krthoms

The Search
Kyle Thoms

The Search, written by John Battelle is a book about Google. But not just about Google business, or how entrepreneurs succeed, but also about the cultural impact and shift that Google has introduced. Even at the beginning of the book Battelle establishes his desire to analyze this aspect of Google. He takes a cultural anthropological approach to the study of search engines and how they affect how people live their lives.
He does not only speak on the cultural impact, but also goes into the business side of Google. He mentions many of the entrepreneurial successes and ideas that Google used to make it to the top. One of these big ideas was using a pay-per-click method. They were not the first to use this idea, stealing it from Bill Gross, the inventor of the Magellan desktop search engine. Even so they used it effectively and profitably. Another effective method they use is tailoring ads to the user. What the user searches for the site recognizes key words and brings ads that involve these key words. Google also is not content to stay static. The company grows, adapts, and changes to satisfy customers and reintroduce it’s name to the population periodically.
The final part of the book focuses on the future of search engines and Google itself. This is speculation, but speculation from a leading technical journal editor. He hypothesizes that Google could potentially become a central platform for our entire lives, having every piece of information at our fingertips anytime, anywhere.