The Google Story



I finished reading "the Google Story" by David A. Vise. It was interesting enough even if not ground-breaking. It's been a while since I've read a fluff piece like this.

What I took away: it's important to remember that google is ultimately a business that makes most of their "real" money through brokering advertising. I did like the discusison of some of the legal challenges they faced, and also the discussion of how they emerged ahead of all their contemporary "search" competitors.

I was disappointed that weblogs and google's acquisition of blogger wasn't a bigger part of the story. The book was published in November of 2005, so there is scant mention of google's plans for video (but an interesting talk about DNA and adding google computing resources to science problems of the day).

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My google "credentials": I am an avid user of google and it's many features and subsidiary product/service offerings. Often I recommend these products/services to others, including those I encounter in my work. My current favorite feature of gmail is the "frequently mailed contacts" page which offers up the subset of email address you most frequently write to. It's fascinating to watch the names fluctuate over time.

Posted: Sun - January 15, 2006 at 09:53 PM      

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