APP FIN ECONOMET E COMM CEA258H Book

I live my life on the part of the technology curve normally associated with Luddites and the Amish. Finally, after years of hectoring by my friends, I gave in and bought a cell phone. But, for the life of me, I can't remember my cell number, and I have an apparently irresistible tendency to use it to take unwitting photos of my left foot (anyone with a fetish for such photos, I'm sure there's a website for you out there). So I undertook this substantial book about google in the hope that Auletta might provide enlightenment not just about the company, but also about their position in the current information technology landscape.

By and large, he delivers. This wasn't the most enthralling non-fiction book I've read in a while, nor the best-written (let's just say charitably that Auletta's style is serviceable - forgettable, without too many direct assaults on grammar and syntax, though he does seem constitutionally incapable of avoiding the well-worn cliche). But it was entirely readable, and gave what seemed to me to be a fairly comprehensive account, in language that was understandable by even a techno-neophyte like me.

By all accounts Auletta had unprecedented access to insiders at Google, including its two boy-wonder founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. His account seems laudably neutral - one senses that, if anything, he found Page and Brin less charming as the project went on, but by and large he withholds overt judgement on the behavior of the key players, except for occasional comments about a certain naivete that permeated the company's management. These comments seem entirely justified, even reserved, given the facts.

I had two main questions before reading the book -
* How did google get to be so dominant?
* Should I (and by extension, all of us) be worried about the future?

Auletta gives a matter-of-fact answer to the first question, which turns out to be not all that interesting (basically, after tooling around for years, the company hit on a magic formula for linking the placement of ads to search results, and for charging advertisers - once this monetization scheme - google adwords - was in place, profits soared).

The second question is, of course, harder to answer - predictions being notoriously unreliable, especially where the future is concerned. The sheer amount of information that can already be collected on an individual through google searching is sobering, and data privacy initiatives in the U.S. lag well behind similar efforts in Europe and other countries. Furthermore, with initiatives like its new smart phone, Google buzz social networking app, and its commitment to launching an ultra-high-speed access internet connection in selected markets, the company has made it clear that it has no intention of ceding dominance any time soon, and that it is willing to take on major players such as Apple and Facebook.

Although Auletta is unwilling to say it in so many words, it's fairly clear that he expects the company to stumble as it faces these new challenges. Given the picture he paints, it seems almost inevitable - even companies with exceptional management teams in place would find the challenges of such extraordinarily rapid growth formidable. But the weaknesses in Google's management structure, the relative lack of structure in many cases, and their faith in technological solutions, with a blindness towards the human dimension of the problems the company faces, has already led to missteps, and is likely to continue to cause significant problems for Google.

Still, if one message comes through loud and clear from Auletta's account, it's that it would be a major mistake to underestimate what Google may yet accomplish. So, yeah, we probably should be at least a little bit worried.