Internet Romp

To paraphrase Lennon and McCartney – “I think I’m (turning) sad, I think it’s today – yeah!”

The book I’ve just finished “SEARCH” by John Battelle has had me gripped like a Jackie Collins page-turner. “Read this on the beach and you’ll be there when the sun goes down,” I can hear the reviewers hollering.

Even more out of date than my last read - David Verklin’s “Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here” the prospect of the next instalment of SEARCH had me looking forward to bedtime like a newlywed.

My wife is close to despair and is looking for counselling groups entitled “The man I married has turned into a geek.” Soon we shall be battling it out on the Jeremy Kyle show as my thirst for behind the scenes digital romps and ripping Internet yarns is laid bare at the foot of our marriage while she yearns for another baby and a return to normality.

The book was first published in 2005 and an afterward added in June 2006. Sadly, reading it in 2007 knowing what one knows now and what John Batelle didn’t (markedly Google buying YouTube and DoubleClick) makes it a bit like reading a history of the Second World War with Stalingrad and Pearl Harbour omitted. Nevertheless, he caveats all the way through with “by the time you read this [insert topic] will probably have happened.”

Working in an industry where reading books on your own subject are perennially out of date is a problem. Or is it? Maybe I should use the Internet.

Filed by sam.brownfield on October 8th, 2007 under Book Reviews