A co-worker of mine at Tucows, Adam, & I had a discussion about Google.  Adam writes the secret snowboarding blog, so secret that I shall link to it here.

Adam knows alot about SEO and recommended that if I was interested in it, he really recommended John Batelle's book 'The Search'  and I just finished it.

Batelle's book is excellent and I highly recommend it as well.  It was interesting to read the history of web page search, especially the chapters on DEC and AltaVista.  Batelle is careful to stress that his book is not about 'Google' though it would be hard to tell that since the publisher decided to use Google brand colours on the book jacket (and I assume added the de-facto business book marketing '[...] changed the rules of business'.  The book is not too business-y and not too technical so anyone interested in Google would enjoy it.

Batelle believes that the concept of 'search' and the fact that more and more content is becoming digital is the key factor that is changing our society.  And Google is central to that. 

What struck me as I read the book was that I realized that in all the blogs and articles I had read about Google over the past year, Google is really taking on many faces.  To some Google is becoming a 'software' company ready to displace Microsoft.  To others Google is a centre of innovation and 'super smart' (Phd.) people who will change our world for the better.  While to others Google provides the most successful Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising model which has made domain names hot property again. 

That PPC model is what allows Google to be so many things to so many people.  PPC has brought in incredible amounts of cash.  And cash is time.  This week Eric Schmidt made a couple of statements publicly about Google.  He said that more competition will result in higher prices and that Google appears to be benefitting from a 'limitless growth model'.  Both of these statements can be argued to be true.  In theory, Google does have 'limitless growth model' but how will that work out in practice?  Well, you need alot of people searching, you need more and more people searching.  You need people searching more often. 

But when I think about this and all that I read about Google, I feel like its become almost a symbol or hope for the way we want the web to go.  Fortunately, in software a great vision can be shaped into reality.  This is both the advantage and downfall of many a CEO in software.  Is Google going to become the Google of our dreams?