GOOGLE'S STORY OF SEND

Google explains and demonstrates visually what happens to an email when you send it. The site takes your email on an illustrated journey, stopping along the way to explain its technical progress as well as highlighting the company’s environmental credentials.

You probably typed one five minutes ago and are likely to write tens more throughout the rest of the day. But what actually happens when you send an email? Google’s interactive “The Story of Send” as part of Google Green explains how an email travels from your PC, tablet or smartphone to its destination.

Launched in May, the website, created by hybrid agency B-Reel, uses a quirky animation to track the passage of your message from the moment you click send, through your ISP’s servers and into data centres run by Google. Along the way, users can interact and open up nuggets of extra material such as photos and videos, giving you background information on Gmail.

On the albeit simplified version of an email’s journey, Google explains its efforts in keeping your personal data secure, with information such as: “security cameras, iris scans and fingerprint scans at our data centres are just a few of the measures we take to secure and protect your personal information”, before taking you on a behind the scenes video tour.

Image: Google's data centre

Google "Story of Send"

Being part of the Google Green site, “The Story of Send” goes through the methods the company uses to save energy and their effort to meet high environmental standards.

“One way we save energy is by keeping the temperature on our server floors at a warm 80 degrees Fahrenheit,” says the site. “That means we don’t need as much energy-intensive air conditioning, and employees get to wear shorts to work.” This is accompanied by animations of an employee pushing along on a scooter.

In elaborating on “Clean Power”, a feature in the story, Google claims: “Whenever we can, we buy green power from wind farms near our data centres. We provide money to build new wind projects that generate more clean power for the community. This, along with efficiency and investing in other projects, helps us eliminate our impact on climate change.”

The Story of Send is also accompanied by an animated video (above).

Video: In "Greening our Grid", Google explains their investments in green energy.