by Nathan Williams
Daily Lobo
The cover of The Google Story matches the Web-based search engine to a tee with a plain white background, the multicolored Google logo and sparse text luring readers into familiar territory.
A surprising amount of work goes on behind that simple background, and the book peels back the mystery. Of all the search engines out there for the Internet, what makes Google stand above the rest? The book explains how this company that did not pay for advertising has become a verb in common usage.
Sergey Brin's and Larry Page's approach to their company is what sets them apart. Rather than using high-end standardized machines to handle all the processing of Internet searches, they use more than 100,000 cheap, customized machines to handle the tasks. The customization allows for different computers to specialize in various sections of the massive World Wide Web.
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The Google Story grabs the reader's attention with such factoids before launching into the history of Brin and Page and how Google came about.
The book covers things from the two creators' personal histories to how they became dissatisfied with the existing search engines and decided that if things were going to change, they were going to have to be the ones to do it. The problem, in their opinion, with the premiere search engine of the early 1990s, AltaVista, was not in its ability to comb through the millions of Web pages, but in its ability to rank them in order of relevance to the requested search. With this concern in mind, they built their engine that through word-of-mouth became the most-used Internet search device.
Details about the creators and how Google got started is not all the book focuses on. It puts events in context by mentioning the other dot-com businesses that flared up in the 1990s. It mentions Google's goals as putting technology first and letting the question of how to make money come after.
Other chapters are devoted to subjects such as their adult content filters and the dichotomy that raises. On one hand, they needed to create protection so searches did not bring up random pornography ads, and the book discusses some of the tricks porn pages employ to break through those filters. On the flip side, Google makes a great deal of money from adult content advertisements as adult searches are used millions of times a day.
The style of the book comes across as factual reporting. It aims to report the history of things rather than weave a story. That's not to say the book is a dry read of a long outline. The chapters are well structured, but don't expect gripping action and intense character development.
If it's a subject of interest, The Google Story will be a pleasant read. A vast wealth of information linked to the subject is spread throughout, allowing for buffet-style picking and choosing of areas of interest. If the Internet is nothing more than what you connect to in order to check e-mail, the book will hold little appeal.
