Well, it turns out that there are more than 6. A quick check on Ama­zon turned up no less than 11 books on Google, the com­pany. That doesn’t include the gazil­lions of Google inspired “How To” books. So, to return to my orig­i­nal ques­tion, are 11 a lot? And if they are, why do authors write about Google? What does Google have that other com­pa­nies don’t? And how does the Google story stack up against other cor­po­rate sagas?

It seems that Google is actu­ally head­ing the high tech pack when it comes to attract­ing ink. Again check­ing Ama­zon, I only found one book on Yahoo and 2 on Face­book. There were 4 on Microsoft and 7 books on Apple. Of all the tech com­pa­nies I checked, only IBM equaled Google’s tally, at 11. Of course, IBM has been around for over 100 years, com­pared to less than two decades for Google.

Google even beats cor­po­rate stal­warts like GE (7), Proc­tor and Gam­ble (3) and HP (7).

In look­ing at the list, a few things imme­di­ately came to mind. First of all, many of the books writ­ten about a com­pany are actu­ally writ­ten about a founder or chef exec­u­tive of the com­pany. Half the books writ­ten about Microsoft are actu­ally biogra­phies of Bill Gates. The same is true for Apple (Steve Jobs), GE (Jack Welch) and IBM (Lou Ger­st­ner). But none of the Google books I’ve ready are about Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They’re about the com­pany. Cer­tainly, Larry and Sergey have star­ring roles, but they don’t over­shadow the com­pany itself. Google is always front and center.

Sec­ondly, many of the other com­pa­nies that are the sub­ject of books have gone through mas­sive restruc­tur­ings or turn­arounds, which formed the cen­tral theme of the respec­tive books. Google hasn’t hit a slump yet. There isn’t even a lot of con­flict in Google’s his­tory to chron­i­cle. Unlike Face­book, Aaron Sorkin (who adapted Ben Mezrich’s book The Acci­den­tal Bil­lion­aires for the movie the Social Net­work) would have a dif­fi­cult time cre­at­ing a juicy script out of the Google story.  It’s not nearly as “Hol­ly­wood” as Facebook’s rise to glory. And Google doesn’t gen­er­ate near the ani­mos­ity of a Wal-Mart (20 plus books, most of them about how the retail giant is destroy­ing Amer­ica) or Enron (the grand Cham­pion of cor­po­rate story telling, with over 30 books, all about its igno­ble col­lapse). So, what is it about Google that fas­ci­nates us, if it isn’t a rags to riches to rags to riches saga, an inside glimpse at an evil empire or a super­star CEO?

All the books writ­ten about Google are gen­er­ally com­pli­men­tary, respect­ful and, in some cases, even a touch obse­quious and over-enthralled. Those that choose to write about Google gen­er­ally fawn all over the com­pany, the bril­liance of the co-founders, the veloc­ity of its growth and the vibrancy of its cul­ture. If there is muck to rake here, poten­tial authors have yet to uncover it. The only other com­pany I’ve found that even comes close to cap­tur­ing the syco­phan­tic awe of Google is Dis­ney, with over 20 titles, the major­ity of them complimentary.

I think the Google story has appeal because Google is some­thing we all use. In many ways, the story of Google is the story of web search (John Battelle’s approach) and that has changed our lives in some pretty fun­da­men­tal ways. It’s Google’s role as a cat­a­lyst of change – in how we think about infor­ma­tion, in mar­ket­ing, in how com­pa­nies con­duct them­selves and in a num­ber of yet to be deter­mined ways that com­pel us to keep turn­ing the pages. This isn’t a story about a com­pany, or a bril­liant founder. It’s a story about a soci­ety bal­anced on the cusp of dra­matic and mas­sive change.  Google is just the nar­ra­tive frame­work many have cho­sen as the vehi­cle for their social parable.

Really, if you were going to write a book about search and how it’s chang­ing our world, whom else would you write about?

Orig­i­nally pub­lished in Mediapost’s Search Insider July 7„ 2011 


Biography / Resume : Gord Hotchkiss is the founder and senior vice president of Enquiro, now part of Mediative. He is renowned in the industry for his expertise when it comes to understanding online user and search behaviour. He and the Enquiro team have built a solid reputation for being the leading experts when it comes to understanding what happens on a search portal and why. Before Enquiro, Gord was chairman and director of SEMPO (The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization), he worked as a columnist for MediaPost and Search Engine Land, and he was a regular speaker at industry conferences and events. Gord is also the author of The BuyerSphere Project: How Business Buys from Business in a digital marketplace.