Category: Book Related

The Long Tail

Chris' cover is done. Congrats (and it's quite something how those NY publishers will push Google onto the cover, eh buddy?! Awfully nice quote from Eric!)…

LongtailChris’ cover is done. Congrats (and it’s quite something how those NY publishers will push Google onto the cover, eh buddy?! Awfully nice quote from Eric!)

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Dinner with Elliot Schrage

Last night I finally got a chance to sit down with Elliot Schrage, who was recently (well, six months ago) named VP of Global Communications and Public Affairs for Google. I'd been looking forward to meeting him – I've worked closely with his brother, author Michael Schrage, in the…

Elliot-1Last night I finally got a chance to sit down with Elliot Schrage, who was recently (well, six months ago) named VP of Global Communications and Public Affairs for Google. I’d been looking forward to meeting him – I’ve worked closely with his brother, author Michael Schrage, in the past, and more to the point, I was intrigued to find out more about the fellow who would be responsible for shepherding Google’s brand from Cute One Note Service to Massive Global Player. Elliot knows global issues – he was previously SVP for Global Affairs at Gap and a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He got his trial by fire just recently when he had to testify before a group of ornery Congressfolk on the issue of China.

The dinner was off the record, so I can’t really report the details of what we discussed, but I can say that I found Elliot frank, engaging, and self deprecating – but not overly so. He understands the essence of Google’s major challenge – becoming the company the world already expects it to be. As I’ve written elsewhere, I believe the Google brand is in need of message clarification – most folks still see it as that “Aha!” service that changed how they search the Web, but increasingly, it’s also the brand that does deals with Sony Pictures to promote personalized homepages. Clearly, brand strategy is on Schrage’s mind.

David Krane, director of corporate communications at Google and a major champion of my book inside the company, also joined us. Having been at the company for a long time, David is something of a bridge between the past and the future of the Google brand. Both seemed deeply engaged in what struck me as the right questions for the company. I’m glad I had a chance to sit down with them before finishing that last chapter of my paperback. Oh, shit, that was due last month….I better get back to writing…

2 Comments on Dinner with Elliot Schrage

The Search: Portugues

No link is up yet, but The Search is going Brazilian (as well as Portugal, of course)… I am thrilled by all this – the book has been translated in nearly 20 languages now. Update: I'm a moron. Of course this is just Portugal, thanks Markus. Brazil's been out…

No link is up yet, but The Search is going Brazilian (as well as Portugal, of course)…

The Search Peq

I am thrilled by all this – the book has been translated in nearly 20 languages now.

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And The Search Goes On…A Year of Coverage In One Post

Well, chalk one up for wishful thinking. Back in December I did my annual predictions post, and in it I wrote: I will not write another book, but my publisher will ask me to update the one I did write. I'll point him to this site and leave it…

Book Open-4Well, chalk one up for wishful thinking. Back in December I did my annual predictions post, and in it I wrote:

I will not write another book, but my publisher will ask me to update the one I did write. I’ll point him to this site and leave it at that….

Well, I’m still not writing another book (though I will admit, I miss the process of writing terribly); but a portion of this prediction is coming true: My publisher has asked me to update the book, for the paperback, due out this Fall. However, my flip response of pointing him to the site and leaving it at that was not well received. In other words, I have an Afterward to write, and damn pronto. In true authorial fashion, I’m already very late on it, so I’ll be outlining it early this week, and hope to have a draft quickly.

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The Search, Audio Version

I just bought The Search in audio format, and I wanted to encourage all of you to do the same. Why? Well, because it's my voice reading the book. It took me a long time, and it's very, very hard to do – the engineers are sticklers for pacing,…

Thesearch Bookcover-8I just bought The Search in audio format, and I wanted to encourage all of you to do the same. Why? Well, because it’s my voice reading the book. It took me a long time, and it’s very, very hard to do – the engineers are sticklers for pacing, inflection, pronunciation, and the like. I thought it would be easy – after all, I did play Nathan Detroit in my high school’s production of Guys and Dolls – but I was in that damn studio for the better part of two weeks. It was hard work, yet I really wanted to do it – the idea of having a record of my work, in my own voice, where my inflections and nuances were preserved, well, that struck me as a neat idea.

This audio book has been available for some time – in fact, I’m told it’s already a best seller for Audible (it don’t take much, folks) – but I have not pushed it here because I was waiting for Audible to make a special landing page for Searchblog readers (yes, I get a small cut, like with Amazon). They’ve finally done it, and you can buy it here. If you become an Audible member ($9.95 a year), you get the book free. That’s pretty cool. (You can also get the book on iTunes, if that’s your method of choice.)

Many will ask why I went with Audible instead of streaming a home brewed podcast. In a word, professionalism. I don’t have the time, money, or inclination to figure out how to execute the quality of work the engineers and producers did on this product. By the next product, I hope that will no longer be the case.

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Congratulations, Chris!

He finished his manuscript – The Long Tail. Man, I know how good that feels. Way to go! Can't wait to read it……

Tail

He finished his manuscript – The Long Tail. Man, I know how good that feels. Way to go! Can’t wait to read it…

1 Comment on Congratulations, Chris!

What Is that Guy On About?

What happens when I try to give 300 or so folks at Google NY a straight answer about the future of Google? This. (Video of my talk at Google NY, which the Google video blog posted today)….

What happens when I try to give 300 or so folks at Google NY a straight answer about the future of Google? This. (Video of my talk at Google NY, which the Google video blog posted today).

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An Absolutely Self Interested Post

Several readers have sent me mail telling me how they've purchased The Search as a Holiday gift for office mates or family and friends. A couple have even sent boxes of them to me so I can personalize them for the office. That makes me a happy happy author….

Thesearch Bookcover-SantaSeveral readers have sent me mail telling me how they’ve purchased The Search as a Holiday gift for office mates or family and friends. A couple have even sent boxes of them to me so I can personalize them for the office. That makes me a happy happy author.

It struck me that I should perhaps promote the book as a good Holiday gift right here on my site. After all, if anyone might appreciate such a plea, it’d be you guys. So here’s my offer. If you want, buy the book and then let me know you did. In the body of the email, write a short inscription you’d like printed on a book plate (a sticker/label) and I’ll print it on the label, sign it, and mail it to you (include your mailing address as well). That solves the problem of sending the book back and forth, now I just have to mail a label to you. Then you can stick the label on the inside cover or first blank page of the book. Voila, a personalized holiday gift!

If you think this sounds cool, why then first buy the book on Amazon or wherever, then email me with your address, message, and perhaps a snippet of the purchase confirmation email (so that I can see that you actually bought the book). I promise to do as many as I can before Christmas….

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My Time at eBay

Yesterday I got a chance to talk with a room full of eBay folks, and it was a bit different than my time at Yahoo, Google, Amazon, or Microsoft. I've always viewed eBay as a more buttoned up and, well, corporate company, perhaps because Meg Whitman is such a…

EbaylogotmYesterday I got a chance to talk with a room full of eBay folks, and it was a bit different than my time at Yahoo, Google, Amazon, or Microsoft. I’ve always viewed eBay as a more buttoned up and, well, corporate company, perhaps because Meg Whitman is such a Wall St. icon.

After I ran through some passages of the book and told a few stories, we got to a pretty robust Q&A (one attendee, Alan Lewis, wrote it up here). A lot of questions about Google, not surprisingly, given the Base announcement.

One interesting question was “What should we (eBay) be doing that we’re not doing right now?” I thought for a while and it struck me that the answer was “experimenting.” Google has a whole culture based on that idea, and Yahoo has been doing a lot of it lately. And Amazon, well, Alexa’s news was very keenly watched in the halls of eBay yesterday.

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