What Would Google Do?

Jeff Jarvis

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2009, 257 pages

ISBN: 978-0-06-206335-9

Keywords: Management

Last modified: May 9, 2021, 12:38 a.m.

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.

  • WWGD?
  • Google Rules
    • New Relationship
      • Give the people control and we will use it
      • Dell hell
      • Your worst customer is your best friend
      • Your best customer is your partner
    • New Architecture
      • The link changes everything
      • Do what you do best and link to the rest
      • Join a network
      • Be a platform
      • Think distributed
    • New Publicness
      • If you're not searchable, you won't be found
      • Everybody needs Googlejuice
      • Life is public, so is business
      • Your customers are your ad agency
    • New Society
      • Elegant organization
    • New Economy
      • Small is the new big
      • The post-scarcity economy
      • Join the open-source, gift economy
      • The mass market is dead — long live the mass of niches
      • Google commodifies everything
      • Welcome to the Google economy
    • New Business Reality
      • Atoms are a drag
      • Middlemen are doomed
      • Free is a business model
      • Decide what business you're in
    • New Attitude
      • There is an inverse relationship between control and trust
      • Trust the people
      • Listen
    • New Ethic
      • Make mistakes well
      • Life is a beta
      • Be honest
      • Be transparent
      • Collaborate
      • Don't be evil
    • New Speed
      • Answers are instantaneous
      • Life is live
      • Mobs form in a flash
    • New Imperatives
      • Beware the cash cow in the coal mine
      • Encourage, enable, and protect innovation
      • Simplify, simplify
      • Get out of the way
  • If Google ruled the world
    • Media
      • The Google Times: Newspapers, post-paper
      • Googlewood: Entertainment, opened up
      • GoogleCollins: Killing the book to save it
    • Advertising
      • And now, a word from Google's sponsors
    • Retail
      • Google Eats: A business built on openness
      • Google Shops: A company built on people
    • Utilities
      • Google Power & Light: What Google would do
      • GT&T: What Google should do
    • Manufacturing
      • The Googlemobile: From secrecy to sharing
      • Google Cola: We're more than consumers
    • Service
      • Google Air: A social marketplace of customers
      • Google Real Estate: Information is power
    • Money
      • Google Capital: Money makes networks
      • The First Bank of Google: Markets minus middlemen
    • Public Welfare
      • St. Google's Hospital: The benefits of publicness
      • Google Mutual Insurance: The business of cooperation
    • Public Institutions
      • Google U: Opening education
      • The United States of Google: Geeks rule
    • Exceptions
      • PR and lawyers: Hopeless
      • God and Apple: Beyond Google?
  • Generation G.

Reviews

What Would Google Do?

Reviewed by Roland Buresund

Excrement * (1 out of 10)

Last modified: May 14, 2011, 5:07 p.m.

What Would Google Do? A probable guess is that they would either laugh hysterical or puke outright!

This is one of these pure unadultered trash-books that make you ill at heart. The author has zero experience of running a business, nor has he any business education. His claim to fame is that as an journalist he writes a blogg and has failed as an editor a number of times. He barely seems to know the Google company, its founders or management, except as can be seen from some populistic blogs and articles, so he just makes it up as he goes along! If you want a book that explains why a moron with contacts can get rich by producing sub-standard books, you have come to the right place.

Just avoid it, as you may get tainted otherwise, and the smell ain't purty…

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