10: the age of Google, which celebrated its birthday yesterday.


Google is a decade old. This may be longer than you remember; for many people, the company's watershed event was its IPO a little over four years ago at the seemingly expensive price of $85/share, in a dutch auction process.
The company now unquestionably dominates its original business of search, with a 60% share of the market according to Nielsen Online. That's more than its next three competitors combined, i.e. Yahoo + MSN + AOL. Although Google hasn't found the same success in other lines of business, some surveys crown the brand as the most powerful in the world.
In today's world with pressure on short-term results, ten years seems like an eternity. But remarkably, the public face of Google - its home page - has changed very little over time. However, if you've ever been responsible for SEM/SEO, you know that Google's algorithm has changed quite a bit. My takeaway as a marketer: consistency + adaptability. Seems to border on paradox, but the two work well together.
What lessons do you take away from Google's ten years? Is this just an anomaly or can non-digital businesses follow suit?