Wednesday, April 29, 2009

"What Would Google Do?" by Jeff Jarvis

I've already done two different blog posts about the Jeff Jarvis book "What Would Google Do?", but now that I've actually finished reading the book, I can do a more complete summary.

I first came across it from a BusinessWeek excerpt which I posted about and linked to here and then made a second post about mention in the book of the blog http://www.avc.com/.



The book itself is an interesting read that looks in the first half at what Google does to be successful and the second half at how it's business principles could be adapted to other companies and industries. Granted, there's a bit of prognostication and crystal-ball seeing in this latter half, but it's definitely compelling business reading.

Jarvis himself has a fascinating background in that he was first behind Entertainment Weekly and then went on to create the blog http://www.buzzmachine.com/. From this blog (which Jarvis still writes), came his current teaching position in the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism and backing of the news website http://www.daylife.com/.

Not to take the easy way out, but it's probably easiest to switch to listing out some of the key ideas and websites discussed:

Concepts of business on the web
- Customers are in charge
- Openness in the key to success
- Most successful enterprises are networks or platforms
- Have to be searchable and able to be found on the web (whether you're a person or business)

Websites of note (not already mentioned above)
- http://www.digg.com/
- http://www.facebook.com/
- http://www.twitter.com/
- http://www.flickr.com/
- http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
- http://longtail.com/
- Meg Hourihan "What We're Doing When we Blog" essay
- Posts from http://www.buzzmachine.com/ related to "entrepreneurial" (Jarvis teaches an entrepreneurial journalism class at City University of New York)
- http://www.buzzmachine.com/tips/ containing recommendations from Jarvis on "five steps to a Googlier you"

All in all... an excellent read.