The Search

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

De: John Battelle

Narrado por: John Battelle

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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"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)

interesting in some places, boring in others

this book wise interest in some places. It was boring and dull in others. I'm not sure I'm glad i read it. But such is life!

Very insightful

In the past collecting information about individuals has always been in the domain of government organisations, one of the points the book makes is that today this information is being collected in a very different manner because we as users see the value in using services believing that we are not making an personal sacrifices. The book outlines the enormity of the scope of the information being collected and how this data if it lands into the wrong hands may affect us in ways we could have never imagined.

Interesting hymn to google

This gives you a good background to the development of google, the author is obviously quite impressed. His voice isn't the most inspiring, but the story is good and kept me interested until the end.

Excellent

I have listed to both this title and "The Google Story". Both are good, but this one is better. I would recommend listing to this one first and the other second.

The History of Search: The Early Days - 2006

What did you love best about The Search?

Excellent telling of the history of search engines and the business they have become.

Any additional comments?

I would recommend listening to 'The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You' by Eli Pariser after this book to bring the listener up to date on where Search is currently at and where it is headed.