Google Traces An Email’s Route with “The Story of Send”
Posted 05/15/2012 at 6:37am
| by J.R. Bookwalter
Ever wonder what happens to your email after you hit the “Send” button? If so, you’ll be fascinated by Google Green’s latest entry, which promises to “take a journey through Google’s data centers by following an email along its path.”
Google Green has posted an interesting new look at how email gets transferred from sender to recipient with “The Story of Send.” Ironically, following the story takes far longer than actually sending and receiving an email in the first place, but it’s a pretty entertaining way to kill some time -- not to mention learning something new.
“Ever wondered what happens when you send an email? Take a journey with Gmail and find out,” the website reads. “Along the way, discover our data centers with videos, photos and more. It all begins when you click send.”
Needless to say, clicking the Send button begins the journey with a cutesy animation as the email passes through your broadband connection and on to the folks at Google HQ.
“Once your message leaves your Internet Service Provider, it enters an Internet backbone router. Here’s where Google picks up your message and guides it to the closest Google data center,” the site explains. “To provide the best possible user experience, we try to pick up your requests as early as possible from the local ISP, so we’ve built an extensive Internet backbone across the U.S.”
Along the path, users will be treated to details on the security of your Gmail and even videos that show how it all works -- needless to say, with a particular focus on how eco-friendly the whole process is, given this is the Google Green site, after all.
To take the journey yourself, head over to the Google Green website and enjoy!
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