Information Research Weblog

My attention was captured by a note about a new book on Google - The Google Legacy: How Google's Internet Search is Tranforming Application Software, by Stephen E. Arnold, which is published by Infonortics.

However, my interest languished when I saw the price - $180.00 €145.00 or £98.43 at today's rate of exchange - for a password to download the .pdf file! I'd have to be mad to pay that amount for a stream of bits, particularly as I'd then have to print out 290 pages of text, at the cost of probably more than one ink cartridge!

It isn't even that the book is some kind of definitive account - it's a speculative work about Google's possible aim of becoming bigger than Microsoft through the development of Web-based services. Very interesting no doubt, but $180.00 interesting? No way! Particularly as John Battelle's recently published book on Google, which also speculates about the future, is also round about 300 pages, comes to me in hard copy for £16.99 - a veritable bargain!