‘Google It’ by Anna Crowley Redding

Google It by Anna Crowley Redding (Feiwel and Friends, 2018) tells the story of Google and founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

This book follows Google’s origin as a doctoral thesis project at Stanford University, to its existence today as part of a company that has revolutionized technology and the seeking of information.

Prior to Google, Internet searches were based solely on keywords. “So if you were looking for information about horses, web searches would give you every site that mentioned the word horse. And you would have to sit there and load each result, searching for the information you needed.”

Larry wanted a way to calculate how many sites linked to a page, as a way to determine its relevance. “The more votes a page receives, the more credible and important it must be.” He enlisted Sergey to help count and analyse “all the links for the entire web,” then at only about 10 million web pages. (Now it’s 4.73 billion “and counting.”)

This book offers a fascinating look at something central to many people’s lives. It’s up-to-date and timely, making it a good addition to a library’s juvenile non-fiction.

So ubiquitous is Google, that its name has become a verb for seeking information on the Internet. How many people even give a passing thought to saying that they’ll “Google” something, instead of, say, “use the ‘Google’ page-ranked search engine” to look up information about their topic?

But Google is no longer simply about search, and Redding captures its dimensions: Google Maps, Google Translate, Google Shopping, Google Wallet, and more. This book even looks ahead to the latest developments in self-driving automobiles and space-tourism.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinion expressed is my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”