Planet Google: One Company's Audacious Plan To Organize Everything We Know

It's super-fun to read a non-fiction book so close to the release date, and hence so up-to-date, as this is right now. There are no big revelations, but the writing is interesting, well-researched, and relevant enough that it just kept pulling me in. It's a short book, too -- the last 50 pages or so are notes.

Google is a Big Deal, and even though there's not much more to say then "we really should be keeping an eye on these folks," this book is valuable.

Also, it'll probably be completely irrelevant in six months.

We tend to think of Google as the engine that took over the Internet, but this book presents a clear case that Google is not the evil giant it appears. Not pulling punches, the author disucsses both the benefits and the problems of Googles plans to organize everything we know. A MUST read for our profession!

I saw this book sitting on a shelf as I was browsing my local library and immediately thought, "Hey, I should find out more about the company that I seem to spend most of my time engaging with and sort of work for (through YouTube)." So, I checked it out. I was a bit humbled to learn that the overall goal of Google was to organize the World's information. That seems a Herculean task, and through the course of the book, I found that they are well on their way to doing it. Plus, you have to like a company who's unspoken motto is "Don't Be Evil." Yes, they have occasionally pissed people off by circumventing or just ignoring privacy and copyright laws, but their overarching reasons are more benign than any other company that's had these show more problems. Of course, for my purposes, the chapter on Google's acquisition of YouTube was the one I was most interested in. I learned a lot based on their original plans with Google Video and I think I have a better understanding of their long-term plans for online video. I just hope it's not at the sake of losing the community that helped make YouTube what it was before, during, and after the merger.

Worth reading if you are interested in Google, the Internet, or interesting business practices. show less

Good Survey But Lacks Depth

The premise of chronicling the rise of Google is a fascinating one. The corporation that is the information age's equivalence of the East India Company is one that is intriguing and frightening at the same time. Randall Stross, technology writer for the New York Times attempts to do just that in "Planet Google."

Stross states that the intention of his book is to explore "how Google has grown up and out... how its pursuit of information of all kinds has brought it unrivaled power, and how its power affects the general interests of everyone, for better or for ill." (p. 1). The book is divided up thematically based on some of the more major developments and achievements of the company's short existence, from the show more open vs closed model, to capacity for growth, the notorious "pagerank" system, Youtube, Google Earth, and Google Apps.

While I like the premise of the book, I have to say that the research lacks depth and ideological insight. That is to say, Stross tells us the how and what, but he is light on the why. While there are extensive endnotes, I was surprised by the lack of archival information from Google itself, considering Stross had such in depth internal access to Google's executives and day-to-day operations.

I think the an academic study of Google from a sociological point of view makes a lot of sense. There are some very interesting parallels that can be drawn to some of their utopian ideals and what some of those sociological implications entail. Of course, Stross is not an academic, and so such a study would not be expected of him, but that is the kind of story about Google that needs to be explored further.

Overall, if one is relatively unfamiliar with the what and how of Google, this would be a good read into the general story of one of the most important companies of our time. For a deeper look at the societal implications of Google's omniscience, keep looking. show less

Stross has done something incredible in telling the story of Google in both a complete and understandable way. There were times that I was lost in the switchbacks of storyline, but I do not lay the blame on his shoulders. Watching the story progress from two people with a dream to the many things that Google is today was eye opening and even more enjoyable as it was published so recently.

The one big fear I have about this book is that any passage in time will leave this book far behind. In even two years the information it shares will seem to be ancient history rather than modern history.

Interesting history of Google with details that cover how using data and algorithms has allowed their services to scale (and scale and scale!) as the Internet grew. There was 1 sentence about Cornell computer scientist Jon Kleinberg who conducted earlier research with IBM on "Clever", the algorithm that evolved in PageRank. Of course the one sentence didn't give him that much credit! But I used his work from about 1995 before the Google search engine was working! In March 2000, I used Alta Vista for my dissertation because it was more robust than Google. But Google came on strong at about the same time.

Eeehh... Some parts are pretty interesting, other parts seem to present a rather simplistic picture. The best parts eem to reflect the more social & business aspects of what was going on. Particularly coverage of press events attended by the author. Other parts of the books have a tendency towards hyperbole. (Google is more open than other companies, no one thought about X before Google, Yahoo had everything be person-driven, etc).

Not bad, a good start if you're interested in Google, but I hope there's better books out there on Google. (Haven't ready any yet though).