Written on August 14, 2008 – 10:36 am
Martin Kloos, Business consultant
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. It’s obviously ‘komkommertijd’ as it seems that not much relevant reading material reaches us these months (please correct me if I’m wrong in the comments). Therefore, we discuss one new release, one upcoming release and an oldy in a new jacket. This month we’re discussing Tribes by Seth Godin, Blown to Bits by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen and Harry Lewis and The Long Tail by Chris Anderson.
Tribes: We Need You
The fact that I’m covering a book that is set to be published in October says it all… Can I consider myself part of the Seth Godin tribe? I think probably not, but this line seems to cover his entire book. According to Seth Godin Tribes are “groups of people aligned around an idea, connected to a leader and to each other. Tribes make our world work, and always have.” Think Apple, Nelson Mandela, God. Probably Godin’s next bestseller and not to be missed…
Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion
Blown to Bits (not to be confused with Blown to bits), written by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen and Harry Lewis, is a book in line with the Future of the Internet. The book seeks answers to questions the information age draws upon us and claims to give us the knowledge we need to help shape our own digital future. All written from an MIT / Harvard perspective. The book not only describes 10 truths about digital data it also describes the implications of choices our governments are making right now. The book got some outstanding appraisal from among others Lawrence Lessig and David Weinberger.
The Long Tail, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
The Long Tail, written by Chris Anderson is probably one of the most popular books of our culture. Despite some recent critique on the Long Tail and an extensive wikipedia entry that does a great job in investigating it’s relevance and statistical meaning, the book still holds a lot of value. The book describes how the digitization has transformed the future of commerce and culture from a hit driven economy, the high-volume head of a traditional demand curve, into an endlessly long tail economy. His revised and updated edition adds a new chapter about Long Tail Marketing and a new epilogue, which makes it even more worthwhile to read. A must own for the true fans.
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Written on July 16, 2008 – 2:09 pm
Martin Kloos, Business consultant
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 Once you’re lucky, twice you’re good by Sarah Lazy, The future of the internet and how to stop it by Jonathan Zittrain, and iPhone: the missing manual by David Pogue,
Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0
Every once in a while a book is released that describes the history of “our” industry: the rise, the fall and again the rise of the web economy. Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good, written by Sarah lazy, is such a book. Lazy describes the burst of the first dot com bubble in 2000 and the resurrection of the industry by telling the stories of the entrepreneurs who invented the web companies that bring us Web 2.0 today. Expect stories from Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Digg, Six Apart, Slide, LinkedIn, Twitter, Ning, and more.
The book has the same vibe as the best sellers describing the Apple and Steve Jobs success stories so it’s definitely worth a read.
The Future of the Internet and how to stop it
I’ve watched some parts of the (not so short) presentation about The Future of the Internet and how to stop it, written by Jonathan Zittrain, thanks to Dutch marketing expert Marco Derksen and it looks quite amazing. Zittrain’s point is that the success off the Internet as we know it is bound to come to end due to the exact same characteristics (open innovation) that made it a success in the first place. We are moving towards a lock down of the Internet through proprietary platforms like iPods, iPhones, X-Box’s, GPS and more. To quote from it’s website “[The Future of the Internet] shows how to develop new technologies and social structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively, participate in solutions, and become true “netizens.” This book is worth your time when you’re interested in a vision on future developments of the Internet.
iPhone: The Missing Manual
Now we can all enjoy the benefits of having a brand new shiny iPhone the first thing we need to do is find ways to get the most out of this little machine, cause we need to justify our investment (ahum…). iPhone: the missing manual, written by David Pogue will get you quickly up to speed on how you get the most out of the hardware, software and interface of the iPhone. Together with Andy Ihnatko’s iPhone Fully loaded you are bound to become a true iPhone hero in no time. Nothing much more to say here…
Written on June 8, 2008 – 8:00 pm
Martin Kloos, Business consultant
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 Groundswell by Charlene Li, Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide by Amy Shuen, and Designing for the Social Web by Joshua Porter.
Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
It’s a great time for people who want to read social media and web strategy in general. Many books are released each month and to find the books that are worth your time gets harder and harder. Groundswell, a book written by Forrester Analist Charlene Li, seems to be such a book. As we know from Forrester, the book is full of hard analytic data to back up your social media strategy building thingy. The book provides many case studies (also ones we haven’t heard of yet), strategy roadmap development and a profile tool to map your (potential) customers with three general criteria on six overlapping levels of participation to find how to best interact with them.
Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations.
Let’s face it: while we all can’t stop raving about the beauty of social media and Web 2.0, we are still not very good in monetizing this trend other than by selling ads or making a smashing IPO. Web 2.0: A strategy Guide, written by Amy Shuen (she’s publishing parts of her book on her weblog), tries to help us with this part by talking about Web 2.0 from a strategy perspective, the major Web 2.0 concepts and it’s effects (not technologies) and real life cases as Flickr, Google and Amazon. This book tries to bridge the gap between the yet relatively limited knowledge of business people on Web 2.0 so perhaps it’s not a book for early adopters as we might all be. But when you are in business, looking for a strategy book on Web 2.0 this might be the one you are looking for.
Designing for the Social Web
I’ve read an interesting review of Designing for the Social Web, written by Joshua Porter, on the blog of Web Worker Daily. They put it nicely: this book is about designing social sites from a higher level view of the process, which makes it more relevant than perhaps yet another book about building rails applications. We all know that the social web requires a different perspective on principles like designing for conversations for example and Porter outlines this nicely in this book. He talks about the usage lifecycle, users intrinsic motivations for participating on your site, getting users on your site, analytics and more. Definitely a must read for all social designers among us.
Written on May 12, 2008 – 11:47 am
Martin Kloos, Business consultant
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 Me the Media by Jaap Bloem, Menno van Doorn and Sander Duivestein, Google Apps Hacks by Philipp Lenssen and Microsoft 2.0 by Mary Jo Foley.
Me the Media - Past, Present and Future of the Third Media Revolution
Only once in a while a book is released in the Netherlands that has international potential. I think Me the Media, written by Jaap Bloem, Menno van Doorn and Sander Duivestein is such a book. Currently only available in Dutch but the book is being translated to English so put it on your watch list! Me the Media deals with the impact of web media on “hyper-individualization, ICTainment on top of ICTechnology, and of meaningful web conversations between organizations, customers and employees”.
The authors knows how to eat their own dogfood, since they launched a website, a weblog, a wiki and an exciting video channel on youtube about their book. Definitely worth a watch! Oh and if you are curious about the book itself? Feel free to read the outlines of the chapters online. for Dutch readers, entire chapters are available as PDF download.
Google Apps Hacks
It’s no surprise that Google seems to be seriously hammering Microsoft and it’s office suite by offering a less complex, less expensive and easier to use (my opinion :)) office platform. Even I use Google Docs and spreadsheets more and more with my colleagues although my employee provides me with a well-thought, ubiquitous Microsoft platform. Google Apps Hacks, written by Philipp Lenssen (famous guy behind Google Blogoscoped!), describes a whole bunch of clever hacks, workarounds, and other undocumented tips that help you get the most out of Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Presentations, and other Google applications. After you read this book you will see how big the Google Universe really is.
Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era
Google Apps Hacks describes how you can benefit from the entire Google suite and makes you wonder how Microsoft will deal with these kinds of competition. At the same time we all know that Microsoft is working his ass off to stay relevant in the post-desktop, Internet era. Personally I’m extremely curious about how Microsoft will evolve the coming years since they have the appearances against them (Microsoft Bashing anyone?). So Microsoft 2.0, written by Mary Jo Foley (an American journalist, blogger for Zdnet and Microsoft analyst), is a great way to get a sneak peek into Microsoft’s future. For this book Foley interviewed many executives, partners, customers and competitors so she was able to write down a comprehensive picture of the company’s future. Foley offers insights into the people, products and strategies that will be key for the Microsoft in the next decade(s).
Written on April 16, 2008 – 8:00 am
Martin Kloos, Business consultant
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 Mobile Advertising by Chetan Sharma, Wikipatterns by Stewart Mader, and Programming Amazon Web Services by James Murty.
Mobile Advertising: Supercharge Your Brand in the Exploding Wireless Market
If we only had to identify one trend people on the Next Web 2008 were talking about the most it was probably about the oppertunities of the mobile (social networking) market. So if you want to take full advantage of this rising market, “Mobile Advertising: Supercharge Your Brand in the Exploding Wireless Market” written by Chetan Sharma is the book for you to read. What’s interesting is that this book not only describes the history of the mobile market and the enormous opportunity the mobile market offers, it also provides a blueprint for you to exploit this opportunity. Want to take a sneak peek into the first parts of the book? You can find the preface and first chapter of the book on the website MobileAdvertisingBook.com.
“If you believe the future is wireless, then this book is a guide to that future. Simple, fact-filled, and astute.” -Om Malik, GigaOM
Wikipatterns
As a business consultant, I’m always looking for ways to improve my skills on making use of the new tools and concepts the so-called Enterprise 2.0 wave has to offer us. And I guess I found in Wikipatterns, written by Stewart Mader, a handy guide to help people make the most out of Wiki software, or collaboration tools in general. What particularly appealed to me was the practical approach of the book. It offers many useful tips on implementing wikis, from a simple pilot to large scale adoption. It also describes many interesting case studies of wiki adoption in various enterprises. Written near the end of 2007, but still relevant today. Not for techies, but for the end users who are planning (or working on) wiki adoption within their organization.
Programming Amazon Web Services: S3, EC2, SQS, FPS, and SimpleDB
I’m not a programmer, but one thing I realized during The Next Web Conference is that íf you are planning to built a global start-up, you should built it on cloud-computing technology. Or do you really really want to waste your venture capitalist’s money?* It looks like Amazon has just the right platform for you to do so (or perhaps you are planing on building on Google App Engine). Programming Amazon Web Services written by James Murty seems to be just about right to get you started with building your small to medium-sized platform on Amazon’s AWS. Nothing more, nothing less but invaluable if you want to realize a scalable platform that pleases our VC’s.
* anyone counted how much this phrase was used during the conference :-)
Written on March 9, 2008 – 1:18 pm
Martin Kloos, Business consultant
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 The Age of Engage by Denise Shiffman, Pirate’s Dilemma by Mat Mason and Web 2.0 patterns by Duane Nickull et al.
The Age of Engage: Reinventing Marketing for Today’s Connected, Collaborative, and Hyperinteractive Culture
Just of the presses The Age of Engage, written by Denise Shiffman deals with the premise that web 2.0 is reshaping marketing into a field where companies should truly engage their audiences in order to become successful. Shiffman radically alters the way we think of marketing by introducing her 6 V’s of marketing 2.0 as a replacement to the traditional 4 (or 5) P’s of marketing: Venture, Value, Voice, Verifiable, Vicinity and Vehicle. It seems that the book is launched at the right time, since the broader topic on engagement gets a lot of media attention lately with tools like Nuconomy and Microsoft’s efforts on engagement mapping. The book got great press coverage by Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt and Don Tapscott, famous for his Wikinomics book, who both dub it as a must-read for marketeers. With the book, there is also a new weblog, which writes about companies that get the engagement thingy.
One personal side note: Engagement is more and more presented as thé next thing in marketing and analytics. But is engagement all their is or is their more? I personally would say there is more when looking at theories of Communities of Practice for instance. Communities of Practice have similarities, but also go deeper, than online communities. I guess I’ll write a post about this topic in the near future…
The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism
Mat Mason, with a successful career as pirate radio and club DJ as well as tv show writer and producer, looks like a refreshing new appearance in the world of business slash entrepreneurial writing. His new book the Pirate’s Dilemma deals with the impact of open source on the distribution and control of information and is serious about piracy and copyright. The main point of the book is that piracy cán be productive in that it can create new valuable and viable mash-ups. The book got great press coverage by marketing guru Seth Godin. For some quick insight there is an interesting slideshare presentation on the website of the book. That’s a great example of eating your own dogfood!
Funny trivia: one of Amazon’s user generated reviews dubbed the book meaningful as the reviewer found out that his son was a pirate since he openly questioned college credentialism and stated that there was nothing he couldn’t learn on his own…
Web 2.0 Patterns: What entrepreneurs and information architects need to know
I’m a big fan of Dion Hinchcliffe’s writing on social media and web 2.0 so when he co-authors a book on Web 2.0 design patterns it must be good. In this book, author’s Duane Nickull, Dion Hinchcliffe, and James Governor describe core patterns of Web 2.0 together with an abstract model and reference architecture. It’s a great overview on web 2.0 and captures O’Reilly’s thoughts on the topic. But having read much of the posts of Hinchcliffe on this topic, I’m not sure whether this book offers any new insights altogether.
Written on February 13, 2008 – 7:00 am
Martin Kloos, Business consultant
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 Jump Point from Tom Hayes, Landing page optimization from Tim Ash and a semi-classic: Smart start-ups from David Silver.
Jump Point: How Network Culture is Revolutionizing Business
According to Jump Point, published in January 2008 and written by Tom Hayes, our next economy will arrive at an inflection point just 1000 days from now. Welcome to pandemic economics! Jump Point illustrates how this happens and how you could benefit from it. In his book, Hayes identifies five major discontinuities associated with the widespread adoption of the Internet by the entire world’s workforce. Those discontinuities include a fierce battle for consumer attention, competitive ji-hads, the rise of a global “mash” culture and the pre-eminence of trust as a business currency. This book is a must read if you want to stay on top of the game in the coming years. It’s the tipping point for geeks, says Guy Kawasaki.
Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions
This title might sound a little geeky, but according to the authors of this book, optimizing your landing pages can make you millions. Landing Page Optimization, published in January 2008 and written by Tim Ash, describes how you can make a lot more money from your online marketing investments without spending too much more on driving traffic to your landing pages. This book includes case studies of page landing optimization, practical strategies that show you how to identify mission critical parts of your website, and a thorough analysis of Google Web Analyzer to get you started. You can find some additional and relevant resources on the website associated with this book.
Smart Start-Ups: How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communities
Always wanted to know how to tap in the potentially unlimited value of online communities? Smart Start-ups, published in May 2007 and written by David Silver, promises to be thé guide for Entrepreneurs and Corporations to profit by starting online communities. Why to read? The book puts it’s finger on one of the biggest business developments for the coming years and shows YOU how to tap into this powerful trend using visionary business plans to build social networks that will make millions! Okay, okay got that last part from the inside flap of the book… Small trivia: on its website, a scoring system is hosted with which you can determine the probability for success of your new venture community initiative.
Written on January 16, 2008 – 7:09 am
Martin Kloos, Business consultant
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 The Cult of the Amateur from Andrew Keen, Cultivating Communities of Practice by Etienne Wenger and The Search from John Battelle.
The Cult of the Amateur: How today’s Internet is Killing our Culture and Assaulting our Economy
Although I, and perhaps most visitors of this weblog, don’t agree with the arguments Andrew Keen jotted down in his Cult of the Amateur, I do consider this book as a must read because it’s always refreshing to read a deviant vision on the impact of Web 2.0. Keen argues that all web 2.0 services produce nothing but bull and he shows hard facts on how it negatively impacts today’s business and economy by raising serious privacy concerns and invading copyright. This book also shows that many web 2.0 success stories, like Wikipedia, can be interpreted from multiple angles.
Cultivating Communities of Practice
Social Networks and online communities are hot. Hyves just recently reached 5 million users in the Netherlands only and Facebook’s value is marketed around $ 15 billion. Cultivating Communities of Practice by Etienne Wenger is a managerial version of a more academic work written by the same author and describes how communities of practice, which are groups of people who share a certain passion on a specific topic, operate and how they can be cultivated. A must read for people who want to know more about the inner workings and success factors of social communities of practices.
The Search: How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business
Many books have been written about Google, but few of them describe the relevance of what Google and its Rivals accomplish so thoroughly as The Search by John Battelle. It not only describes how Google rewrote the rules of business by becoming the sole reason of existence for thousands of online companies, it also describes the potential value of the billions and billions of records of user data. It gives an interesting insight in how this data describes who we are and who we become as a society, something Battelle dubs as “The Database of Intentions”.
Update: after some comments we realized that the visitors of The Next Web Blog expect us to be visionary on new book titles as well. And you know what? You’re absolutely right! But because “older” (yeah time flies, also for books these days) titles are still relevant today, we want to include some “classic” reading as well. So next months we’ll discuss one classic and two more recent books. For now, see the responses for some more recent readings or leave your own tips in the comments!
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
