This book has inspired me to start posting on here again. I realized that when you’re writing in a blog, it doesn’t matter who’s reading. You’re writing it for yourself. If other people happen to like it, that’s great. If not? Oh, well.
By writing down my thoughts about a particular book, I am keeping a recollection of what the book meant to me.
In What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis, the creator of Entertainment Weekly and the originator of the Dell sucks! blog which lead to the computer company’s near-death, goes inside the world of Google. He explains how the search giant has quickly become an advertising titan which controls the organization of information. Â He explains the Google Rules, what Google would do if it ruled the world, and Generation G, home to a growing amount of people who are being influenced by Google in all aspects of life: how we think, act, shop, navigate and converse.
Gmail, Google Maps, and the almighty Google search. Where would you be without them?
I’m about half way through it right now, and am hooked so far. It’s really opening my eyes to a lot of niche markets, and I sort of see the book as a spirtitual successor to Chris Anderon’s The Long Tail, which explored the new demand curve and what it meant for the lower half of the curve: Â the smaller market, less than blockbuster hits – the things you can only find on Amazon, eBay, or Youtube.
Because he is such a veteran of the entertainment journalism industry, he has countless stories to recount about lunches with former bosses at TV Guide, discussions with Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, and conference exchanges with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
This books brings up a number of interesting questions, such as:
– What did Facebook do so well that it became so popular? It established elegant organization to existing networks that already existed in your social lives.
– What can be done to save the failing book industry?
– How can Hollywood use the Google Rules to capitalize on a new era of consumers in a Long Tail marketplace?
One Comment
Good to see you’re back posting here! I think all your reasons for coming back to this idea are spot on. I’m at the point where I barely trust my memories (especially when dreams come into the picture), so why not record your thoughts for whoever happens to pass along them?
I think the book you’re reading is super interesting, especially since you’ve laid out how extensive Google’s influence into human society has been. I hope that when you finish it, you’ll share some of the things you thought were interesting!