Check the html source for this additional tidbit<p><i>> The following day, Tamara entered the office she shared
with Sean and Larry, and saw "google.com" as the final
name remaining on their whiteboard. Recognizing the
misspelling, she brought it to their attention. Sean checked
the domain name registry for "googol.com" and found that
it was already taken. Larry said he preferred the "google.com"
spelling anyway, and when he and Sergey later received their
first angel investment check for $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim,
it was made out to "Google Inc."</i>
I can't remember if I knew the word "googol" before I knew this story or not. I think I may have encountered it in World of Mathematics in high school. Or I may be misremembering and making up a pretty story to make myself sound smarter than I am.<p>Human memory is so weird sometimes.
I read something recently that claimed that Googol (the mathmatical term) was in fact a corruption of Google in the first place, though the evidence is thin, it's vaguely plausible:<p><a href="http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/05/15/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-155/" rel="nofollow">http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/05/15/comic-bo...</a>
One of the early pop-culture mentions of googol was Peanuts, 23rd Jan 1963<p><a href="http://www.peanuts.com/search/?pubdate=&sort_by=bydate&seasonal=&startdate=&enddate=&selectcharacter=&keyword=googol&type=comic_strips" rel="nofollow">http://www.peanuts.com/search/?pubdate=&sort_by=bydate&seaso...</a>