spremkumar

THE SEARCH

John Battelle’s The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture is a whole lot of information
The book clearly explores what does it mean to search, what is the ideal search, and how is it evolving in relation to the human culture. The beginning of the book does an excellent job of explaining the history of Google and a very good job of explaining the history of search engines on the whole. The second part of the book looks at how Google has grown from a private company to the public money making machine. Additionally, Battelle also addresses many of the privacy concerns associated with search and the Patriot Act.
John Battelle details Google’s history in a manner that plays out like a good movie. Battelle addresses how Google, while being a lifesaver when it comes to meeting our technical and personal needs, also tracks our every move creating a massive database of everything we search. Battelle criticizes Google’s privacy policy, which allows Google to share clicksteam information with law enforcement if needed (page 203). Battelle criticizes their policy basically saying it contradicts their “don’t be evil” motto because of the language used which allows Google to make the decision to share user’s search information instead of being forced to by law enforcement.
Battelle also talks about Google’s relationship with China. Google chose to give into Chinese censorship rules by censoring its news site. According to Battelle, “by working with China to omit certain sites, Google had seemingly become an accessory to evil,” (page 206).
Google, in the short time it has been around, has shot up to become the leader in search. The word Google is not only the name of a company but is used by many as an adjective to describe the meaning of search. Battelle also makes it a point to touche on what the future of search could be. According to Battelle, search will be everywhere & in every application that is digital will have the ability to search. In addition to the future of search Battelle also looks at the financial impact of search, not only on companies such as Google and Yahoo, but also small Internet-based companies.
The final part of his book focuses on the potential future directions of Google and its products' development. In what Battelle himself acknowledges might just be a "digital fantasy train", he describes the possibility that Google will become the centralizing platform for our entire lives