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 Search offers 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.
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
1
The Database of Intentions
1
2
Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How (Much)
19
3
Search Before Google
39
4
Google Is Born
65
5
A Billion Dollars, One Nickel at a Time: The Internet Gets a New Business Model
95
6
Google 2000-2004: Zero to $3 Billion in Five Years
“John Battelle is Silicon Valley’s Bob Woodward. One of the founders of Wired magazine, 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 Search yields 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
"Battelle has written a brilliant business book, but he's also done something more... All searchers should read it." —Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute
"This book ought to be called 'The Answer.' As usual, John Battelle delivers insightful, thought-provoking, and essential reading." —Seth Godin, author of All Marketers Are Liars and Purple Cow
"Nobody, and I mean nobody, has thought longer, harder, or smarter about Google and the search business than John Battelle." —John Heilemann, author of Pride Before the Fall
"A must read for anyone endeavoring to understand one of the most important trends of this generation." —Mary Meeker, Managing Director, Internet Analyst, Morgan Stanley
"Battelle has... figured out why "search" is so damned important to the future of everything digital. Even more impressive, he's actually managed to turn the subject into a compelling analog story. —John Huey, editorial director, Time inc.
