Building Social Web Applications: Establishing Community at the Heart of Your Site,   ISBN:9780596518752

Customer Rating: 

This book is rich in important ideas and is definitely a must read for those interested in the social web. Unfortunately I suspect that it was either written in haste or (perhaps more likely) the author was still working out his ideas as he wrote it, because it is extremely repetitive. This constant reiteration does make the reading experience rather more hard work than it should be because the underlying material is strong and valuable. I am entirely confident that in the next addition he can easily take out 100 pages and the book will be the stronger for it. This is Gavin's first book and I don't think he was well served by his publisher. A competent editor could and should have pointed out the large areas of duplication. Nonetheless, and to repeat myself :), it is a must read.

Customer Rating: 

BUILDING SOCIAL WEB APPLICATIONS offers a different approach to social web marketing and teaches web developers how to build a web application based on different concepts of social networking. From determining who will be drawn to the site and how they will interact with it to creating visual designs and managing visitor identities for maximum interaction and benefit, BUILDING SOCIAL WEB APPLICATIONS is a pick for any programming collection.

Customer Rating: 

Gavin Bell draws on his extensive experience to offer a well structured guide to adding community elements to a website or application. His book will help any professional planning a social strategy, designing a set of social features, determining the types of relationships to foster among users, and even determining how best to manage change in an existing site or online structure.

Bell covers a wide gamut of issues that a site planner will need to consider, from developing the data schema for people, relationships, and objects; to how best to expose APIs to third-party developers; to the process of rolling out a new product or feature. Anyone developing a social website or app should keep this book handy throughout the process.

Bell and I share a publisher and our titles cover some similar issues. When I first picked up Bell's finished book I gritted my teeth with envy. As I quickly devoured the book, though, I was relieved (or, at least I convinced myself) that our books are complementary and are each useful in their own way.

If you're looking for one book to guide you through the entire process, from conception to launch and into the life of a social web application, then this is the book for you.

Customer Rating: 

Gavin Bell's experience in technology and social networking software applications is wonderfully presented and organized. The book is targeted to the system designer rather than the coder - offering practical advice with a healthy dose of theory to explain why some interactions work and others don't. It is so rich in content, the reader will wear out his or her highligher in no time. The writing is clear and well organized with examples at every step. The author includes good graphics, references to interesting websites, chapter summaries and other tools to make the subject approachable to the reader. Anyone contemplating starting or adding a social web application will benefit from this excellent book.

Customer Rating: 

If you are looking for and how-to guide, with code listings and practical examples you better pick another book. Gavin Bell covers the topic from an architect/designer point of view, he also tends keep in mind the business side of things, something I appreciated. This means the content will be valuable for a long time, since languages, tools and frameworks come and go, while the advice you can get from this book is platform agnostic. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a book with just dry theory, it's based on solid experience both from first-hand experience by the author and the way some major social applications have been build and evolved