By Jeff Jarvis

This week we picked up the intriguing title, What Would Google Do, by Jeff Jarvis (HarperCollins, 2009).  How could we resist sharing it? Jeff Jarvis is edgy, informative and entrepreneurial, being the proprietor of one of the most popular business blogs on the web (www.buzzmachine.com). His book reflects all those qualities. 

Jarvis uses Google to introduce the reader to many new and revolutionary concepts. What Jarvis wants to convey is that his book is not so much about Google, although it is, but that it is about learning a new worldview; a new way of dealing with your universe.  He starts by highlighting the essence of the internet itself—the power of the link, and how it creates conversations and relationships that we can find and relate to in new ways.  It helps us interact with the world in completely new and innovative ways. 

He goes on to talk about new business realities such as free as a business model; new ethics such as transparency and collaboration; and new imperatives such as simplification and protection of innovation.  He also imagines what the industries of news media, entertainment and publishing would look like if Google ruled the world.

Honestly, I couldn't put this book down.  Reading this book taught me more about communicating within alternate social networks, web sites as platforms for facilitation versus simply content protectors.

This book is dense and exciting.  Jarvis has a great, blog-like writing style that is loaded with intriguing and transferrable concepts and is overlaid with interesting, real-life examples.