The history of Google is something all of us should be looking at closely – especially those of us who work in marketing and the Internet. It is clear that we have been caught in the Google web, and that one company has become so powerful that it has changed and is changing some hitherto unassailable industries (newspapers, TV) and venturing in to ever more niche areas, thus changing or obliterating what are often new businesses. The recent chatter over the new Chrome OS, plus the very recent news that Microsoft has taken over from Google as the most popular consumer brand shows that Google is not afraid to step on some very big toes, or make enemies in what it sees as the short term.

This book is, ironically, the argument for the importance of the humble book. There is nothing new here for followers of blogs and Internet news. What is new, timely and awe inspiring is to hear the tale in one long prose account rather than in dribs and drabs. Vise tells the whole tale from the start of Google’s very short life, to how Google’s success in their search algorithm led them to stumble upon Pay Per Click advertising (PPC). The cash generated from this revenue stream has allowed Google to become a monolith – buying companies it sees as a threat or that may be one day useful, such as YouTube or what was to become Google Earth.

The philosophy of the company – its search to know everything – is one that sees it surprised when people get upset over its new technology. Street View on Google Maps, for example, caused a raft of privacy complaints which it was clear Google had not banked on, as did Gmail.

Google, like Microsoft before it, is close to having a monopoly of information and as such we should be wary of it. It is hard to see how in the next 5 or 10 years a company could match it, simply because a rival technology will be bought or their technology copied and blown out of the water with Google’s sheer weight. It is also hard to see any appetite for Google’s destruction from anywhere other than the big corporates it rivals. It provides great, useful software and services for free, paid for in a round-about way by advertisers who also get targeted, effective ads. Everyone is happy.  Compare this to Microsoft’s monopoly of software which it could charge over the odds for. Yet monopolies are a bad thing.

Google is also, somehow, seen as a friendly organisation – a respected brand. Compare to Microsoft and IBM and you can see why they get frustrated. And don’t be fooled by Google’s insistence on OpenSource software – Google’s code is not OpenSource and it is perhaps one of the most secretive outfits around. It is its rivals, and those sites that its search cannot penetrate that it calls on to be OpenSource – Facebook is a walled garden that worries the Google founders.

The big corporates whose toes are trodden on should not be ignored however. Microsoft and Yahoo! fume not so quietly. Whole industries are rising up to the challenge – the latest concerted campaign coming from the newspaper industry – upset by the Google news service being a free alternative, but also a copy of their own salaried journalist’s work.

The awesome computing power of Google, based on its own architecture of cheap PCs linked together in local, custom made server farms, has also allowed it to venture into areas with massive investment and firepower. Gmail is one such area which steps on the toes of some very big monoliths of the web – Yahoo! and Microsoft – but it offers this clearly better service for free. Google Maps is another service, as is the incredible book scanning project that Google has undertaken. What worries Microsoft even more is the cloud computing of Microsoft Office-like applications like calendars and word processors.

Each new service is released quietly and is free. Some projects have little potential for revenue in the future, but are tried anyway. Google can do this because of its size and wealth, but of course there are casualties.

So search for this book, and read it before you go back to your Gmail, add a note to Google Calendar and then search your way to the nearest book shop on Google Maps (but don’t look on Google Books as the experience is just not the same).

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