The Search is On

The Search is a wonderful book tracing the history of the search engine industry since the nascent days of the Web to the phenomenal rise of Google. Although the book is a lot of hype about the search engines in the first chapter, it gradually unfolds into a wonderful tale of WebWanderer, AltaVista, Lycos, Yahoo, Overture, Google and other search engines. Google, ofcourse, is the toast of the tech industry and hence is most widely covered in the book . Google's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, are entrepreneurs out to create a company with a difference - and their efforts to do that, be it with creating its unique work culture, its 'Do No Evil' motto, the amazing rollercoaster ride to Google's IPO - make for an entertaining read. In the press, Google seems to be a company that can do no wrong. However, this book does point out Google's frailties and the challenges it faces. The author paints a picture of the future of search .. with Web 2.0, local search, maps and the Holy Grail of search engines (personalized search) .. many of these are already taking shape .. so you know how fast technology is moving. The story of startups in Silicon Valley fighting it out in this intense competition is great.

But the best part of the book is the Chapter 'A Billion Dollars, One Nickel At A Time' - which is the story of the revolutionary search engine 'Overture' and its founder Bill Gross, the pioneer who provided search with its business model .. pay-per-click advertising.