Is Google really the end of the world as we know it?
Kel Auletta's Googled: The End of the World of We Know It is less about Google and more about the death of old media and the rise of "new" media, AKA digital media. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing: it's been one of the most dramatic rise and falls of a major industry in decades, and this one is perhaps the most impacting of all time, because it signals something far greater—a worldwide revolution from an analog planet to a digital one.
Googled has its ups and downs. Following a standard chronological order, the book begins in 1998 and ends in the then-present time of 2009. Ups include the interesting behind-the-scenes glimpses of the Google empire from its earlier stages to its present (or should I say omnipresent) dominance.
A down is that is spends a lot of time delving into particular characters that don't seem to carry much relevance beyond their designated chapters, and that aren't very interesting anyway. Another down is repetition: several concept and notions seem awkwardly repeated in different chapters, as though the reader either has a terrible memory of what he read, or the author has a terrible memory of what he wrote.
It also paints a picture of co-founders Larry page and Sergey Brin and semi-retarded children, with peculiar social problems and complete business incompetence, making it appear as if it were a miracle Google ever go off the ground (other characters are thankfully normal).
The book is well-crafted, however, in the sense of details. Every quote is backed-up with information on when the interview took place or where the information was sourced (more than 300 references). A thorough index containing thousands of queries makes the book easy to navigate.
But these end features may prove useless: While the book is a good first read, you're not compelled to look back on it. Google is already so different that you expect a sequel in your hands long before the book is over. Everything is different. And it's precisely that relentless, rapid change that makes Ken indisputably right on one major note: it's the end of the world as we know it.
