Is this Google’s project or have they borrowed it from someone else? Find out after the break!

Project 10^100 is a “a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.” Google is encouraging people to send in their ideas to this end, and will then select 100 ideas for a shortlist. These will be voted on by the community, and from the top 20 a panel will select 5 winners. Using $10m that Google has set aside for this project these ideas will be turned into reality and will hopefully help lots of people.

Google’s intention and altruism is not in question. Neither am I querying how valuable this project will be. I’m convinced it will be very worthwhile.

However I am wondering where Google got the name from. Google says,

10¹⁰⁰ is another way of expressing the number “googol,” a one followed by one hundred zeroes. Our company’s very name expresses our goal of achieving great results through smart technology that starts small and scales dramatically over time to have a tremendous long-term impact. Project 10¹⁰⁰ is a similar attempt to produce those kinds of scalable results by harnessing our users’ insights and creativity. We don’t know what ideas would help the most people. This project’s premise is that maybe you do.

Good explanation, but is it coincidence that 10over100.org has a similar name and altruistic aim?

Welcome to 10 over 100, an honest effort started by 2 guys who want to make the world a better, more giving place. How do we plan to do it? Watch this! We, James Hong and Josh Blumenstock, hereby make a personal promise to you that we will give 10% of whatever we make over $100,000 each year to charity.

Sure its not the same method, but certainly a similar aim. And 10over100.org was founded at the earliest in 2005, way before Project 10^100 came to light. Both the San Franscisco Chronicle and New York Times carry articles from 2006 and 2005 promoting the idea.

So is Project 10^100 original? What do you think?