Book Review: “What Would Google Do?” by Jeff Jarvis

After reading his Internet and media blog, Buzz Machine, I became interested in learning more about Jeff Jarvis. When I recalled that a librarian I met at the CLA conference, Jason Hammond of the Regina Public Library, mentioned Jarvis’s book, “What Would Google Do?,” I decided to pick it up. My opinion about the book is rather mixed, but on the whole positive. Before turning to its many  good points, I would note one or two general weaknesses. The first issue is the tendency to generalize and make broad observations on a mix of some ancedotes and speculation. This combines with the other weakness, at its greatest extent in the “Google Generation” section, involves indulging in what might be called “Internet triumphalism.” Ultimately, the writing often reminds of Seth Godin blog posts  (which are short pieces of writing that often contain very interesting speculations and thought-provoking questions) which are good, but fall a bit below what I would expect from a book. One odd neologism from the book – at least, I have not encountered it anywhere else – is “Googley” (as in, “Googley restaurants can also use the web to become stars.” page 156).

The book has two sections; the first where Jarvis explains the “laws” of the Internet as understood through Google and the second where these observations are developing into speculations (e.g. “What would a Google airline look like?”) Despite the title, the book is not really about Google. Rather, it is about the trends, values and ideas of the social Web, blogging and social networking. Given the inchoate state of the social Web, using Google as a metaphor does make some sense. The rules section covers a lot of ground: “there is an inverse relationship between control and trust,” “make mistakes well,” “get out of the way” and so forth. Of all the many rules and laws offered in the book, the one concept that sticks is the notion is trading control for trust. Most of the examples are drawn from Google, other technology companies (though Apple is considered exempt from all these laws simply because it is so good, apparently) and other commercial settings.

The much more speculation second part of the book imagines how the rules and ideas exemplified by Goolge and the social web could be applied to fields such as: book publishing, manufacturing, restaurants, utilities, insurance, finance and other sectors. While many parts of this had me thinking and asking questions, particularly, “Google U: Opening education,” I found it speculative. I would certainly agree that analyzing large volumes of data can be useful (though I think this story is much better told by Ian Ayres in Super Crunchers, see my review of it), that transparency is needed more and that organizations can learn more from working with their users, I can see issues with taking these ideas and drafting them into a business case and implementing them. Jarvis dismisses privacy near the end of the book and that attitude will not win many allies in the library sector, not to mention others, where such values are protected.

Despite some reservations on the occasional weak evidence and overly strong rhetoric, I think there are ideas of value here. Good meetings could be had discussing chapters of the book, certainly. I wonder if anyone else I know out there has read it.

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