Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Anyone who has used a search engine - and who hasn't? - should read this book. It's a very approachable and coherent look at how search engines work, and their role in our information society. The theme of the books is sobering: for many people, access to the internet is through one site - a search engine that has become a "dragon" guarding access to a mine of information.
I particularly like the writing style; the (somewhat dry) humour and intriguing stories are engaging, and on-line tools that we use daily are shown in a new light. The book is suitable for the lay person, but is still engaging for the technically inclined. It provides details about how search engines really work using meaningful examples and illustrations, as well as the exposing the social implications.
Some of the important issues covered include the borderline between spam and content-targeted advertising, determining the authority of web pages compared with their popularity, and issues such as censorship, privacy and access to information. Topics range from the great library of Alexander to the most common misspellings of "Britney Spears" typed into Google.
This book looks set to become part of the computing canon, and would sit equally well on a shelf of technical books or a coffee table. You won't be able to use it to implement your next search engine - it doesn't go into that level of detail. But it's a thought-provoking read, and would be a great gift for the curious or technically inclined people in your life.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Web Dragons: Inside the Myths of Search Engine Technology (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Multimedia Information and Systems)
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