Appearance
The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
Great book, well written, entertaining and thought provoking.This is the book on the Internet in the 2000's that should have got allthe attention that 'The Long tail' book got.I read the authors blog most days now.I hope he updates this book with a new edition, I'd buy that for sure.
The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
I originally read this book from the library and was moved to buy it as a gift. While this book is a history of Google, it also gives a thought provoking discussion of how our brains work. The whole concept of "search" is presented so that anyone can understand how search engines (including our brains) operate and how this knowledge informs those who are writing these engines. It's a bit scary to realize that computer programs are tailoring every interaction we have with a computer in the hope that our experience will be what the programmer thinks is our desire. From the articles which appear on the home pages of places like MSN to the suggestions for other purchases on Amazon, someone is second guessing our every move. What ever happened to serendipity? All in all a fascinating read.
The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
A very well-researched and well-written book. Most notable is author John Battelle's getting the essence of just how bad search was until the Google Guys came along and nailed the concept. Battelle recounts how major players in the IT industry assumed search was as good as it was going to get circa 1997 - 2000 (and it really s-cked in retrospect), so they went off trying to become traffic and portal sites. [Larry Page archly notes that Yahoo and Excite had 'really good horoscopes' on their home pages. Touché.]Meanwhile, Battelle recounts how Page and Brin set out with their 'Backrub' project at Stanford to solve search and transform it into what it is today. While Google is taken as a given today, Battelle takes us all back to that moment when we all first used Google and had that "Oh. My. God." moment.The insider-ish stuff about Page and Brin is fascinating. I could read 500 pages of that stuff alone. It's a thrilling ride from cramped offices at Stanford to the Googleplex. 400,000 percent (!) revenue growth over five years is difficult to fathom, but Battelle gets as close to anyone to the essence of how that happened.It's nice to see the chapter here about Bill Gross of Idealab. The original incarnation of Google AdWords was a blatant copy of Idealab's Goto.com (later named Overture) incubation.
The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
This book covers not only the stellar rise of Google, but the entire Web Search industry. Both the business and technical side of this field are covered very clearly and the author makes a convincing argument for its importance to both commercial and private consumers. The most interesting parts of the book are the imaginative projections of how search could change our daily lives.
The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
I am usually skeptical about purchasing books which I can't skim through and get the basic story behind it but I must say this book really lived upto its reputation. John Battelle captures the essence Search and the key players within the industry, paste, present and future trends of Search.
The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
The Search by John Battelle provides an interesting history of Internet search technology with a heavy emphasis on Google. It also highlights how search engines and the Internet have rapidly changed and offers insight into where search technology may be heading next. Although there is a heavy emphasis Google, the book ultimately aims at the bigger picture: the past, present, and future of search, in both the business and technology aspects.John Battelle does a great job at giving a detailed overview of the role of Search, which is especially helpful for a person like me, who has a very limited knowledge of this topic. In addition, having a strong business and technical background, Battelle is even able to get a lot of insider information to further support his ideas. For example, he is able to incorporate his interviews with people like Brin and Page at Google, Bezos at Amazon, Yang and Filo at Yahoo, etc. Not to mention, he even brings the lesser known to the spotlight: Bill Gross, founder of GoTo.com, the first company to successfully provide an Internet search engine which relied upon sponsored search results and pay-per-click advertisements. It is these parts of the book that are most interesting, and enlightening. Not to mention, the book is a lot more credible with so many key figures of the Search industry being incorporated into the book.Before reading this I thought that Search was just a box to enter in terms to search for. However, it is a rapidly growing field that morphs with many business ramifications: advertising, media, and sales to name a few. As we all know, Google makes the majority of their money off advertisements. In addition, many Internet users use the search engine to do their shopping as they are able to do some research on the item and find the best price before making their final purchase. Or, many also just do it because it allows for them to conveniently shop in the comforts of their own homes. The search engine's capabilities are endless. Many really novel ideas are and will continue to be coming out of the search engine/internet media industry. Already, we are thinking beyond text search queries and looking into visual queries. However, at the same time, agreeing with Battelle, we are definitely not far from search becoming like the voice of the Star Trek computer that even understands our verbal queries.