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Building Social Web Applications--New from O'Reilly: Establishing Community at the Heart of Your Site

September 21, 2009

Sebastopol, CA—Building a web application that attracts and retains regular visitors is tricky enough, but creating a social application that encourages visitors to interact with one another requires careful planning. Building Social Web Applications (O'Reilly, US $34.99) by Gavin Bell provides practical solutions to the tough questions you'll face when building an effective community site—one that makes visitors feel like they've found a new home on the Web.

If your company is ready to take part in the social web, this book will help you get started. Whether you're creating a new site from scratch or reworking an existing site, Building Social Web Applications helps you choose the tools appropriate for your audience so you can build an infrastructure that will promote interaction and help the community coalesce. You'll also learn about business models for various social web applications, with examples of member-driven, customer-service-driven, and contributor-driven sites.

This book will help you:

  • Determine who will be drawn to your site, why they'll stay, and who they'll interact with
  • Create visual design that clearly communicates how your site works
  • Build the software you need versus plugging in one-size-fits-all, off-the-shelf apps
  • Manage the identities of your visitors and determine how to support their interaction
  • Monitor demand from the community to guide your choice of new functions
  • Plan the launch of your site and get the message out

For a review copy or more information please email kathrynb@oreilly.com Please include your delivery address and contact information.

Gavin Bell is one of a group of volunteers behind talkeuro.com, development notes for which are on betageek.co.uk. Gavin designs social web applications for the Nature Publishing Group. He is an interaction designer, community advocate and product manager. His weblog is takeoneonion.org.

Additional Resources:
For more information about the book, including table of contents, index, author bios, and cover graphic, see: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596518752

Building Social Web Applications
Gavin Bell
ISBN: 9780596518752, 416 pages,
Book Price: $34.99 USD, £26.99 GBP
Ebook Price: $27.99 USD

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