Book Reviews

Marketing to the Social Web - Review

I've been reading the book "Marketing to the Social Web - How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business" by Larry Weber over the past few weeks since I picked it up on Amazon.com, so I decided to put forth another review.

The reason I chose this book is because I've been getting deeper into social web marketing over the past 12 months and it came highly recommended from Amazon readers.

In summary, this book is very similar to "The New Rules of Marketing & PR", which I read and reviewed last year.  Both are inspirational books but they key difference is that "Marketing to the Social Web" is much more up-to-date. Social Web contains a mix of fantastic case studies on dot com businesses both old and new to bring forward a real passion and insight for social media and its possibilities.

In it, Weber talks about social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Linkedin as well as search technologies like Google and Ask.com and ZoomInfo and other social media such as Second Life, YouTube and Flickr.

The book introduces a range of strategies for doing business in the world of Web 2.0 and covers such concepts as blogs and CEO blogging, reputation aggregators, webinars, user-generated content, search engine optimisation, podcasting, aggregation, e-communities, viral online marketing, buzz marketing and even attempts at predicting the trends of Web 4.0 ...

Since reading it, my mind has been running overtime with great new ideas for both myself and my clients.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone.

Information Architecture - Blueprints for the Web Review

Having read a number of glowing reviews on Facebook, I decided to pick up a copy of Christina Wodtke's book Information Architecture - Blueprints for the web. 

I had expected something a bit intellectual judging it by its cover (I know you should never do this, but it is the way with books on the web unfortunately - even the excerpt from Amazon's "Look Inside" feature didn't do much good), but it turned out to be quite different to my expectations.  With plenty of time over the Christmas break I was able to power through it.  I was suprised to find that the tone early in the book.  Initially I found the introduction laden with cartoons and little text to be a breath of fresh air compared to alot of the textbook approaches other books take.  However the book changes tone several times and through it Christina begins to rattle off a number of principles without much substance to back them up.

But pretty soon the book goes off on a tangent, and although it is easy to read, I found it difficult to get through.  For quite some time, the topics jump around the place and don't seem to head in any real direction and I didn't find the humour that funny.  Blueprints borrows heavily from Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.  It is obvious that this book is an attempt at a "Dummies" version of IA for the World Wide Web.  Although Blueprints contains some real gems that you can't find elsewhere, comparisons will ultimately favour Rosenfeld and Morville's more in depth book.

The last few chapters Blueprints for the Web degrades into a spiel personal advice and open ended commentary on the direction of the industry.  This is fine, but probably best left to follow up in a blog, as it has the appearance of filler content.

On a positive note, the book, written in 2003 manages to hold it's age quite well, avoiding falling into the traps of specific technologies and techniques which causes many other paperbacks to become dated quickly.

Although the book claims to be useful for designers, programmers, consultants and information practitioners, it is almost solely written from the perspective of a project manager.  So while the early parts of the book could apply to most roles, anyone who isn't in an over-arching project management role might not find too much in worthwhile in the rest of the book.

The Elements of User Experience - User-Centred Design for the Web Review

Having read James Jesse Garrett's blog some time ago and been familiar with the  "elements chart", I decided to read this book, "The Elements of User Experience" looking for something a bit more in-depth in the field of usability.

The book has a great system for describing the web design process and goes beyond the simplified way that most companies approach it.  To be honest, I really was expecting something a bit different, and for me, the book doesn't introduce anything new.  But upon reading it I realised its benefit.  It does, however, explains the process and concepts in a clear, concise way, showing the way that each of the steps relates to each other.  I was impressed that I could read the book in virtually one sitting, it was a virtually effortless read and I never got lost in detail or technicalities as tends to happen with many other books.

Anyone involved in planning or managing large website projects should definately be familiar with the concepts that Garrett outlines in the book.

Our own methodology is very similar in a lot of ways, although, the terminology always does tend to differ.