The Search: The Birth of Google

June 12, 2008

the search

Great book to get your internet and business geek on.

With all the French Open coverage I’ve been consuming the last couple of weeks, I also used the time to catch up on some much needed research and reading to feed my brain.

John Battelle’s The Search is both a highly informative and fascinating book on the origins of the search engine, it’s present status, a well educated guesstimate of where it’s headed and it tells these complex tales of history and subject matters in a relatively, fun and non-tech geeky way for anyone to understand. It merely and clearly defines the values and benefits of the search engine and discusses why there’s so much resource being put into this next generation of technology.

The Search also uses the search engine / corporation / new most powerful entity / every other superlative juggernaut in the known world in Google to tell this story. If you’re going to tell any tales of this stature, you might as well start from the top.

A few key points learned from reading The Search by John Battelle:

- Google and most search engines are really in the business less about what actual words we’re typing into our search boxes and more into learning about our intentions. The “why” we’re typing in certain terms or phrases into the search boxes. They’re literally in the business of trying to read our minds and thoughts.

- Jerry Yang and David Filo started off Yahoo as a way to try to win some fantasy basketball league (which they did).

- Yahoo and Google have very fundamentally opposing philosophies on how best to satisfy searcher’s needs using the technology of search. Complex algorithms and text ads aside, the end goal is to properly read our true intentions and purposes in our search. What are we searching for and why?

- No matter how advanced all the search technology seems to be to us plebians, the general concensus is that it’s all still very much at it’s infancy. Just about every expert in the industry believes that we’re only about 10% into getting to the “perfect search”.

- As powerful as Yahoo and Google are now, neither seem to flex much muscle when opposed by the Chinese government. In order to enter the highly lucrative Chinese market, both companies (as well as many others) have had to bend on their principles and previously “unbendable rules”.

- The guys over at Google, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, etc are all extremely powerful companies filled with highly intelligent people. But at the end of the day, they’re learning this as they go along just like the rest of us.

- Brin and Page both like to eat Burger King after a major breakthrough.

There are countless other points of interest that make this book a worthwhile read.

The Search is an easy, fascinating read told very well. It’s not nearly as juicy in terms of dirt as James Stewart’s Disney War and that’s a good thing. Besides, Google is far too new and riding high to warrant much negative “inside” gossip… Yet.

As this relatively new and perpetually innovative industry continues to change, update and repeat itself, The Search is a great book to start to learn about the humble beginnings and see where all this crazy ass interweb stuff came from.

cap

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Brand Simple: Great Introduction to Marketing and Branding Techniques

May 25, 2008

It’s Sunday afternoon and despite my best efforts to make this long weekend as productive as possible, I succumbed to a moment of weakness and went out to meet friends, grab a quick bite which lead to a few drinks and a slight hangover this morning.

But I woke up to the pleasant surpise of the opening day of The French Open which saw:

Brand Simple book cover

Now as a not so subtle means to procrastinate from finishing up some weekend work, I want to quickly think out loud about Allen Adamson’s Brand Simple.

Great book. Well written. Simply expressed. A fundamental must read for anyone who finds anything about anything interesting.

What I mean is that even though it’s primarily about marketing, advertising, branding and the such, the fundamentals of the messages contained within this little tome with a big punch can be applied to just about anything in modern day life from blogging to promoting to writing to many many more subjects.

Without getting too boring in my explanation (besides, this post is more about me trying to have an exercise to better remember the main points from the book) I’ll try to lay out the most important bullet points to hopefully get others interested in getting involved with the book.

    1) Brand and Branding are two two completely different concepts. A “Brand” is something, anything that someone associates with your product, service, company or individual associated with the company. “Branding” is the actual process of getting people to associate the right messages as it pertains to your product, service, etc.

    2) One of the most important steps to take when you’re about to brand or market something is really think about how your product, service, company, etc. differs from the competition. People are very savvy now. It just takes a few minutes on Google to figure out if your promises are legit or not.

    Once you’ve determined what that difference is, you must use that as the core method in which to market or brand your product or service.

    3) Know your audience. Know who you are marketing to. Specifically. You can’t please every demographic at once. Start with the core audience and expand accordingly.

    4) Don’t overcomplicate things. Most likely the thing that differentiates your product from your competition is probably right under your nose.

    5) Have a business strategy that coincides with your branding strategy. Once you figure out what and who you want to market to, stick to it. Don’t change either factors on a whim. This sends out too many signals to your audience and they are not going to respond to any of them. Stick to your game plan.

    6) Consider a tagline for your brand. In the film and TV world it’s sorta like the logline that best tells us about your product or service in a nutshell. Make sure it fits with the overall strategy.

    7) Map out how your typical customer will run through your product. From the initial thought of needing or wanting your product or service all the way to the actual purchase of it and beyond, walk it through and see where you can make the process simpler and more satisfying for the client or customer.

    Eight) Spend wisely. You can’t control every factor. Don’t be wasteful in the aspects of your strategies that you really don’t have any control over. And not just with money but with your time and energies as well.

    9) Make sure that the difference you promote for your product or service is a difference that people will genuinely care about. A difference for the sake of difference is not gonna do anyone any good.

    10) Remember that this is all a marathon and not a sprint. Once you’ve got your strategy and ready to execute your plan, stick to it and realize that time will be the only true tell sign on whether it will be effective or not.

Adamson really goes into quite a few examples based on personal experience to really flesh out these ideas above and it’s all very interesting.

I’m in the process of closing a pretty exciting deal myself for my company in the next few weeks and wholly plan on utilizing the techniques outlined and explained in Brand Simple.

Now if only I can be this focused with the rest of my life.

More to come.

cap

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