What Would Google Do? |  | Author: Jeff Jarvis
Publisher: HarperBusiness
Category: Book
List Price: $26.99
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Rating:  117 reviews
Sales Rank: 7905
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition first Printing
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 0061709719
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.4012
EAN: 9780061709715
ASIN: 0061709719
Publication Date: February 1, 2009
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Product Description
A bold and vital book that asks and answers the most urgent question of today: What Would Google Do? In a book that's one part prophecy, one part thought experiment, one part manifesto, and one part survival manual, internet impresario and blogging pioneer Jeff Jarvis reverse-engineers Google—the fastest-growing company in history—to discover forty clear and straightforward rules to manage and live by. At the same time, he illuminates the new worldview of the internet generation: how it challenges and destroys, but also opens up vast new opportunities. His findings are counterintuitive, imaginative, practical, and above all visionary, giving readers a glimpse of how everyone and everything—from corporations to governments, nations to individuals—must evolve in the Google era. Along the way, he looks under the hood of a car designed by its drivers, ponders a worldwide university where the students design their curriculum, envisions an airline fueled by a social network, imagines the open-source restaurant, and examines a series of industries and institutions that will soon benefit from this book's central question. The result is an astonishing, mind-opening book that, in the end, is not about Google. It's about you.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 117
 If there is one non-fiction book you plan to read this year, this should be the one January 9, 2009
Marc van der Chijs (Shanghai, China)
30 out of 40 found this review helpful
A few weeks ago I received a pre-galley copy of Jeff Jarvis upcoming book What Would Google Do? Judging from the title you might think this is just another book about Google, but it isn't. It's a book about seeing the world as Google sees it. What Jarvis did is translating Google's way of doing business into a set of rules to live and do business by.
I loved the book, not only because it's a highly entertaining read filled with real life examples, but especially because I think it will open the eyes of many people about how the world has changed because of the Internet, and what they should do to stay ahead or at least keep up. Many of the Google Rules that Jarvis defines are very recognizable to me and several have helped me to grow my businesses over the past years. But others I did not really think through yet, so they were quite thought provoking while reading the book.
The first part of the book is about the Google Rules, the way Google does its business, about 30 in total. Some of the most important include:
- Jeff Jarvis First Law: Give the people trust and we will use it. Don't and you will lose it. The powerful (companies, institutions and governments) used to be in charge because of the control they had, but the world has changed. They can only win it back by being more transparent and listen to their customers
- Your customer is your advertising agency: Google spends next to nothing in advertising, people spread the word for them. Let your customers do that for you.
- Join the Open Source, Gift Economy: Your customers will help you if you ask them, people like to be generous (look at Wikipedia for example)
- The masses are dead, long live the niches: Aggregation of the long tail replaces the mass. Not one online video will have the ratings of the Superbowl, but together they capture a huge audience
- Free is a business model: Google will find ways to make money by offering services for free. Charging money costs money
- Make mistakes well: It can be a good thing to make mistakes, but it depends on how you handle them. Corrections enhance credibility. You don't need to launch the perfect product, your customers can (and will) help you to improve it
- Beware of the cash cow in the coal mine: Cash flow can blind you to the strategic necessity of change, tough decisions and innovations
These rules will change the way you will do business. And not just for obvious industries like the Internet or traditional media. In the second part of the book, If Google Ruled The World, Jarvis describes the impact on (or better: opportunities for) many different industries. From media to advertising, from retail to manufacturing, and from the service industry to banking and VC's. He describes how these industries will be forced to change and how you can become a winner by changing faster than your competition - or lose everything if you believe that your current business model will survive. A thought provoking and very inspiring part of his book. If you're in one of the industries mentioned above it is a must to read his analysis. Even if you are not convinced by Jarvis analysis, it should make you think about the opportunities and threats the future holds for you.
The final part of the book, Generation G, is more about the impact of Google on personal life. Google will keep people connected: young people will stay linked, likely for the rest of their lives. This improves the nature of friendships and how you treat each other. Past mistakes will be visible forever, but if you made mistakes it not a big issue, because everybody did. An age of transparency must be an age of forgiveness, in Googlespeak: Life is a beta. Privacy is not the issue, but control over your private information is.
A whole generation is putting their lives online, why? Simply because sharing of information is a social act, it is the basis of connections. Sharing brings social benefits that outweigh risks. Withholding information from the collective knowledge may even be considered anti-social. If I look at Twitter and read what other people are for example eating for breakfast, some people may laugh and say it is nonsense to put that online. But Jeff Jarvis calls it 'ambient intimacy' and explains that it is good for friendships.
It does not happen often that I read a book that I fully agree with, but this is one of them. Mr. Jarvis puts on paper how I see the world changing around us and how I see people getting left behind because they fail to see it. But he also explains what they can do to keep up or stay ahead of the rest. For people living and working on the Internet like me, a lot of things may not be new, but reading Mr. Jarvis analysis is still very worthwhile. If you do not know all ins and outs of the Internet, this book is a must-read. If there is one non-fiction book you plan to read this year, this should be the one.
Get ready to take notes, it's packed with info February 19, 2009
Reformed Library (Vancouver, WA USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I read two to three books a week. That's gone on for the last 20-plus years. It's past being a habit. I do work, but I simply must have my reading time to sleep. So...when I got out of bed, grabbed a notebook and a pen, I knew something was different. I haven't taken so many notes from a book since college. That is not hype!
I was overwhelmed with VERY practical information on using the internet for business. Every page hit me with a new concept that I doubt I ever would have encountered outside this book. I am currently writing a business plan and am using the SBA folks to help me. THEY didn't even come close to presenting me with this much material.
I guess someone could argue that it is "too" packed. Too much information to be useful. The counter-argument is: It's a book. You can put it down and rest. You don't have to digest it in one browsing session during your lunch break.
The pun on WWJD aside (and so, the feelings of those who may find this title mocking), WWGD is outstanding.
It is well-written. It reads like a novel. It's not for the beginner, but doesn't over-complicate matters. It's overwhelming, but at the same time, indescribably and somehow, not overwhelming. Jeff Jarvis (and I'm sure his editors) have done an amazing job at communicating some really great business concepts using mostly free tools/ideas.
Superb!
Valuable Ideas, Highly Recommended February 19, 2009
Robert Kall (Newtown, PA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
There are a good number of books out on the way of the web, how web thinking works, how it's applied and how it is changing the way we do business and even relate to each other. Jeff Jarvis does an exceptionally comprehensive and clear job describing these ideas.
While the title is about Google, and much of the book characterizes the models, approaches, philosophies and strategies of Google, Jarvis also discusses other major movers and shakers on the web, using examples that demonstrate the way things are being done.
If you are in business- on the web or off, the ideas Jarvis describes can help you. If you are a web entrepreneur or in some way dealing with getting your company on the web, this book is an excellent one that sums up many of the ideas of its predecessors on the crowd, wikis, etc.
Besides providing a lot of useful information, Jarvis describes the ideas, processes, approaches, etc. in readable language you don't have to be a technogeek to understand.
Game Changer! February 24, 2009
Daniel Sheehan
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I love this book! it has absolutely changed the way that I view my own business and how I will shape our future direction. Jeff has written a true game changing book and I highly recommend this book to any business manager, executive, small business owner, student.... etc. Anyone who is open to how business is evolving now and how it will look in the not too distant future. Well done Jeff! I can not wait for more....
a job well done trying to make sense of the changing world June 21, 2009
Ivan B. Dylko
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
... However only the history will judge the accuracy of the predictions and usefulness of the prescriptions offered by Jeff.
This is a nice book! Jeff is using the tremendous success of Google to extract several lessons for many types of companies and social forms of organization. This approach risks misattributing the causes of success (e.g., just because Google is successful - not everything it does inevitably and automatically brings success). However, a thoughtful reader and a critical thinker should be able to make her own judgments on that.
I'm a communication/new media researcher and found many sections in the book to be of great interest (e.g., "googlification" of universities, mass media, government, etc.). Many ideas do sound extreme and radical. But, then again, Jeff is a revolutionary thinker - his ideas should sound like that. Plus, this stirs imagination - and this is good.
I'd say this book is a must for anyone trying to understand where the communication world is (or might be) headed. Even, if some ideas sound too radical or untenable or hard to swallow - the vast majority of the volume is quite thoughtful and thought-provoking, and therefore, very well worth your money and time.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 117
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