Books about Web

Anderson shows how the old 80/20 economics model based on scarcity is being turned upside down in the new economy of abundance and near-zero costs of production and distribution. He explains how three forces - democratized production, democratized distribution and easy means to connect supply and demand are driving business from mass hits to niche products and services, creating profits and value where little existed before. Whole businesses like eBay, Google and Amazon are succesfully taking advantage of Long Tail principles. The book follows from Anderson's popular original thesis posted online. The book elaborates upon the concept and shows the applicability of using the Long Tail in various industries. Hits will still rule, but niches will continue to grow as a bigger factor in business models.

Tags: business economics web

Based on new researched conducted by the authors, they have come up with various factors that hinder usability for end users. There are signs of optimism that most web designers are staying from many bad web development practices, but issues still plague many popular websites. My only complaint about this book is that it offers no summaries, which makes it difficult to easily look at the principles at one shot. Luckily the Coding Horror site provides a quick list.

Tags: software web design

The book covers various aspects of blogging in a corporate environment - how blogging differs from traditional Public Relations, what tools are available for blogging, what are the legal considerations, etc. It differs from "Naked Conversations" in that this book takes a more pragmatic and less ideological approach towards blogging - considering it as a communication tool instead of a communication style. For corporate leaders, this book is a good beginning to embracing blogging.

Tags: blogging web

This book (2nd edition) covers the various types of websites and how they should be built. It covers different design needs as well as common standards for usability. Web designers can use the book to understand web design principles in detail. For other readers, this can serve as a reference book for their specific web development needs.

Tags: software design web

History of search engines and methodology on the web. A look at new strategies. Appropriate focus on Google, the market leader. Well-written.

Tags: software web

This book contains 60 common mistakes made by web designers with respect to usability, layout and other aspects of the website. It contains several examples from popular websites, including how those websites later fixed those mistakes. One problem with the book is that since it was written a while back (c. 2003), some of the bloopers are less common nowadays. Use this book in conjunction with Jakob Nielsen's useit.com website.

Tags: software design web

Read my review of this book.

Tags: blogging business web

Tim Berners-Lee provides a brief history about how the World Wide Web was conceived and established itself. His research at CERN, Geneva laid the foundations for web-based technologies. The author also talks about his efforts to promote web-related efforts through the World Wide Web Consortium. The book is useful for a historical view of the development of web standards, but it is a little outdated in some of its predictions, especially those related to search engines.

Tags: software web

I have seldom seen a more deceptive title. The authors take one aspect of CSS, creating a grid design, and show how it can be done better using the latest CSS techniques. They have done this well, but it hardly warrants the bombastic title because they don't cover "everything" you know about CSS.

I am a little surprised that this book needed to be published. It is a short book (116 pages) on a very narrow topic and could have been better served by publishing it as a series of blog posts. The author explain the topic well and provide code and screenshots, but the book format is so limited. The other problem is that the new CSS technique will not work with older browsers and hence it does serve more follow-up on browser compatibility and special cases.

The publishers should have chosen a more specific title, say "Next Generation CSS Table Layouts" which sounds attractive enough and more meaningful. They should have asked the authors to provide more content, say 200 pages worth to discuss backward compatibility and other nuances.

Tags: programming web

The general idea in the book is good: It talks about how businesses can benefit from interactions between its employees and its customers on the Internet. Businesses that fail to understand the changing nature of information flow will find themselves at a disadvantage. Unfortunately, the book uses a confrontational attitude towards business in general. The entire book is a call to revolution against the heartless corporation and reads as a rant and diatribe instead of a sensible business book. Really poor choice of style.

Tags: business management software web

What an absolutely boring book! Even the stories and examples feel stone-cold. The contents of this book would have been better expressed in a simple article. The authors attempt to explain the collaboration of multitudes of peoples to create useful software and knowledge. There are some useful concepts, but it is very poorly written.

Tags: sociology business software web