Booklist 2.0: March 2009

Every month, The Next Web Blog picks three relevant books for you to read. The teasers are short, the pro’s why to read are relevant. This month we’re discussing What Would Google Do written by Jeff Jarvis, Designing Web Interfaces written by Bill Scott and Theresa Neil and 33 million people in the room written by Juliette Powell.

What would Google Do?

I’ve always read Jeff Jarvis’ weblog Buzzmachine about news and media with much pleasure so I was excited to find out he published a book on Google. In “What Would Google Do” Jarvis describes the world of doing business from Google’s perspective. Already published in January this year, the book provides you with a set of rules to live by with. The book describes 30 Google Rules in total, of which “Give the people trust and we will use it. Don’t and you will lose it” and “Your customer is your advertising agency” are some interesting ones. Perhaps many of the rules are implicitely familiar to all of us, but it is good to see them written down in an old styled book fashion way like this. The book is mainly a manifesto for doing business open source style andbook is fully packed with facts and useful information for doing business in this new age of openess and innovation. Opinions on Amazon vary, but since reading a book wouldn’t harm you in any way (most of the time) it is worth a read.

Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions

The web is bringing us new innovations every day. With technologies like Ajax, Silverlight, Air and many more, designing user friendly, rich internet applications is becoming more and more important. Bill Scott (great name for a blog!) and Theresa Neil understand this like no other and have written a great book on this matter: Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions. In designing Web Interfaces Scott and Neil present no less than 75 design patterns for building web interfaces that provide rich interaction. The book is divided into six sections all devoted to one big design principle. These are: Make it direct, Keep it Lightweight, Stay on the page, Provide an invitation, Use transitions and React immediately. All patterns (and anti-patterns!) are explained in depth to the reader. Designing web interfaces is a must read for anyone closely involved in interface design.

33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking

Juliette Powell’s 33 million people in the room: how to create, influence, and run a successful business with social networking has been dubbed “a timely crash course on how to leverage your business’s online presence”. Well that’s some introduction… Powell has written “a practical guide to social networking that empowers readers to build social and cultural capital in view of increasing financial capital”. The book is (again) densed with a wide range of case studies, as well as an exhaustive description of the success of Obama’s groundswell fundraising campaign. Fascinating about this book is it’s roots in social (psychology) network theory. With her call for ethics and authenticity and her ability to explain how to put social media campaign’s into action, Powell has written one of the most informative books on social networking to date.