This book caught my eye at a book sale a few weeks ago. Even though it’s now almost 5 years old (eons in technology years), it still has plenty of usefulness as a history of the development of search technology and of Google, the company whose name has become synonymous with “search”. Remember Archie, Gopher, and Veronica? AltaVista, Lycos, HotBot, and Excite? Battelle places each one in a chronological narrative of search beginning in the early 1990s. Battelle’s comparison of Google’s approach to search with Yahoo’s approach to search is particularly useful to me as a librarian who frequently uses search during a typical workday. Most of the book, though, is devoted to the rise of Google. Recommended for any reader interested in the history of the Internet and search technology. ( )

Un buon libro. Una volta tanto un saggio su una societa' di successo scritto senza scontati trionfalismi e facili esaltazioni dei protagonisti. Essere neutrali verso Google non e' facile ma John Battelle fa un buon lavoro.
John e' bravo a raccontare i fatti (80% del libro), quando si avventura in speculazioni circa il futuro di Internet e della search si vedono tutti i suoi limiti. ( )

Not technical enough for hardcore programmers and probably not as business-oriented as some would like, either, but if you want a book with a bit of both, it's perfect. ( )

Fun to read, with interesting ideas about "search" as a business model, and a compare-and-contrast between Google and Yahoo. The book presents Google as a technology company, where the algorithm is king and commerce is dirty, and Yahoo as a media company, with an emphasis on the benefits of a human touch and the acknowledgement that a lot of people are searching for something _because_ they want to make a purchase.

John Battelle is the co-founding editor of Wired, so he brings a good sense of business and of technology with a readable voice. (And none of the snark that makes Wired so tiresome lately.) I really had trouble putting the book down; neat stuff. ( )

Meine Rezension befindet sich hier: MBI Blog ( )