Google Maps made the world a square of tiles, and Web Mercator became the map standard
Google Maps' 2005 Web Mercator scheme — one square world, 256px power-of-two tiles — became EPSG:3857 and the de facto standard for online maps.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDMcDonald's Taiwan invented 'Kung Fries' kung fu and won Spikes' Integrated Grand Prix
McDonald's Taiwan invented 'Kung Fries' with a Golden Horse choreographer — fries sales rose 36% and Spikes Asia gave it the Integrated Grand Prix.
Read the case17-year-old's cpu.land guide traced real Linux code; Hacker News gave it 1,337 points
A 17-year-old wrote the systems explainer he wished existed, following one real program through the actual Linux kernel; Hacker News gave it 1,337 points
Read the caseFINO made rural banking viable by paying agents like a managed network
FINO paired biometric banking tech with salaried local agents and cash runners, so banks could reach villages without building branches.
Read the caseYeo's stripped its green-tea label for brat summer — drops sold out in minutes
To make young Singapore care about its green tea, Yeo's deleted its own label, dressed the bottle in Charli XCX brat green, and let fans hunt it down.
Read the caseNordeus Replaced Algorithm Puzzles with Real Game-Feature Interviews
To test experienced engineers' real craft, Nordeus replaced abstract algorithm drills with collaborative coding, code review, and domain-specific system design.
Read the caseWeChat's 2014 red packets turned a CNY ritual into payments' viral unlock
Tencent digitised the Chinese new-year hongbao in 2014: give money to a group, let the app split it — 8M users in days, and WeChat Pay got its bank-card army
Read the caseCDC and Kid Risk modeled polio's endgame, reshaping global vaccine policy
CDC and Kid Risk's models sped polio outbreak response, underpinned a 192-country vaccine switch and showed $40–50 billion in net benefits.
Read the caseVorwerk sells the €1,500 Thermomix through kitchen demos, not stores or ads
About 130,000 representatives cook in customers' homes; the premium mixer has no shelves, no TV campaign — and record sales.
Read the caseThree Squirrels built a ¥10bn snack brand owning no factories — until OEM quality bit back
Founded in 2012, Three Squirrels outsourced over 90% of production and rode Tmall to ¥10bn sales — then quality scandals sent it back into factories.
Read the caseLLVM won compilers by publishing a reusable IR that any language can target
LLVM (UIUC, 2000) built compilers from reusable libraries around one typed IR; Apple and Intel adopted it, and it became the industry's shared backend.
Read the caseWhānau Ora's 30-minute roll call of real voters won the first new Māori seat in 23 years
Instead of explaining New Zealand's Māori electoral roll, Motion Sickness had Tāme Iti read the names of 500+ real voters — NZ's longest ad ever.
Read the caseEDF lit the Paris 2024 Olympic cauldron with mist and light, not fire
EDF replaced the Olympic flame with 40 LED spotlights and 200 misting nozzles, making the first 100% electric cauldron in Games history.
Read the caseGermany's 2000 UMTS auction raised €50.5bn — five times the estimate
RegTP auctioned 3G spectrum in 12 blocks; six bidders fought for three-block nationwide licences through 173 rounds, setting the biggest auction total ever.
Read the caseWholegreen Bakery baked the insult: an edible Cardboard Cake that sold out its myth
Tired of 'gluten-free tastes like cardboard', a Sydney bakery had its agency design a coeliac-accredited cake that looks exactly like the insult.
Read the caseStack Overflow let its founder step back by making a better successor the win
Joel Spolsky handed Stack Overflow's CEO role to Prashanth Chandrasekar, kept a light chairman role, and treated the successor's changes as proof of success.
Read the caseDoepfer published the A-100 specs for free and Eurorack became the synth standard
Doepfer put its A-100 modular format in a cheap 3U rack and gave the complete specs away with no license — hundreds of makers piled in and Eurorack won.
Read the caseKhan Academy made mastery learning free, and proved 11 weekly minutes move math scores
Free lessons and instant-feedback exercises gate progress on mastery; a PNAS study of 200,000 students found modest use lifts scores.
Read the caseFrontier Markets put rural ecommerce in the hands of village women
Frontier Markets replaced distant retail distribution with local Sahelis who could sell, explain and service durable goods inside villages.
Read the caseFlipkart let India pay cash at the doorstep, and online shopping took off
With almost no Indians holding credit cards, Flipkart handed collection to the courier: inspect first, pay cash at the door.
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