Google Planet, by Randall Stross

Planet Google: One Company’s Audacious Plan to Organize Everything We Know, by Randall E. Stross

According to my StrengthsFinder 2.0 results, I am a collector of information.  According to my wife, I am a packrat.  So it should not come as a surprise that I would be fascinated by a book about Google. whose stated goal is “to organize all the world’s information.”

Stross has managed to weave together a tale that is part biography and part techno-thriller.   (If they ever do a modern remake of Clint Eastwood’s movie A Fist Full of Dollars, they can put Microsoft and Yahoo at opposite ends of the street and let Google play the “Man with No Name” Eastwood character.)  After listening to this audio book twice I now think differently about blogging, searching the net for information, relationships, my private information, and what kind of plans for the future I can realistically make

I thoroughly enjoyed the audio book version of Planet Google, found it to be eye-opening, and have no hestitation to recommend it to you.  However, I don’t believe that I would have been as absorbed by the print version, so readers beware.