The Search

How Google & Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business & Transformed Our Culture

By: John Battelle

Narrated by: John Battelle

Length: 10 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

What does the world want? According to John Battelle, a company that answers that question can unlock the most intractable riddles of both business and culture. And for the past few years, that's exactly what Google has been doing.

Jumping into the game long after Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos, and other pioneers, Google offered a radical new approach to search, redefined the idea of viral marketing, survived the dotcom crash, and pulled off the largest and most talked about initial public offering in the history of Silicon Valley.

But The Search offers much more than the inside story of Google's triumph. It's also a big-picture book about the past, present, and future of search technology, and the enormous impact it is starting to have on marketing, media, pop culture, dating, job hunting, international law, civil liberties, and just about every other sphere of human interest.

More than any of its rivals, Google has become the gateway to instant knowledge. Hundreds of millions of people use it to satisfy their wants, needs, fears, and obsessions, creating an enormous artifact that Battelle calls "the Database of Intentions". Combined with the databases of thousands of other search-driven businesses, large and small, it all adds up to a goldmine of information that powerful organizations (including the government) will want to get their hands on.

No one is better qualified to explain this entire phenomenon than Battelle, who co-founded Wired and founded The Industry Standard. Perhaps more than any other journalist, he has devoted his career to finding the holy grail of technology. And he has finally found it in search.

For anyone who wants to understand how Google really succeeded, The Search is an eye-opening and indispensable read.

©2005 John Battelle (P)2005 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This is an excellent, thought-provoking book." (Booklist)
"John Battelle has written a brilliant business book....All searchers should read it." (Walter Isaacson)
"This book ought to be called The Answer. As usual, John Battelle delivers insightful, thought-provoking, and essential reading." (Seth Godin)
"The book is a deeply researched and nimbly reported look at how search has defined the Internet and how it will continue to be a tremendous reflection of culture." (Publishers Weekly)

The History of Search Marketing

What made the experience of listening to The Search the most enjoyable?

I read this book back in 2006 just after graduating with my marketing degree and starting my career as a search marketing consultant. I can't tell you how many times I have quoted this book while explaining search marketing to my clients. If you want a quick history lesson on how the Internet grew into the dominate media we know today then pick this book up. Must read for anyone in marketing today.

A Tale for Our Age

Perhaps it's because I'm an IT guy, but I found this story fascinating, especially since I field questions on Google with regularity. As much a Google User Guide as a history of the most successful search engine of our time, the true remarkability of this story is that it just happened. As you listen, you'll find yourself thinking, "What was I doing with my time while Brin and Page were changing the world?" And if you're like me, you'll say, "Apparently nothing of consequence." Then you'll chastise yourself for your lack of vision. But it's all in good fun, and Battelle does an amazing job at peeling back the layers of two young geniuses who are intensely private in their pursuit of excellence. All-in-all, an excellent study of the Internet at its adolescence. Highly recommended. Especially for IT people.

Good introduction to the history of search

This book gives a good overview of the history of search, seen from many sides. When i later listened to "the google story", which is much more biased to google, it was very good to have a much broader knowledge about what actually happened. the writer obviously is a real insider, who knows or has met many of the players in the field.
It also talks about the future of search, with for instance mobilephones.
While not a throughout history of any company, it is great as an overview.

The narrator, who is also the author of the book, has a very comfortable voice to listen to.

Only problem about the book? Too short!

Insightful and Interesting

When I'm highly interested in a movie or book, the ending seems to come much sooner than I expect. This is how I felt at the end of this 10 hour audiotape. The best narrators of audiobooks are usually the authors themselves and this is true in this case. The narrator made this seemingly mundane subject, Search, into a very interesting and insightful look into the history of Internet Searching. Yes, Google is the focal point, but the author also discussed the inner workings of such influental companies as Yahoo! and Overture. My only reservations about Search is its long-winded argument against the Patriot Act. The author seems to believe that if the Patriot Act is not repealed, then the U.S. will be turned into a police state. I would have given this audiobook a maximum rating if the narrator didn't rant for 20 minutes about Big Brother.

Great story.

It's a must read for anyone interested in learning more about the Google and how the internet economy works. Many people take for granted our ability to punch a few words into Google and get useful information on just about anything. The book covers the fascinating early history of Search from the early days of AltaVista to the Google and Bing. How does the Google search process work? How does search advertising work? What do companies do to get their info at the top of the Google search? It is also a personal story about the entrepreneurs who created the services that make the internet useful and profitable. It manages to do all this while reading like a fast paced novel. Great for a long trip -- you will not want to stop listening.

Inspiring

The book gave me a good perspective on the "Search" industry. Well written stories and settings. The language was strong in a couple sections, other than that, good read.

Googlemania

An excellent account of the development of the search technology that transformed the internet into our primary research and marketing platform. At times this account gets into the geek weeds, but only to provide a meaningful explanation for why things turned out as they did. Not a history of Google, but of necessity it is heavily focused on Google. The descriptions of the key players, including Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, appear balanced and carefully researched or based on personal knowledge of the author.

Really good book.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

yes - it's interesting and engaging.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

well told, well composed, good combination of history, culture and search facts.

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

the fantastic future of search

Low content/length ratio. Poorly read (by author)

There are some nuggets of interesting info. in the book, but they are not worth the endless blah blah blah.

The contents of the book would make for a good 1-2 hour presentation (as long as somebody else reads it!)

Dry Narration

This seems like such an important book. It's a shame that I can't bear listening to the monotone narration. Maybe I will buy the book, I don't know.