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What Would Google Do?

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What Would Google Do?

HarperBusiness,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

How Google is changing the world one search at a time. And how its rules can make you more open, connected and profitable.

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Editorial Rating

7

Recommendation

Google is the world’s most widely used search engine. Its users conduct hundreds of millions of searches daily, many pursuing links from corporate ads. Each time you click on a company’s paid link, Google makes money. Already one of the best-known corporations on the planet, Google continues to grow tremendously as it sets the paradigm for booming Internet commerce. Author Jeff Jarvis explains what makes Google and other successful Web companies tick, and what your company can learn from its strategic concepts. He explains how to use a set of Internet business axioms he dubs the “Google Rules.” getAbstract finds (with little searching) that Jarvis provides an essential corporate road map for this era of radical change.

Summary

A Searching Question

Google sets the pace of business in the Internet age. The Times of London calls it “the fastest growing company in the history of the world.” When pondering how to proceed in this exciting, confusing, often counterintuitive era, pose this practical question: “What would Google do?” or “WWGD?” for short. And don’t ask only about Google. Other Internet pioneers also are transforming business and society, including YouTube (which Google owns), Facebook, Craigslist, Wikipedia and Amazon. These Web trendsetters are changing all the old rules. Now:

  • Customers call all the shots – They can gang up online to make the largest corporation quickly change products, operations and policies they dislike.
  • People are in instant touch with one another – They can form groups immediately to support or oppose institutions.
  • Selling to the masses is a moribund tactic – Today, niches rule.
  • Marketing is passé – Don’t try to sell to customers; try to converse with them.
  • Your products are no longer just yours to control – To make a profit with your merchandise or service, collaborate with...

About the Author

Jeff Jarvis runs Buzzmachine.com, a blog about the media and the Internet. He was founding editor of Entertainment Weekly and teaches at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism.

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