The Search: How Google And Its Rivals Rewrote The Rules Of Business And Transformed Our Culture by John Battelle

In this book the John Battelle recognizes that the real story about the search engines is actually outside the admittedly fascinating geek arms race between the big players: what's important is what the very act of searching for information on the Internet means for business and consumer alike. The simple act of keying in a phrase to a search engine is carried out billions of times a day and in totality provides an unprecedented map of human desires. The commercial ramifications are obvious, but our culture and our access to information are also being transformed by the nature of search. Put it this way - once the Net becomes a daily part of your life, it's hard to imagine doing without it.

The most obvious example of the commercial gold in search queries is contextual advertising, those text ads that turn up next to your search results that are related to your query.

For now, though, search remains a huge success story - Google may well be about to have its own stock bubble popped, but the company is profitable and unlikely to be knocked off its leadership perch by Wall Street alone. Yahoo and MSN are moving into the contextual ad field, each looking to get the competitive edge to make advertisers and publishers alike use their particular system. Most importantly, all three are continually trying to find better ways to slice and dice the Database of Intentions to give you what you want quicker, simpler and faster. Google, to my mind, still remains out in front for innovation, constantly testing business boundaries and received wisdom, putting the user experience first and working backwards. In the last five years, it has continually gone its own way and managed to take the industry with it. But Yahoo and MSN and, indeed, people and companies we've never even heard of yet, are not to be underestimated. John Battelle's The Search provides a brilliant illustration that within five years everything in the search world can change absolutely. It has done so already once - it probably will do again.

McDonald's: Behind the Arches

by : John F. Love

If you have ever wondered what happens behind the scenes at every Mc Donald's restaurant this is the book for you. How does Mc Donalds have your order ready by the time you drive through from the order mike to the pick up window? What is the story behind the Clown Ronald Mc Donald and why is he so popular today (by some records he is second in popularity in the US only to Santaclaus) as the Mascot of Mc Donalds? This is the book to read.

The books starts when Mc Donalds was just a fledgling operation , a single store sun by the Mc Donald brothers who have discovered a better, faster and a more efficient way of running a Fast food Joint and then takes you on a Roller coaster ride of the history of Mc Donalds from day one till about 1986 when the books was originally published and Mc Donalds became the huge monolith that it is today. The evolution part is really interesting, for example why and how do Mc Donalds French fries taste the same all around the world, and what is the secret behind those french fries, with just the right amount of crispiness, the soft insides and the tasty golden crust. did you know the Mc Donalds fries are dipped in a light sugar solution just before frying to give that golden brown color.

The book gives you a good insight into the mind and thinking of founder of modern day Mac Donald's - the indomitable Ray Kroc and the hundreds of suppliers and franchisees who made Mc Donalds the success that it is today. The author is of course unabashedly positive about the company and the people behind the scenes but I guess that is the compromise you have to make if you want the inside view of such a business. After all why should people speak to you if you are going to write a critical commentary of their business.
But critical or not, the book is an immensely good read and with 450 + pages in pretty much detail. Should be a must read for anyone entering into a franchising / food business.

For Marketing fanatics the pages present very good lessons in how Mc Donalds initially stumbled and how it got back on track when the chain expanded internationally customizing to just the right amount to local tastes.

PS: This is not from the Book , Also have a look at the regional Mc Donalds dishes and the amount of customization they have done here. Copy of the original post here.

The Google Story

By David A Vise

This book takes you inside the creation and growth of a company that has become so familiar its name has become a verb recognized around the world.

In 1998, Moscow -born Sergey Brin and Midwest American Larry Page set out to 'change the world' through a search engine that would oraganise every bit of informatoin on the web for free. Through the creative use of cutting -edge technology and series of groundbreaking business ideas,they were soon taking on microsoft and winning.Despite the bursting of the dot-com bubble they have turned to a start-up investment of US$1 million into a market value of over US$40 million.

You will learn about the amazing network of computer kept in specially chilled,secret rooms which store over four billion web documents.

But even as it rides high, Goggle wrestles with difficult challenges in a business that changes at lightning speed. It was able to continue expand and innovate while sustaining the guiding vision of its founders mantra : DO NO EVIL ?...

A must read....by David A. Vise

If you want to know how GOOGLE function read this
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

The Search

By John Battelle

Hello friends, after long time I have read any book and that too techno + information. I came across this book when I started my MBA. The book was assigned to one of my batch mates for submitting the review on it. But so were many other books. Now, why I was enticed by this book was because of the name ‘The Search’.When I was doing my engineering three years ago, we used to hear a lot about ‘The Information Age’. I remember lot of courses was launched by computer coaching institutes on e-commerce. Even I and my friends use to quote a lot about ‘The Information Age’, and the associated jargon, but to impress others. In reality, we didn’t have the idea what is this all about. But today, I can feel it. My second job at ‘Philips Lighting’, I got through e-portal ‘http://www.naukri.com/’. I got admission in MBA College, when I came across its site 'http://simsr.somaiya.edu/simsr/Index.asp ’. The latest laptop purchased by my friend was after negotiating with three vendors in three countries, via internet. Also while doing the job, I found that the people with the habit of hiding the knowledge, were left dumbfounded when I just got the required information via net in a single click. Surely, the times are changing and the new age has begun ‘The Information Age’.Now, the most important activity we do on internet is ‘The Search’, and that is the book all about. The author is the cofounding editor of ‘Wired’ and the founder of ‘The Industry Standard’. With a very close and keen observation of the organic growth of World Wide Web, the author takes us through the journey of its evolution. He could be approached via his search blog at http://www.batellemedia.com/.The initial part of the book focuses on ‘The Database of Intentions’. That is how we are ourselves creating the database of intentions, every time we type the word into search engine and telling it what our intentions are. Then it tells us about the initial search engine players prior to giants like Yahoo and Google. It talks about the players like Excite and Archie. Then it explains the mechanism of search i.e. what is going on behind the display. The components like web crawler.Then it talks about the recent players like altavista.com, aol.com, askjeeves.com. And finally about Yahoo and Google.The author talks about how both Yahoo and Google started in Stanford. And both were started out of curiosity, without any intention of making it business, and without any idea about the revolution it would bring in the world.Yahoo was started by Jerry Yang and David Filo, both were pursuing doctorates in electronic design automation at Stanford. The real reason as per the founders to create Yahoo was that they were bored with their PhD’s and they did everything they could to avoid writing their thesis.Google was started by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, while pursuing their computer science degree at Stanford.The difference between Yahoo & Google was the timings. Yahoo was pre-dot com burst company and Google was during the burst.The unique thing about Google is its Page Rank Algorithm, which works behind the search to give most relevant results. The algorithm is basically the software version of peer review methodology being used in Research Papers for years.While most of the search engines compromised their results by the amount the sponsor company pays to them, Google was different. Its mission was to give most relevant result. Then the question rises ‘How Google does make money?’ Exactly this was the question bogging the founders. But soon they found the salvation in Adwords. While searching on Google, on the left side of the screen the best relevant results are shown, while on the right side are the sponsored links. Every time anyone clicks on the adwords, Google gets money from the sponsor. The other revenue generation techniques were to act as database for other companies.The commercialization has just begun. Now every time we insert a word in the search engine, we are giving our psyche away to it. The next time you surf net, via Google or gmail, the sponsored links on the right side are not only the sponsored ones, but they are more relevant to you then the previous time. This is how the search is capturing whole our life. If anybody has read the short stories ‘The Last Answer’ & ‘The Last Question’ by Isaac Asimov, then it will be reminiscent of MULTIVAC, giant computer governing the whole planet. The same concept was shown a bit in ‘The Minority Report’. Now the only difference between search engine and artificial intelligence is that the machine till date can’t understand but only process the data. The moment it is able to understand, we have created ‘SKYNET’ (Terminator Series) ourselves.Now the competition is not between Google and Yahoo anymore, it’s between Google on one side and Yahoo, Microsoft and IBM on other. With the acquisition of sites like Orkut by Google, the Google is adding almost 1 feature, like Gtalk + Orkut, Gmail Mobile, per day in last week.So friends, the chess board for the ‘Information Wars’ has been already set. Let’s see who wins the game. But irrespective of who wins, the search has long way to go towards perfection and will change our lives forever.

If you want to know how GOOGLE function read this

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

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