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John Battelle

The Search

In The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture John Battelle looks at the development of internet search engines. Starting in the early days with Yahoo starting as a list of sites, and Alta Vista as a program to demonstrate DEC hardware, he explains how search was considered unimportant - what businesses were aiming at was the status of a portal. Then the internet bubble burst, but somehow Google managed to buck the trend and make a rapidly growing business out of pure search.

Battelle doesn't just look at the history of internet businesses, he also examines what people want out of search engines, with the final chapter looking to the future of search. I felt that the book lacked focus a bit here. This wouldn't have been so much of a problem when it was published, but it is over two years old now, and that's a long time in search engine history. I feel it would have survived the test of time better if Battelle had looked more critically at the issues - is it time, for instance, for a return to human edited databases, moving away from the purely algorithmic approach which gave Google such success. If you're interested in a broad overview of the issues of search, though, then you may well find this book worth reading

Amazon.com info

Paperback 336 pages
ISBN: 1591841410
Salesrank: 123515
Weight:0.55 lbs

Published: 2006 Portfolio Trade

Amazon price $10.17

Marketplace:New from $1.95:Used from $0.50

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Amazon.co.uk info

Paperback 336 pages
ISBN: 1857883624
Salesrank: 133791
Weight:0.93 lbs

Published: 2006 Nicholas Brealey Publishing

Amazon price £7.14

Marketplace:New from £4.64:Used from £4.00

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Amazon.ca info

Paperback 336 pages
ISBN: 1591841410
Salesrank: 37197
Weight:0.55 lbs

Published: 2006 Portfolio

Amazon price CDN$ 13.51

Marketplace:New from CDN$ 9.69:Used from CDN$ 3.51

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Product Description
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.

Product Description

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.

I didn't know what I didn't know but needed to *****
To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, "There are things that we don't know that we don't know; these are the unknown unknowns". That describes this book for me. This book was full of incredible, mind blowing things that I didn't know and that I didn't know that I needed to know. But anyone who has ever been on the internet needs to know what's in this book. WOW! This book states that search so far has evolved to the stage of fish with feet. There's still a lot that is going to happen with search and keeping abreast of these changes will be important for us all. If you don't have time to read, this book is on [...]. Get it there and listen in your car.

I didn't know what I didn't know but needed to *****

To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, "There are things that we don't know that we don't know; these are the unknown unknowns". That describes this book for me. This book was full of incredible, mind blowing things that I didn't know and that I didn't know that I needed to know. But anyone who has ever been on the internet needs to know what's in this book. WOW!

This book states that search so far has evolved to the stage of fish with feet. There's still a lot that is going to happen with search and keeping abreast of these changes will be important for us all.

If you don't have time to read, this book is on [...]. Get it there and listen in your car.

Good read for Internet Marketers beginners... ****
If you are starting in internet marketing or just want to get to know how nowadays search engine landscape has become possible this is the book for you ...

Good read for Internet Marketers beginners... ****

If you are starting in internet marketing or just want to get to know how nowadays search engine landscape has become possible this is the book for you ...

Good introduction to Google *****
This book at its core is primarily about Google - the fastest growing company ever - but the author's aim is to increase awareness of the significance of web search services: how widely they are used, and the possible consequences for society. Web search is a key to discovering (or recovering) valuable information scattered across a huge and ever changing internet. Captured search information has value to researchers and marketers, and to the extent that search engines drive traffic to sites they are valued by the owners of those sites. As of 2004 more than 65 million Americans were averaging more than thirty searches a month, and that number was growing 20% a year. The author describes in detail how search engines work and how they evolved: from DEC's AltaVista, to Lycos and Excite, to Google's PageRank algorithm based on citations. Ironically in the late '90s major destination sites were focused on keeping visitors on their own content pages so they could charge e-commerce providers for partnership deals, rather than providing a search service so users could go elsewhere. Hence Google was able to make its start as a service provider to Netscape and Yahoo. It was not until 2002, however, that Google adopted auction and pay-per-click advertising, as pioneered by its competitor Overture, then beat Overture at its own game by replacing it as a partner to AOL. Pay-per-click advertising has proved a compelling value for customer aquisition, resulting in a search engine optimization (SEO) industry that uses techniques - appropriate, inappropriate, and borderline - to boost the rankings of e-commerce sites. Revenue at Google soared over five years by a stunning 400,000% and the company went public in 2004 in an idosyncratic but ultimately successful IPO. In addition to Google's history the author also discusses privacy concerns, given that the company has the ability to retain all searches performed by an individual, but that it must accommodate national governments, be it China or the US authorities seeking information using the PATRIOT act. In addition there is a wider society impact when public information, for example about court cases are easily accessible by anyone such as prospective employers. Apart from the occasionally overwrought digression the book is dense with details and provides an excellent introduction to Google and the history behind it.

Good introduction to Google *****

This book at its core is primarily about Google - the fastest growing company ever - but the author's aim is to increase awareness of the significance of web search services: how widely they are used, and the possible consequences for society. Web search is a key to discovering (or recovering) valuable information scattered across a huge and ever changing internet. Captured search information has value to researchers and marketers, and to the extent that search engines drive traffic to sites they are valued by the owners of those sites. As of 2004 more than 65 million Americans were averaging more than thirty searches a month, and that number was growing 20% a year. The author describes in detail how search engines work and how they evolved: from DEC's AltaVista, to Lycos and Excite, to Google's PageRank algorithm based on citations.

Ironically in the late '90s major destination sites were focused on keeping visitors on their own content pages so they could charge e-commerce providers for partnership deals, rather than providing a search service so users could go elsewhere. Hence Google was able to make its start as a service provider to Netscape and Yahoo. It was not until 2002, however, that Google adopted auction and pay-per-click advertising, as pioneered by its competitor Overture, then beat Overture at its own game by replacing it as a partner to AOL.

Pay-per-click advertising has proved a compelling value for customer aquisition, resulting in a search engine optimization (SEO) industry that uses techniques - appropriate, inappropriate, and borderline - to boost the rankings of e-commerce sites. Revenue at Google soared over five years by a stunning 400,000% and the company went public in 2004 in an idosyncratic but ultimately successful IPO.

In addition to Google's history the author also discusses privacy concerns, given that the company has the ability to retain all searches performed by an individual, but that it must accommodate national governments, be it China or the US authorities seeking information using the PATRIOT act. In addition there is a wider society impact when public information, for example about court cases are easily accessible by anyone such as prospective employers.

Apart from the occasionally overwrought digression the book is dense with details and provides an excellent introduction to Google and the history behind it.

Way better than the Long Tail *****
Great book, well written, entertaining and thought provoking. This is the book on the Internet in the 2000's that should have got all the 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.

Way better than the Long Tail *****

Great book, well written, entertaining and thought provoking.
This is the book on the Internet in the 2000's that should have got all
the 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.

totally missed the boat *
The author makes a horrendous error: Look in the index for the word "data mining". It shows that "data mining" is discussed on page 33. Wrong! There is no mention of data mining in the book at all. Any book that talks about Google yet fails to mention data mining is absolutely worthless. That's pretty much the WHOLE POINT of Google. They acquire data from users and use that data to direct advertising at people. They study patterns in data. That's how they make money. Author = FAIL.

totally missed the boat *

The author makes a horrendous error: Look in the index for the word "data mining". It shows that "data mining" is discussed on page 33. Wrong! There is no mention of data mining in the book at all. Any book that talks about Google yet fails to mention data mining is absolutely worthless. That's pretty much the WHOLE POINT of Google. They acquire data from users and use that data to direct advertising at people. They study patterns in data. That's how they make money. Author = FAIL.

An excellent companion volume *****
A story, written from further on the outside than 'The Google Story' about the early stages of google development. Not really an insider view, this concentrates on the public face of Google history as well as the details of the many companies that set the scene and created the early technology that allowed Google to exist. Provides a rich context for Google, but doesn't cover the internals of the company all that well, a good companion volume to 'The Google Story'

An excellent companion volume *****

A story, written from further on the outside than 'The Google Story' about the early stages of google development. Not really an insider view, this concentrates on the public face of Google history as well as the details of the many companies that set the scene and created the early technology that allowed Google to exist. Provides a rich context for Google, but doesn't cover the internals of the company all that well, a good companion volume to 'The Google Story'

A Google-focused useful insight into the world of search ****
John Battelle has written an unputdownable page turner with a wealth of first-hand knowledge about the world of internet searching. He tells the story of Google and does not shirk away from dealing with some of the thorny legal and ethical issues surrounding one of the most successful companies in history. This book will prove invaluable to all those who want to upgrade their background knowledge of SEM, SEO and the world of the internet in general.

A Google-focused useful insight into the world of search ****

John Battelle has written an unputdownable page turner with a wealth of first-hand knowledge about the world of internet searching. He tells the story of Google and does not shirk away from dealing with some of the thorny legal and ethical issues surrounding one of the most successful companies in history.

This book will prove invaluable to all those who want to upgrade their background knowledge of SEM, SEO and the world of the internet in general.

Not too geeky ****
Although I've been using computers, in one form or another, since the late 80's I didn't really use the Internet until around 2001. I'm not a particularly sophisticated user and haven't thought particularly carefully about the various search tools available. This book has changed my view - I now understand more about the differences between the search engines available on sites like Google and Yahoo - where did they come from, what drives their development, what are the aims and motives of those who control them? This book is simultaneously reassuring and deeply worrying, prompting some real thought on the consequences of our headlong rush into a digitised world. It is written in a very approachable style so that someone with only a modest knowledge of the Internet can understand the points it makes. The numerous items of 'insider gossip' and anecdotes make it lighter, helping the reader to digest the longer passages and also illuminating the characters and the part they played in the history and development of the Internet. I have deducted one star from a non-USA reader point of view - some terms were unfamiliar (particularly to do with the US financial world) and a bit of explanation for international audiences would have been useful.

Not too geeky ****

Although I've been using computers, in one form or another, since the late 80's I didn't really use the Internet until around 2001. I'm not a particularly sophisticated user and haven't thought particularly carefully about the various search tools available. This book has changed my view - I now understand more about the differences between the search engines available on sites like Google and Yahoo - where did they come from, what drives their development, what are the aims and motives of those who control them?

This book is simultaneously reassuring and deeply worrying, prompting some real thought on the consequences of our headlong rush into a digitised world. It is written in a very approachable style so that someone with only a modest knowledge of the Internet can understand the points it makes. The numerous items of 'insider gossip' and anecdotes make it lighter, helping the reader to digest the longer passages and also illuminating the characters and the part they played in the history and development of the Internet.

I have deducted one star from a non-USA reader point of view - some terms were unfamiliar (particularly to do with the US financial world) and a bit of explanation for international audiences would have been useful.

Simple search, complicated industry *****
Receive the search query and give back the results - it's that simple. There can't be more to this industry, right? Very wrong. Read this book to get a good understanding of the birth, rise and future of this (massive) industry.

Simple search, complicated industry *****

Receive the search query and give back the results - it's that simple. There can't be more to this industry, right? Very wrong. Read this book to get a good understanding of the birth, rise and future of this (massive) industry.

A 'must read' for Human Resources Executives ****
Companies pay millions to Futurists to tell them how consumer behaviours are likely to change. At the core of much of this, of course, is the internet. When you read this book though, you'll understand that the real power of the internet lies in 'search' - and that's where the future is going to get interesting! Human Resources leaders need to understand their business - we've known that for a long time - but they also need to understand the external world and what lies ahead. This book will broaden your thinking about the future of business and consumerism in ways that will inspire you.

A 'must read' for Human Resources Executives ****

Companies pay millions to Futurists to tell them how consumer behaviours are likely to change. At the core of much of this, of course, is the internet. When you read this book though, you'll understand that the real power of the internet lies in 'search' - and that's where the future is going to get interesting! Human Resources leaders need to understand their business - we've known that for a long time - but they also need to understand the external world and what lies ahead. This book will broaden your thinking about the future of business and consumerism in ways that will inspire you.

A must for every marketer *****
Starting with the fascinating concept of the Database of Intentions introduced in Chapter 1, the book kept my attention. This is a well told story of the development of the Internet search industry. The book documents in a journalistic fashion that is very enjoyable to read, the convergence of academic research and business thinking around the problem of searching an exponentially expanding internet. Inevitably the story of Google is at the center of the book but Batelle covers well the known and unknown pioneers of search. He also shows that despite Googles dominance, the search for the perfect search function is far from over. The book puts in perspective how all marketers must now think in terms of consumer intent when designing their web properties or SEO strategies.

A must for every marketer *****

Starting with the fascinating concept of the Database of Intentions introduced in Chapter 1, the book kept my attention. This is a well told story of the development of the Internet search industry. The book documents in a journalistic fashion that is very enjoyable to read, the convergence of academic research and business thinking around the problem of searching an exponentially expanding internet. Inevitably the story of Google is at the center of the book but Batelle covers well the known and unknown pioneers of search. He also shows that despite Googles dominance, the search for the perfect search function is far from over. The book puts in perspective how all marketers must now think in terms of consumer intent when designing their web properties or SEO strategies.