Google, in my opinion, is the Kleenex of the online word.  Google is more than a Web site it is an action.  We don’t search things on the Web we Google them, even if we are not using Google.com.  I could be on Yahoo and say that I am Googleing something.  It is a household name in the Internet search world.  But what if Google had not skyrocketed the way it did and say AltaVista became the granddaddy of all search engines would be AltaVistaing instead of Googleing… doesn’t have the same flare in my opinion. 

John Battelle in his book, The Search, examines how the Internet search engine was developed, created its own way of doing business, and transformed the way we search for information. It is hard to really think of a time when the Internet was not a dominating information force, but it was not that long ago that we used Encyclopedia Britannica instead of Wikipedia and we went to libraries to conduct research instead of logging onto the net. 

The search box is something I take for granted; all I need to do is type www.google.com or www.Yahoo.com, type a few keys words and wala everything I ever wanted to know magically appears.  It is heaven.  I truly wonder how people worked before the Internet.  But as I learned from Battelle, that magic does not instantly happen.  There has to be three key elements in place to have a successful search:

A Crawler– which “ resides on its own server sending out requests to Internet pages, the requests brings back Web pages, which the crawler hands off to the index,” (p. 20).

The index – The results collected by the crawler. “When the index is more complete the search results pages (SERPs) that are returned for a particular query have a greater chance of being relevant” (p. 20).

System or query processor – “The interface and related software that connects a   user’s queries to the index. It also manages the questions of relevance and ranking,” (p. 20)

These three things together are what help to create a successful search.

According to Battelle, Google, while being innovative, did not solely invent the search engine, search engines had been around for years but Google was unique in how it conducted its search.  Battelle goes into some detail about how the different search engines work etc… but for layman’s sake and the fact I do not really understand computer science lets just say while other search engines focused on the key words Google ranked sites based on links.  Does this sound familiar, well it should because, as we learned from Gillmor and Scoble and Israel, links are what make a blog an interactive conversation tool and helps drive prominence on the Google search engine.  Another distinguishing Google trait is the company focuses on search where as other companies, such as Yahoo, are more portal based sites with search capability.

In addition to providing over 100 pages on the history of search, Battelle touches on an interesting concept — the database of intentions.  According to Battelle, the database of intentions is “the aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result,” (p. 6). Battelle devotes a whole chapter to this idea that the Google search engine is able to show what is popular in today’s culture and what searchers are looking for as far as information. Battelle had this realization while looking at the first issue of Zeitgeist (now called Hot Trends,), a document published by Google that shows the most popular search terms for a given period of time.  The Zeitgeist, according to Battelle, “provides a fascinating summary of what our culture is looking for or finds interesting, and, conversely, what was once popular that is losing cultural momentum,” (p. 2).  In essence the Zeitgeist provides us with a snapshot of what is important to us now, or a snapshot of the current update to the world’s culture version of the database of intentions.

Google gives an interesting look at what is important to us and what questions we seek answers to. While I agree that Google provides an intriguing look at what some may view as important information, I do not think it provides a complete look into everything everyone wants to know or why they want to know it. Some people might be searching because they have nothing better to do and therefore have no real want or need for the information they are seeking.  Additionally, others may not use the Google search engine they may use another tool for their search needs.  Also, who is to say that Google searchers are a representative sample of the population as a whole? I think Battelle gives Google a little too much credit; he presents Google as if they are the main tracking device of pop culture.

After reading the history of search I have come to the conclusion that search really is the backbone of the Internet. It is how we navigate though the Web to find relevant information. Battelle makes an interesting observation when he talks about the evolution of search and how it has become something we expect.  It is remarkable to think about how the search function has evolved, almost every Web site I can think of has a search capability, I take for granted that I can easily and quickly get to the information I need by simply doing a key word search.  But what if search had not taken off the way it did, would we be only using the Internet for e-mail?  Would everyone be as plugged into the online world?  Is search really the driving force providing us with the information we want from the World Wide Web?

Shortly I will start to read the second half of The Search.  My hope is that the second half of the book focuses less on history and more on the Google business model and culture. In the first half of the book Battelle touches on the Google culture along with their, business model or lack there of one.  One aspect of Google I find interesting is their “Don’t be Evil” attitude.  In my opinion, Google is a friendly brand one everyone seems to love, how I could I ever think of Google as being evil.  With that being said, since Google seems to be the search king, at least for now, could they face the same fate as Microsoft being viewed as not playing well with others, trying to take over the world or will their fun attitude and positive PR strategy help Google stay on top and remain everyone’s friend?