The Search How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business andTransformed Our Culture

by Battelle, John

• ISBN13: 9781591841418
• ISBN10: 1591841410
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-03
• Publisher: Portfolio Trade

Summary

How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture • The Wall Street Journaland BusinessWeekBestseller • 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 Searchoffers 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. BACKCOVER: The Searchis a superb story, well written and feverishly researched. Whether you are a student, techie, business executive, budding visionary or just enjoy pop culture, this is a book not to be missed.” —USA Today John Battelle is Silicon Valley’s Bob Woodward. One of the founders of Wiredmagazine, he has hung around Google for so long that he has come to be as close as any outsider can to actually being an insider….The result is a highly readable account of Google’s astonishing rise.” —The Economist It’s a fascinating story, and Mr. Battelle… tells it well.” —The Wall Street Journal A surprisingly gripping story…The Searchyields impressive results, pairing a reportorial eye for detail with an evangelical zeal to help readers understand the import of the search revolution.” —Wired News Battelle…manages to keep things compelling, adding his own trenchant analysis about what Google’s rapid evolution and powerful technology might mean for the company and our society as whole.” —The Associated Press A compelling glimpse of the search industry’s early years.” —BusinessWeek Deeply researched and nimbly reported.” —Publishers Weekly Indispensable.” —London Review of Books John Battelle has written a brilliant business book, but he’s also done something more: he’s used the amazing saga of Google to explore what it means to search. All searchers should read it.” —Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute; former editor of Time; former CEO of CNN Nobody, and I mean nobody, has thought longer, harder, or smarter about Google and the search business than John Battelle. If you want to understand the rise of the search economy and culture, you need to read this book.” —John Heilemann, author of Pride Before the Fall

Author Biography

JOHN BATTELLE is a cofounding editor of Wired and the founder of The Industry Standard, as well as TheStandard.com. He is currently program chair for the Web 2.0 conference, a columnist for Business 2.0, and the founder, chairman, and publisher of Federated Media Publishing, Inc.

Table of Contents

The Database of Intentions	1	(18)
Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How (Much)	19	(20)
Search Before Google	39	(26)
Google Is Born	65	(30)
A Billion Dollars, One Nickel at a Time: The Internet Gets a New Business Model	95	(28)
Google 2000--2004: Zero to $3 Billion in Five Years	123	(30)
The Search Economy	153	(36)
Search, Privacy, Government, and Evil	189	(22)
Google Goes Public	211	(18)
Google Today, Google Tomorrow	229	(22)
Perfect Search	251	(30)
Epilogue	281	(4)
Afterword	285	(18)
Acknowledgments	303	(4)
Notes	307	(12)
Index	319