November 24, 2005
Fritz Schneider
I completely disagreed with the “know it alls” that trash this book. This is in fact the people's “primer” for the 21st Century. In the industrial era one needed to learn reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic. Today one needs to know how to find the needle in the haystack. While Google is still in the 4th grade, it will evolve quickly in the next few years, and the Google founders appear well on their way to making all of the world's information available to anyone anywhere. This will itself change the world.
This is a tremendous resource, and I do not consider it outdated because it is still the best available orientation to Google. I do agree that there are online supplements that can update the knowledge in this book and cover emerging capabilities from Google.
Bottom line: Google is central to all our lives now, this book is a useful jump start to anyone who wishes to leverage all of Google, not just the 10% most people see. For advanced IT people, I recommend Stephen Arnold's book, “The Google Legacy,” available from Infonortics.co.uk, or at IOP '06 in January 2006.
