Googled

A revealing, forward-looking examination of the outsize influence Google has had on the changing media landscape

There are companies that create waves and those that ride or are drowned by them. This is a ride on the Google wave, and the fullest account of how it formed and crashed into traditional media businesses. With unprecedented access to Google’s founders and executives, as well as to those in media who are struggling to keep their heads above water, Ken Auletta reveals how the industry is being disrupted and redefined. Auletta goes inside Google’s closed-door meetings, introducing Google’s notoriously private founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as those who work with – and against – them. In Googled, the reader discovers the ‘secret sauce’ of the company's success and why the worlds of ‘new’ and ‘old’ media often communicate as if residents of different planets. It may send chills down traditionalists’ spines, but it’s a crucial roadmap to the future of media business: the Google story may well be the canary in the coal mine. Googled is candid, objective and authoritative. Crucially, it’s not just a history or reportage: it’s ahead of the curve and unlike any other Google books, which tend to have been near-histories, somewhat starstruck, now out of date or which fail to look at the full synthesis of business and technology.

Author Profile

Ken Auletta, one of the pre-eminent US-based business journalists of the past thirty years, has written the Annals of Communications column for The New Yorker since 1992. He is the author of ten books, including four US bestsellers: Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; Greed and Glory on Wall Street: The Fall of the House of Lehman and World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, the agent Amanda Urban.

Reviews

At last, a book about Google that does not require readers to get in touch with their inner geek.,I cannot wait to read Ken's book. He is a rare business journalist and author who manages to combine extraordinary access to the kings and queens of industry without ever compromising his editorial integrity. If anyone can shed light on the Google monster, it is Ken.,No other reporter has covered the new communications revolution as thoroughly as has Auletta.,Ken Auletta has produced the seminal book about media in the digital age. It is a triumph of reporting and analysis, filled with revealing scenes, fascinating tales, and candid interviews. Google is both a driver and a symbol of a glorious disruption in the media world, and Auletta chronicles, in a balanced and thoughtful way, both that glory and that disruption.