The rise of Google is one of the most amazing stories of our time. Jumping into the search industry long after Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos, and other competitors, Google offered a radical new approach to search, redefined the idea of viral marketing, and in just seven years became the largest IPO in the history of Silicon Valley.
Google's enormous impact straddles the worlds of technology, marketing, finance, media, culture, dating, job hunting, and just about every other sphere of human interest. And no one is better qualified to explain this entire phenomenon than John Battelle, the acclaimed Silicon Valley journalist who cofounded Wired and founded The Industry Standard.
In this fascinating narrative of the past, present, and future of search, Battelle draws on more than 350 interviews with executives at Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and other companies, including Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt. Battelle explores how search technology works, the amazing power of targeted advertising as a business model, and the frenzy of the Google IPO when the company tried to rewrite the rules of Wall Street and declared don't be evil as one of its core goals.
Battelle is equally enlightening about the cultural impact of the search industry. Every day, billions of searches reveal the wants, needs, fears, and obsessions of humankind - an unprecedented record that Battelle calls the database of intentions. What will Google and other companies do with all that information? Will the government regulate the search business? And what happens to privacy when every word ever written about someone is permanently archived and searchable in a fraction of a second?
For anyone who wants to understand how Google succeeded and what its success means for all of us, The Search is indispensable.
The rise of Google is one of the most amazing stories of our time. Jumping into the search industry long after Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos, and other competitors, Google offered a radical new approach to search, redefined the idea of viral marketing, and in just seven years became the largest IPO in the history of Silicon Valley.
Google's enormous impact straddles the worlds of technology, marketing, finance, media, culture, dating, job hunting, and just about every other sphere of human interest. And no one is better qualified to explain this entire phenomenon than John Battelle, the acclaimed Silicon Valley journalist who cofounded Wired and founded The Industry Standard.
In this fascinating narrative of the past, present, and future of search, Battelle draws on more than 350 interviews with executives at Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and other companies, including Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt. Battelle explores how search technology works, the amazing power of targeted advertising as a business model, and the frenzy of the Google IPO when the company tried to rewrite the rules of Wall Street and declared don't be evil as one of its core goals.
Battelle is equally enlightening about the cultural impact of the search industry. Every day, billions of searches reveal the wants, needs, fears, and obsessions of humankind - an unprecedented record that Battelle calls the database of intentions. What will Google and other companies do with all that information? Will the government regulate the search business? And what happens to privacy when every word ever written about someone is permanently archived and searchable in a fraction of a second?
For anyone who wants to understand how Google succeeded and what its success means for all of us, The Search is indispensable.
John Battelle is a cofounder of Wired and the founder of The Industry Standard as well as TheStandard.com. He is currently program chair for the Web 2.0 conference, a columnist for Business 2.0, and the founder and chairman of Federated Media Publishing, Inc. He lives in Kentfield, California, where he's a visiting professor at the University of California-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Visit Battelle's blog at www.battellemedia.com
"Both as a company and as a concept, Google has transformed the Internet and the entire cosmos of knowledge. John Battelle has written a brilliant business book, but he's also done something more: he's used the amazing saga of Google to explore what it means to search. All searchers should read it." Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute; former editor of Time "This book ought to be called 'The Answer.' As usual, John Battelle delivers insightful, thought-provoking, and essential reading. If you want to know why Google-think really does change everything, this is the book for you." Seth Godin, author of All Marketers Are Liars and Purple Cow "Nobody, and I mean nobody, has thought longer, harder, or smarter about Google and the search business than John Battelle. Now he coughs up a book that combines terrific reporting with rigorous analysis and joints-after-midnight ruminations on where this company and technology are taking us. If you want to understand the rise of the search economy and culture, you need to read this book." John Heilemann, author of Pride Before the Fall "Battelle has done two things with this book. He's figured out why 'search' is so damned important to the future of everything digital. Even more impressive, he's actually managed to turn the subject into a compelling analog story." John Huey, Editorial Director, Time Inc. "A must read for anyone endeavoring to understand one of the most important trends of this generation: organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible." Mary Meeker, Managing Director, Internet Analyst, Morgan Stanley "A terrific book. The Search makes clear that despite the many losers over the years and the few still-standing winners, the search industry remains at a very early stage of development. Searching is fine, but actually discovering answers will be even better." L. Gordon Crovitz, Dow Jones
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