Building Social Web Applications

Gavin Bell

ISBN 10: 0596518757 / ISBN 13: 9780596518752

Published by O'Reilly Media, US, 2009

About this Item

Building a social web application that attracts and retains regular visitors, and gets them to interact, isn't easy to do. This book walks you through the tough questions you'll face if you're to create a truly effective community site - one that makes visitors feel like they've found a new home on the Web. Whether you're creating a new site from scratch or embracing an existing audience "Building Social Web Applications" helps you and your fellow web developers, designers, and project managers make difficult decisions, such as choosing the appropriate interaction tools for your audience, and building an infrastructure to help the community gel.With this book, you'll learn to: understand who will be drawn to your site, why they'll stay, and who they'll interact with; build the software you need versus plugging in off-the-shelf apps; create visual design that clearly communicates what your site will do; manage the identities of your visitors and determine how to manage their interaction; watch for demand from the community to guide your choice of new functions; and, plan the launch of your site and get the message out."Building Social Web Applications" includes examples of different application types - member-driven, customer service-driven, contributor-driven, and more - and discusses different business models. If your company's ready to move into the world of social web applications, this book will help you make it a reality.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780596518752

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Building Social Web Applications
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, US
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0596518757
• ISBN 13: 9780596518752
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

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. This book 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.

• 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

About the Author

Gavin Bell designs social web applications for the Nature Publishing Group. He is an interaction designer, community advocate and product manager. Since the early 90s, he has been writing and designing for the web. Large scale web applications covering identity, on-demand media, geolocation and social software have been the main focus of his work at NPG and previously at the BBC. He has worked in academia, advertising, publishing and developed multimedia software. He lives in London with his wife and two sons. Find out more on his personal site gavinbell.com and his blog take one onion.

Photo © James Duncan Davidson