The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
Written by: John Battelle
Editorial Reviews:
How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
• The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek Bestseller
• Finalist for the Goldman Sachs/FT Business Book of the Year Award
What does the world want? According to John Battelle, a company that answers that question—in all its shades of meaning—can unlock the most intractable riddles of business and arguably of human culture itself. And for the past few years, that’s exactly what Google has been doing.
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:
Summary: great survey of Google's implications, decent survey of search history
Comment: This book give some insights into how Google has affected the world (mostly positive, but some negative as well)
As a history of Google, this book tells us a lot, from inception to post-IPO.
It also explains the histories of some of the earlier defunct search engines.
For someone looking for some general knowledge about the search industry, this book would be very good.
Writing style is somewhat informal but makes for quicker reading.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting commentary on the search world
Comment: Since this book was published a few years ago, the Web game has changed--and so has search. However, I still found the contents an interesting read. The author managed to interview several high-flying Silicon Valley executives, including Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google. While I don't think that the author's predictions for the future of search have come to pass, it was an interesting commentary on Google, its business practices, and its competitors. Search is a vital part of today's Web, and this particular author appears to be refreshingly aware of the influence and where it could take us in the future.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of the best business biographies ever written
Comment: It is an extremely well-researched book that documents the evolution of the tech industry in America, focusing mostly on search companies starting with Excite/Lycos, then goes onto chronicle the birth of Yahoo and Google.
It chronicles how Page and Brin rightly forecast the importance of search as a key growth segment and learnt from their predecessor's mistakes to convert a student project into the world's favorite word.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great book
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "Search" begins quest for more answers.
Comment: Well written, with insight gained from years of interviews, Search was an easy, entertaining read. Not only did it breakdown some of the timeline about Google's success, it gave insight into the inner workings of the Google and it's founders, as well as a view into the entire field of search. The book inspired a quest for a deeper knowledge of the web itself.
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.761025040973
EAN: 9781591841418
ISBN: 1591841410
Label: Portfolio Trade
Manufacturer: Portfolio Trade
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: 2006-10-03
Publisher: Portfolio Trade
Studio: Portfolio Trade
 | Format: Paperback List Price: $14.95 Our Price: $10.17 Your Save: $ 4.78 ( 32% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Average Customer Rating:  |
Editorial Reviews:
How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
• The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek Bestseller
• Finalist for the Goldman Sachs/FT Business Book of the Year Award
What does the world want? According to John Battelle, a company that answers that question—in all its shades of meaning—can unlock the most intractable riddles of business and arguably of human culture itself. And for the past few years, that’s exactly what Google has been doing.
But The Search offers much more than the inside story of Google’s triumph. It’s a big- picture book about the past, present, and future of search technology and the enormous impact it’s starting to have on marketing, media, pop culture, dating, job hunting, international law, civil liberties, and just about every other sphere of human interest.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:
Summary: great survey of Google's implications, decent survey of search history
Comment: This book give some insights into how Google has affected the world (mostly positive, but some negative as well)
As a history of Google, this book tells us a lot, from inception to post-IPO.
It also explains the histories of some of the earlier defunct search engines.
For someone looking for some general knowledge about the search industry, this book would be very good.
Writing style is somewhat informal but makes for quicker reading.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting commentary on the search world
Comment: Since this book was published a few years ago, the Web game has changed--and so has search. However, I still found the contents an interesting read. The author managed to interview several high-flying Silicon Valley executives, including Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google. While I don't think that the author's predictions for the future of search have come to pass, it was an interesting commentary on Google, its business practices, and its competitors. Search is a vital part of today's Web, and this particular author appears to be refreshingly aware of the influence and where it could take us in the future.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of the best business biographies ever written
Comment: It is an extremely well-researched book that documents the evolution of the tech industry in America, focusing mostly on search companies starting with Excite/Lycos, then goes onto chronicle the birth of Yahoo and Google.
It chronicles how Page and Brin rightly forecast the importance of search as a key growth segment and learnt from their predecessor's mistakes to convert a student project into the world's favorite word.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great book
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "Search" begins quest for more answers.
Comment: Well written, with insight gained from years of interviews, Search was an easy, entertaining read. Not only did it breakdown some of the timeline about Google's success, it gave insight into the inner workings of the Google and it's founders, as well as a view into the entire field of search. The book inspired a quest for a deeper knowledge of the web itself.
Technical Details
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 338.761025040973
EAN: 9781591841418
ISBN: 1591841410
Label: Portfolio Trade
Manufacturer: Portfolio Trade
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: 2006-10-03
Publisher: Portfolio Trade
Studio: Portfolio Trade
