Internet Research - Illustrated (Illustrated (Thompson Learning)) Review

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Internet Research - Illustrated (Illustrated (Thompson Learning)) ReviewThe book is very low on information.
If you've used a computer for at least 2 years this will teach you absolutely nothing.
$20 for a paperback book that is thinner than a quarter.
Bought this for a class,
Be better off mooching off someone else or maybe just winging to topicInternet Research - Illustrated (Illustrated (Thompson Learning)) OverviewWith both conceptual and step-by-step lessons, this book teaches learners the strategies and skills required to use the Internet as a valuable research tool. Updated for currency, this title includes information about search toolbars and the latest advances in intelligent search agents, as well as finding, evaluating, and citing online sources.

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Connection Generation: How connection determines our place in society and business Review

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Connection Generation: How connection determines our place in society and business ReviewThis book is easy to read and inspiring. It gets you thinking and into action about how to use the web to promote yourself, connect with others and create opportunities. If you have someone in your family that doesnt understand how to use the web to connect - this is the book that will get them jumping onto facebook, sending emails and connecting in ways they never thought was possible.Connection Generation: How connection determines our place in society and business OverviewWe're all connected at some level. Whether you're a student, teacher, business owner, corporate professional, entrepreneur, manager, executive, or someone who is interested in how connectedness is changing our world, Iggy Pintado's Connection Generation is a must-read. A recognized leader in global connection technology and dedicated observer of societal and business patterns, Iggy believes that by understanding the attitudes and behaviors of individuals and groups, we can better manage the powerful link between communication and connection technologies to determine our individual and collective future. With nearly every facet of civilization linked together, it is imperative that we understand how we connect into society and how this impacts on our capacity to adapt and grow. Consumer or leader, this book answers the vital question everyone is asking: Am I prepared for the lightning-fast connectivity changes taking place in the world?

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Friction is Fiction: The Future of Content, Media & Business (Black & White Edition) Review

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Friction is Fiction: The Future of Content, Media & Business (Black & White Edition) Reviewand Gerd has a lot to say about it. Friction is Fiction is a collection of essays and blogs by media futurist Gerd Leonhard. An excellent introduction to the new paradigm shift in digital media. If you are looking to make sense of the canary in the coal mine collapse of the Compact Disc and the mainstream record company business model Leonhard explains not only what happened but what will continue to happen to content providers and users of music, film, video, books, newspapers and all forms of media. Rather than lamenting the loss of old business models Leonhard focuses primarily on the excitement and opportunities presented by the current media revolution. He is not the only proselytizer of the new culture of free but one of my favorites because of the lack of hyperbole and unnecessary drama. I also appreciate his global perspective and positive attitude. Highly recommended.
Friction is Fiction: The Future of Content, Media & Business (Black & White Edition) OverviewFuturist and Thought-Leader Gerd Leonhard (www.mediafuturist.com) shares his thoughts on the Future of Content, Media and Business. 'Friction is Fiction' presents a constantly updated compilation of Gerd's best essays, writings and most popular blog posts. The central meme is that the Internet has completely disrupted the traditional notion of generating higher income by simply taking advantage of possible friction points and hurdles within transactions or business processes, i.e. by controlling the 'people formerly known as consumers'. The Future is all about winning the trust, and turning attention into revenues.This is the low-cost, black & white version of the book - if you want the full-color version please go to http://gerd.fm/cmrfB1

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Crowdsourcing: High-impact Strategies - What You Need to Know: Definitions, Adoptions, Impact, Benefits, Maturity, Vendors Review

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Crowdsourcing: High-impact Strategies - What You Need to Know: Definitions, Adoptions, Impact, Benefits, Maturity, Vendors ReviewPURCHASE NOT RECOMMENDED.
You might of heard the term - regifting. Regifting refers to the action of giving a gift one has received to someone else. There is an ongoing debate about the appropriateness of regifting and you even might disagree with the practice. That's until you remember your participation and relief in relaying your great Aunt's dreaded fruit cake during the holiday season to someone else.
The publishing industry has their own version of regifting. It's known as republishing. Republishing is when a book's content is slightly modified then released with a different title, cover and/or author. From casual observation to the consumer it appears to be a "new" book. In reality, except for a few minor cosmetic tweaks the content remains the same.
Unknowingly paying to purchase a republished book is not a welcome surprise.
The book being reviewed is entitled:
Crowdsourcing: High-impact Strategies - What You Need to Know: Definitions, Adoptions, Impact, Benefits, Maturity, Vendors
by Kevin Roebuck
Publisher: Tebbo
ISBN-10: 1743046421
The book is a republished version of:
The Crowdsourcing Handbook - Everything you need to know about Crowdsourcing
by Jason Brand
Publisher: Tebbo
ISBN-10: 1743040954
Except for a few minor tweaks - title change, cover change, different author name - it's EXACTLY the same book.
It must be stated that it's the same poor quality book with the same recommendation - PURCHASE NOT RECOMMENDED.
Which brings to mind the saying - Even if you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig.
Adding [financial] insult to injury ...
The original book entitled - "The Crowdsourcing Handbook - Everything you need to know about Crowdsourcing" - purchase price is $19.95.
This new republished book with EXACTLY the same contents - purchase price is $48.66.

On with my republished review of this republished book ...
Let's start with the face page disclaimer:
The content within this book was generated collaboratively by volunteers. Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information. Some information in this book may be misleading or simply wrong.
How can the book be "...your ultimate resource for Crowdsourcing" when no checking has been done of the validity or reliability of the information contained within it?
Enough said on that.
It starts with an anemic six page introduction to crowdsourcing of which two pages are citation notes/references.
....and continues to go down hill from there.
The book lists about 80 "articles" in the table of contents contained in 209 pages. Which means content on each article averages a little over two pages in length. A number of articles are a single page.
The majority of the topics are crowdsourcing vendors (Amazon Mechanical Turk, CloudCrowd, CloudFlower, InnoCentive), crowdsourcing contests ( DARPA Grand Challenge, Netflix Prize), and miscellaneous topics (Ricky McCormick's encrypted notes).
The book is NOT a how-to manual, tutorial or reference guide on crowdsourcing.
The book is a scattered compilation of crowdsourcing topics with a very brief synopsis written on each.
...and the book doesn't have an index or glossary.Crowdsourcing: High-impact Strategies - What You Need to Know: Definitions, Adoptions, Impact, Benefits, Maturity, Vendors OverviewCrowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a "crowd"), through an open call.
This book is your ultimate resource for Crowdsourcing. Here you will find the most up-to-date information, analysis, background and everything you need to know.
In easy to read chapters, with extensive references and links to get you to know all there is to know about Crowdsourcing right away, covering: Crowdsourcing, CloudCrowd, Servio, Collaborative translation, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Article One Partners, BlooSee, BlueServo, Bossa (computing), Citizen Weather Observer Program, Closed innovation, Steve Coast, CrowdFlower, Darpa Grand Challenge, Darpa Network Challenge, Dell IdeaStorm, Digital sweatshop, Distributed Proofreaders, Distributed thinking, Experience Project, FamilySearch Indexing, Funding4Learning, Genius Crowds, Giveo, Google Lunar X Prize, I-Cube Systems, Ideawicket, Indiegogo, InnoCentive, Innovation Exchange, Istockphoto, Kickstarter, Know-How Trading, Learning to love you more, Lectorium, LibriVox, List of crowdsourcing projects, Longitude prize, Maneno, Mass collaboration, Memrise, Microtask, Mygengo, MyStock, Netflix Prize, NineSigma, NotchUp, Open innovation, Open innovation intermediary, OpenSeaMap, OpenStreetMap, PageRank, Pea galaxy, Peerbackers, Phylo (video game), Pitching engine, Pledgemusic, Quirky, ReCaptcha, Ricky McCormick's encrypted notes, RocketHub, SeeClickFix, Spigit, Spot.us, TurKit, Ubiquitous Human Computing, Urtak, Ushahidi, Utest, Wbew, Wikimedia Foundation, The Wisdom of Crowds, Wisdom of the crowd, World Water Monitoring Day, Wreckamovie, Yet2.com, YouComm News, YouCut, Zooppa.
This book explains in-depth the real drivers and workings of Crowdsourcing.

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Social Persuasion: Making Sense of Social Media for Small Business Review

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Social Persuasion: Making Sense of Social Media for Small Business ReviewJerry Zyskowski, Normandy Park, WA. Volunteer counselor to small businesses. My extensive background (18+ years with: [...]) helping small business owners gives me a good understanding of their needs, and this book will certainly be beneficial to them in the effective use of social media to propagate their business.
This is an excellent book for small business people to help them connect with potential customers in a more efficient manner via digital social media. This is not a book about sales, but is focused on connecting the parties leading to future sales.
Robbin first takes us through the social media mix, what's out there for us to use. Describing each and how they might be used to help us connect with customers. She then goes on to identify target audience types that have a need for our products/services. Target audiences are better than target individuals; we get the word out to a larger group. Digital social media is one choice among many to do the job, and it needs to be considered as complementary to our more conventional methods. The idea is for our business to get exposure to potential customers using a mix of tools. Initial exposure is a step toward deeper involvement with customers and eventual sales of our products. That's what Social Persuasion is all about.
The book is heavy reading, and I actually put it down for a week or so when half way through in order to adequately digest what I had read.
To help in your understanding, Robbin takes us through the social persuasion process with the case of an Interior Designer. I found this application to be very useful in relating the text material to a real world situation.
As you read the book, new terms will come up. To help you recollect what the terms mean, Robbin has included a very good Glossary in the back of the book. Since the social media technology is constantly changing, her list of Sources may become dated with time. Hopefully, she will augment these with periodic updates on her website: [...].
I consider Robbin's book an excellent addition to the field of social media application, and it should be a valuable aid to small business owners.
Social Persuasion: Making Sense of Social Media for Small Business OverviewPractical guide explains how to use social media to promote and grow a small business without wasting time playing online.

Designed with the small business in mind, readers will learn:

Where social media fits into a business and marketing strategy
How to choose the right social sites to answer questions like, should I be on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter?
Why you may not need your own blog, but could use a Facebook page
How to make the most of your time and resources to reach your goals
Methods for measuring your progress and monitoring your reputation

Also includes straight forward advice and tools:

Strategies and tactics to put into practice immediately
Step-by-step instructions for finding niche social sites
Time saving tips
Hundreds of low and no-cost online resources and how to use them
Glossary of key marketing and social media terms


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The Social Factor: Innovate, Ignite, and Win through Mass Collaboration and Social Networking Review

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The Social Factor: Innovate, Ignite, and Win through Mass Collaboration and Social Networking ReviewFour signs that you are seriously behind the Internet-driven times: 1) You type "www" in front of Web addresses, 2) You think "geek" is a term of derision, 3) You subscribe to TV Guide and 4) You have a landline. If these descriptions fit you, then you will find Maria Azua's book eye-opening. She describes online developments such as wikis, cloud computing, crowdsourcing, widgets, social bookmarking, folksonomies, avatars and all the rest - and explains what they can do for your business. However, if you are already an experienced social networker, Azua's guide will be a review of familiar information. getAbstract recommends this book to businesspeople who are feeling mystified by the Internet - that is, anyone who needs to update his or her Web skills. Online, it's a new world. Azua's book provides a good map.The Social Factor: Innovate, Ignite, and Win through Mass Collaboration and Social Networking OverviewHarness the Power of Social Networking to Promote Innovation and Drive GrowthA treasure trove of strategic and tactical insights for the business leader

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The Network Is Your Customer: Five Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age Review

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The Network Is Your Customer: Five Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age ReviewThis is a fabulous book. A lot of marketing experts offer half-baked hints and tips for exploiting the potential of social networks. Rogers, however, has thought long and hard about the implications of the network for companies, and he applies his intelligent analysis to examples in various industries and in politics. His five strategies derive from this analysis. They're clearly presented and supremely actionable. Among the millions of words written about marketing in the digital age, this book stands out as really insightful and important. If you want a deep understanding of the implications of digital connections for marketing, as well as some practical tools you can implement in your own enterprise, this is the book you want. I recommend it very highly.The Network Is Your Customer: Five Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age Overview"An incredibly useful and valuable guidebook to the new consumer economy. Buy it. Learn from it. Succeed with it."—Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do "This is the stuff that every business and nonprofit needs to embrace if they're going to succeed in a changing world."—Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR With clear analysis and practical frameworks, this book provides a strategic guide that any business or nonprofit can use to succeed in the digital age.
Marketing expert David Rogers examines how digital technologies—from smartphones to social networks—connect us in frameworks that transform our relationships to business and each other. To thrive today, organizations need new strategies—strategies designed for customer networks.
Rogers offers five strategies that any business can use to create new value:
ACCESS—be faster, be easier, be everywhere, be always on ENGAGE—become a source of valued content CUSTOMIZE—make your offering adaptable to your customer's needs CONNECT—become a part of your customers' conversations COLLABORATE—involve your customers at every stage of your enterpriseRogers explains these five strategies with over 100 cases from every type and size of business—from shoes to news, and software to healthcare. In The Network Is Your Customer, he shows:
How Apple harnessed a host of collaborators to write apps for its iPhone How IBM designed a videogame to help sell its enterprise software How Ford Motors inspired an online community to build brand awareness for its new Fiesta...and countless other cases from consumer, b2b, and nonprofit categories.
The book outlines a process for planning and implementing a customer network strategy to match your customers, your business, and your objectives—whether you need to drive sales, to enhance innovation, to reduce costs, to gain customer insight, or to build breakthrough products and services. Because today, whatever your goals and whatever your business, the network is your customer.

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The New Polymath: Profiles in Compound-Technology Innovations (Wiley Professional Advisory Services) Review

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The New Polymath: Profiles in Compound-Technology Innovations (Wiley Professional Advisory Services) ReviewHaving read an advance copy of Vinnie Mirchandani's The New Polymath, I have to say that it is a riveting read. It's SuperFreakonomics for us technophiles. Because, for better or worse, The New Polymath (who can be thought of as a modern Leonardo da Vinci) must also be an IT guru ... as it is information technology that is paving the way for a new generation of polymaths that have access to unprecedented levels of information across disciplines.
Rather than tell you that this fresh and inviting (Benjamin Fried, CIO Google) book is filled with incredible examples of passionate entrepreneurs (Marc Benioff, CEO [...]), that I am inspired by this book (Maynard Webb, CEO LiveOps), or that Mirchandani is one of the few technology analysts to realize that technology doesn't come in neat bundles anymore (Thomas H. Davenport, President's Chair Babson College), I'm going to talk about The New Polymath's ten rules for success which pop out at you if you read between the lines.
Why? One of the Polymath's chronicled in Vinnie's masterful manuscript is Brian Sommer, technology consultant extraordinaire of TechVentive and renowned ZDNet blogger, who asks "where are the 10 commandments for technology" as he struggles with the challenges of cyberethics that few dare to address. It's a good question, and one that I believe we are not yet ready to answer. Which leads me to ask, "how do we get there"? Well, the first step is to obviously become learned, and successful, polymaths well equipped to ask, and debate, the question. To this end, we need a guide ... a guide that, if you dig deep, is found within Vinnie's terrific tome. To get you on your way, and to inspire you to (pre) order your own copy of The New Polymath, I give you:
The New Polymath's Ten Starting Rules for Success
(because, in reality, there are more than ten ... but these are the biggies).
(01) 1-1-1
Adopt [...] 1-1-1 model: 1 percent employee's time; 1 percent equity; 1 percent product donation. A true Polymath operates in his community, not out of it, and makes a difference.
(02) 80 for 20
Aim for solutions that deliver 80% of the value of previous solutions for only 20% of the price. A new Polymath is about true innovation, not overstated renovation.
(03) Invisible UI
If your product requires a manual, it's not a product at all. A true Polymath produces solutions with UIs so seamless and so obvious that no manual is needed.
(04) Traceability
Every component can be traced back to the source ... even if it's software. (And if it is software, every data element can be traced back to the source.)
(05) Keep Score
Polymaths are responsible and drive for sustainability ... to the point where they keep track of how well they are doing and how much better their inventions are compared with predecessor technology. If it's not more environmentally friendly (and more cost effective, because true green keeps more green in your wallet), it's not revolutionary.
(06) Semantics
It's the age of "big data", and to make sense of it all, we need to find the data that is relevant to us.
(07) Decisions, Not Data
Because, in the end, the entire point of finding the semantically relevant data is to enable us to make better decisions than we could before.
(08) Adopt the "Shamrock" It's Lucky for a Reason
A "shamrock" organization, as envisioned by Charles Handy, is one that encompasses "core management, a long-term but contractual talent pool, and a transient, flexible workforce". We are in the age of networked person, who is used to working on the move, and tomorrow's polymath's will be flexible at the core.
(09) TiaS
Technology-is-a-Service. A Polymath moves beyond SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and TaaS (Technology-as-a-Service) and embraces the concept that, like power and water, information technology must be delivered only as a service in the world of tomorrow. Just like the utilities deliver our power and water, tomorrow's technology enterprises will deliver our apps, data, and information on-demand as that is what is needed for businesses to truly reach the next level of operations, as technology is not the core competency of most businesses that make use of it today.
(10) The Turing Oath
Brian Sommer notes that we need a Hippocratic Oath for technology, and I agree. We all need to agree to respect and uphold the privacy of our users and their data to the utmost above all else. And I'm calling that the Turing Oath, after Alan Turing who gave us the first test to determine whether a machine had reached intelligence (and, would thus, need to be instilled with ethics from the get go ... and, hopefully, the the three laws of robotics.)
I strongly encourage you to read Vinnie's groundbreaking debut into the world of publishing (other than his prolific blogging over the years over on Deal Architect and New Florence. New Renaissance.) and do what it takes to become The New Polymath. The world of tomorrow needs you, and in fact, so does the world of today. If, like the polymaths chronicled in this book and Nathan Myhrvold (who was the cloth the new polymaths chronicled in the book were cut from), I encourage you to join the Humanitarian Technology Challenge. The world needs you!
This review was originally published on Sourcing innovation at:
[...]The New Polymath: Profiles in Compound-Technology Innovations (Wiley Professional Advisory Services) OverviewPraise for The New Polymath"Bravo! In a work that's fresh and inviting, Mirchandani shares withus his case studies in innovation and creativity. It's no small ironythat the 'IT revolution' has created a technology industry that all tooeasily falls back on bromides and received wisdom. Mirchandani inspiresus to return to IT's roots, with the transformative power that comesfrom putting technology innovation in service to business and society."--Benjamin Fried, CIO, Google, Inc. "At DeVry Education, we are focused on the next-generationworkforce that will build the Polymath enterprises of tomorrow. So,it's good to see the book touch on such a wide range oftechnologies--from cloud computing to emerging medicine--that are shapingour curriculum. We are always looking for innovation, including onlineclasses and instructional labs, and this book has got us thinking innew directions."--Daniel Hamburger, President and CEO, DeVry Inc. "In this fascinating book, Mirchandani, himself an example ofthe new breed of Polymaths that he defines, brings into a sharp focusexactly what has been achieved by those who have the remarkable abilityto combine and mix technology elements. An excellent read on multiplelevels: to learn from; to be entertained by; and most of all, to leaveyou wondering what you could personally achieve."--Andy Mulholland, Global Chief Technology Officer, Capgemini "A brilliant read. In order for individuals and companies tofully maximize new century opportunities--and stay abreast of aconstantly morphing technological frontier--Mirchandani not only givesexamples of the Polymath framework, but concrete evidence forsuccessful leveraging. Thanks to technology, we can all be Polymaths ifwe open our minds to the possibilities. Consider this book your guide--Ithink da Vinci would be proud."--Linda Avey, cofounder, 23andMe

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30-Minute Social Media Marketing: Step-by-step Techniques to Spread the Word About Your Business Review

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30-Minute Social Media Marketing: Step-by-step Techniques to Spread the Word About Your Business ReviewI have "Blogging All-in-One for Dummies" by Susan Gunelius and loved it, so when this book came out about social media marketing I wanted to get it right away. I'm amazed by all of the information in this book. It includes links to tools, sample plans, and examples from small business owners rather than just big name brands that other books include. The best part for me is that this focuses on strategy. I'm not a marketing professional, so understanding WHY I might want to do one thing or another to promote my business through social media really makes this book worth every cent. Of course, it was less than $12, so I think I got way more than my money's worth. If you're trying to promote your business or your blog or yourself (or anything else frankly) online then you really need to read this book.30-Minute Social Media Marketing: Step-by-step Techniques to Spread the Word About Your Business Overview
BIG PRESENCE isn't just for BIG COMPANIES anymore!A social media marketing handbook for small business owners on the go
Social media has opened the door to anyone who wants to promote themselves--including small businesses. Designed specifically for busy small business owners, this book puts you on the fast track to maximizing your business's visibility and generating profits—regardless of thesize of your marketing budget or the time you have to devote to it.
30-Minute Social Media Marketing provides 22 short chapters packed with real-world examples, templates, sample marketing procedures, and screen shots taking you step-by-step through the essentials. With little time and effort, you will master the arts of:
Blogging and microblogging
Social networking and bookmarking
Audio and video
E-books and webinars
Direct and indirect marketing
Brand and relationship building
Word-of-mouth marketing
Expanding your reach and establishing your position
Integrating with traditional marketing
Evaluating results

By the end of the book, you will have completed a social-media marketing plan that produces real results and created a strategy for future marketing plans--all in just 30 minutes a day.

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Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement Review

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Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement ReviewI've read both of David's social business books and found them very useful. You will learn a lot from his books, but you must be ready to put in the time to complete the exercises and follow up (reading additional articles, looking up experts that Dave mentions, etc).
Dave is one of few who talks about Promise vs. Delivery (marketing & operations) and the importance of holistic touch point analysis. His feedback loop for social media is right on. The information on touch points, promise vs. delivery, and social business funnel are alone worth the price of the first book.

I highly suggest reading Dave's first book, completing the exercises, and then moving on to the second book. I also recommend that you drop a copy of the second book on your Senior Marketing Manager's desk.Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement OverviewHow to implement social technology in business, spur collaborative innovation and drive winning programs to improve products, services, and long-term profits and growth.
The road to social media marketing is now well paved: A July 2009 Anderson Analytics study found 60% of the Internet population uses social networks and social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. Collaboration and innovation, driven by social technology, are "what's next."
Written by the author of the bestselling Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day in collaboration with Jake McKee, Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement takes marketers, product managers, small business owners, senior executives and organizational leaders on to the next step in social technology and its application in business. In particular, this book explains how to successfully implement a variety tools, how to ensure higher levels of customer engagement, and how to build on the lessons learned and information gleaned from first-generation social media marketing efforts and to carry this across your organization.
This book:
Details how to develop, implement, monitor and measure successful social media activities, and how to successfully act on feedback from the social web
Discusses conversation-monitoring tools and platforms to accelerate the business innovation cycle along with the metrics required to prove the success of social technology adoption
Connects the social dots more deeply across the entire organization, moving beyond marketing and into product development, customer service and customer-driven innovation, and the benefits of encouraging employee collaboration.

Social media has become a central component of marketing: Collaborative, social technology is now moving across the organization, into business functions ranging from HR and legal to product management and the supply chain. Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement is the perfect book for marketers, business unit managers and owners, HR professionals and anyone else looking to better understand how to use social technologies and platforms to build loyalty in customers, employees, partners and suppliers to drive long term growth and profits.

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Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business Review

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Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business ReviewExecutive Summary:
The book would be more appropriately entitled: "An introduction to Web 2.0" There is very little marketing advice, and the information in this book might have been cutting edge in 2002-3 but in 2008, it would only appeal to beginners, or non-tech oriented people. If you don't know what a "Blog" is, then this book is for you. If you do know what a blog is, I would go elsewhere.
Full Review:
I have read about a dozen books on marketing/advertising/community building on the web. Perhaps I didn't realize the scope of this book. First, if you are reading a review for what this book is about, you are probably more technologically advanced than anything this book has to offer...(IE: The "Social Web" as he puts it, Or Web 2.0, can affect hearts and minds. For example, you are reading this review before purchasing this book for some insight.)
To me it seemed as if the book was written for very large company's marketers who are 60+ years of age and are not familiar with the internet, or at best don't think there has been any evolution of the internet in the past 14+ years since it has gone commercial. I don't mean to be rude, but this book really seemed like something that would have had an impact and would have been interesting in about 2001. The fact that this book was written and released in the last year honestly amazed me, as I was certain that it was just re-released based on the material.
To be slightly more specific, the book concentrates heavily on not trying to hurt the ego's of marketers who have not been keeping up with the Internet by saying "Some of your old marketing knowledge is still useful." a bit too often. While true, it just seemed a bit overboard. Another quick example of the target market is that the book took about 4-5 pages in describing what a blog is. This is all well and good for an "Intro" book, but it is indicitive of the audience this book was meant for. I found this book too generic to be useful. It lacked specifics, strong case examples, adequate statistics, etc. If you are 60+ years of age and really aren't aware of what social communities are, or message boards, or online reviews of products (Oh the irony), I would recommend this book. Also, if you don't believe that having an online voice is relevant in today's global market, and are looking for a strong case to show you why it is, I would recommend this book. If you have ever participated on a message board, read a blog, posted/read an online review, etc...this book won't tell you anything that you don't already know.
However, if you are looking for effective ways to market to the "Social Web" AKA Web 2.0 by the rest of the world, go elsewhere. This book is too generic to be useful IMHO. I gave this book two stars instead of one because it was well written, and unlike EVERY other marketing book I have ever read, it didn't remind you to go to the author's website every other page (In fact, I don't even remember him naming his website in the book, which is to be applauded, as you can tell this info was legitimately designed to help the reader, not just another marketing tool by the author as many marketing books are). Also if you do want a BEGINNERS' book to what Web 2.0 is, this would be tough to beat. The author puts everything in non-techie terms, and is very thorough at explaining some of the core/basic concepts of Web 2.0.
BOTTOM LINE:
The people who could best be helped with a book like this are intelligent people who don't keep up with technology, but know the basics. I found this more as an introduction to what Web 2.0 was than a "How to" book which is what I believed the book to be about based on the title.
If you are looking for valuable "How to market to the Social Web" info, this book will GREATLY disappoint you.
Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business OverviewAn updated and expanded Second Edition of the popular guide to social media for the business community

Marketers must look to the Web for new ways of finding customers and communicating with them, rather than at them. From Facebook and YouTube to blogs and Twitter-ing, social media on the Internet is the most promising new way to reach customers. Marketing to the Social Web, Second Edition helps marketers and their companies understand how to engage customers, build customer communities, and maximize profits in a time of marketing confusion. Author and social media guru Larry Weber describes newly available tools and platforms, and shows you how to apply them to see immediate results and growth.

Rather than broadcast messages to audiences, savvy marketers should encourage participation in social networks to which people want to belong, where dialogue with customers, and between customers, can flourish. in Networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and even Flickr are the perfect forums for this dialog; this book shows you how to tap into this new media.

In addition to the tools and tactics that made Marketing to the Social Web a critical hit among marketers, this second edition includes three entirely new chapters that cover recent changes in the field. These new chapters describe how Facebook will monetize its business and one day surpass Google; how companies can measure the influence and effectiveness of their social media campaigns; and how marketing to mobile social media will grow into an effective practice in the near future.

Marketing must reach out into new forms, media, and models. Marketing to the Social Web, Second Edition presents an exceptional opportunity to use these new tools and models to reach new markets, even in today's fragmented media environment.

Larry Weber has spent the last three decades building global communications companies, including Weber Shandwick Worldwide and the W2 Group. He is also the founder and Chairman of the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange, the nation's largest interactive advocate association.

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Secrets of Social Media Marketing: How to Use Online Conversations and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business Review

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Secrets of Social Media Marketing: How to Use Online Conversations and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business Review
I liked this book very much. I read the author's first book on this subject back in July, 2007. And now he has a second great book out on the subject. It includes the following 16 chapters:
1. Making the case
2. Making choices
3. Ear to the ground
4. Courting online influencers
5. Corporate soapboxes
6. Customer conversations
7. The social network gorillas
8. Niche innovations
9. Learning from conversations
10. Basics of social media content
11. Picking your spot
12. Telling stories with words and images
13. Engagement through interaction
14. Promote thyself
15. Measuring results
16. Celebrating change
The book was very easy to read. It is full of great content. And it is very well researched. I found each of the chapters to be packed full of cites to Web sites that are critical players in the social media marketing realm of things. And I've read quite a few books on this subject. I can tell you this book is not simple fluff or something merely written in order to capitalize on the current popularity of the subject matter.
There are real world examples cited throughout the text. And I found them to be very good additions to the points being made in the main body of the book's content. So the numerous cites to Web sites and the inclusion of real world examples makes this book a goldmine of information for anyone hungry to learn about social media marketing. I had one problem with the book - its organization. When I completed it and sat down to write this review I said to myself: "There are 16 chapters in this book. How can they be broken down into three or four "parts?" I had hoped it would be easy for me to eyeball the parts. Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. Below is how I think the book probably should have been organized to be a little more easily digestible. 5 stars!
[I] WHY PRACTICE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?
1. Making the case
14. Promote thyself
8. Niche innovations
[II] HOW DOES SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING WORK?
10. Basics of social media content
12. Telling stories with words and images
5. Corporate soapboxes
4. Courting online influencers
6. Customer conversations
13. Engagement through interaction
3. Ear to the ground
9. Learning from conversations
16. Celebrating change
15. Measuring results
[III] SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING OPTIONS
2. Making choices
11. Picking your spot
7. The social network gorillasSecrets of Social Media Marketing: How to Use Online Conversations and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business OverviewSecrets of Social Media Marketing is a handbook for marketers and business owners to use in deciding how to employ the new social media for online marketing. Social media has quickly moved from the periphery of marketing into the forefront, but this is a new and quickly-evolving field and there are few established formulas for success. Building on the lessons set out in Gillin's acclaimed and oft-reviewed The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media, this book provides practical advice on strategy, tools, and tactics. It is a hands-on manual that will educate marketers on how to extend their brands, generate leads, and engage customer communities using online tools.

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The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media Review

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The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media ReviewIf your profession is learning and development, The New Social Learning is a must read.
Even if you are one of those people who are suspicious of social media or one who thinks social networking is a place for wasting time or if you think Twitter is a place where people tell you what they are eating for lunch, you will read the book and understand exactly how social learning is a new imperative for how we enable organizational learning. You will find this book to be a practical guide to implementing social learning in your organization.
At the end of each chapter, there is a list of common objections and how to overcome them. I found this to be the most useful part of the book. Just like a sales person needs to overcome objections from prospects, any organizational leader who intends to implement a new thing, must prepare for the inevitable objections that arise from the skeptics and curmudgeons. And there will be many. The list of objections and the ways to overcome them are, by themselves, worth the cost of your time to read this book.
The other idea that I infer this book is that people will learn what they want to learn when they want to learn it despite our best efforts to design and deliver training. Too many L&D professionals are hung up on the need to control the instructional design and training delivery process, believing that people simply do not learn properly, unless proper instruction is used in proper training delivery. Well this book is one step in the direction of proving that idea wrong. Our job is to not deliver instruction, but to enable people to learn what they need to learn to get their jobs done now.
Although the New Social Learning does not propose that instructional design and classroom training will be replaced (far from it), Tony and Marcia weave tales of company's that are using various elements of social and collaboration technologies to enable people to learn and most importantly grow and improve job performance....which is what this is all about in the first place.The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media OverviewMost business books on social media have focused exclusively on using it as a marketing tool. Many employers see it as simply a workplace distraction. But social media has the potential to revolutionize workplace learning. People have always learned best from one another—social media enables this to happen unrestricted by physical location and in all kinds of extraordinarily creative ways. The New Social Learning is the most authoritative guide available to leveraging these powerful new technologies.Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner explain why social media is the ideal solution to some of the most pressing educational challenges organizations face today, such as a widely dispersed workforce and striking differences in learning styles, particularly across genera-tions. They definitively answer common objections to using social media as a training tool and show how to win over even the most resistant employees. Then, using examples from a wide range of organizations—including Deloitte & Touche, IBM, TELUS, and even the CIA—Bingham and Conner help readers sort through the dizzying array of technological options available and decide when and how to use each one to achieve key strategic goals.Social media technologies—everything from 140-character "microsharing" messages to media-rich online communities to complete virtual environments and more—enable people to connect, collaborate, and innovate on levels never before dreamed of. They make learning dramatically more dynamic, stimulating, enjoyable, and effective. This greatly anticipated book helps organizations create a contemporary learning strategy that is as timely as it is transformative.

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Webify Your Business, Internet Marketing Secrets for the Self-Employed Review

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Webify Your Business, Internet Marketing Secrets for the Self-Employed ReviewAuthor Patrick Schwerdtfeger has created a gem, "Webify Your Business," for anyone wanting to gain a working knowledge of today's web. Schwerdtfeger has brilliantly provided a step-by-step, with each building on the other, program for taking full advantage of today's state-of-the-art web based tools. He provides excellent direction for defining a business model (to insure you really have a business) then delves into the effective use of the web to support the model.
The author outlines how to build a very effective website on a small budget, how to drive traffic to the site, and how to measure the site's effectiveness. He discusses in understandable language how to incorporate add-ons like email marketing and how to be involved the conversation. He covers the effective use of Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter, YouTube, groups, clubs and blogs.
"Webify Your Business" will serve as a great handbook for novices wanting to learn how to make productive use, for either social or business needs, of today's web. It will also serve as excellent reference book for users who have not yet made full use of the web's power and reach.
Schwerdtfeger has packed a lot in this 200 page book and has done so in way that all, regardless of skill level, will understand.Webify Your Business, Internet Marketing Secrets for the Self-Employed OverviewWebify Your Business, Internet Marketing Secrets for the Self-Employed offers a detailed marketing roadmap for entrepreneurs, small business owners, commission salespeople and service professionals who wish to grow their business online.The steps described in this book lay the foundation for an impressive and sophisticated internet presence.Today's professionals understand the internet offers tremendous business opportunities but they lack practical strategies to take action.Existing resources are too technical, too simplistic or too expensive.Meanwhile, new tech-savvy competitors steal customers from under their feet.For these professionals, online profits seem unattainable.Webify Your Business provides the solution.Short and concise chapters are presented in a deliberate and strategic sequence designed to maximize results.Each chapter can be read in 10 minutes or less and offers an itemized to-do list at the end, allowing the reader to take immediate action and see results quickly.

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Social Networking Spaces (Beginning) Review

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Social Networking Spaces (Beginning) ReviewThis book is a must for the majority of us who want to be involved in social media, but didn't grow up with peer groups to help us out. The book is written in an engaging, informal style that allows learning without needing to memorize each and every word. Each chapter has a brief intro that tells you specifically what you can hope to gain by going through that chapter. Each ends with a summary Q&A related to the chapter and author's conclusion (brief, usually only 2-4 paragraphs)
For the most part, the chapters/topics are self contained; you can read them in any order or you can go sequentially. Personally, I chose the one topic at a time route, using my learning interests in the field as a guide. At this point, I have read and reread a few of the chapters, and browsed the remaining ones that I have not yet "grown into".
Prior to starting the book, I had signed up for a Twitter account, but not done much of anything with it. However, since I was intrigued by the way some people/organizations were using this service, I decided to start in the Twitter chapters (6 and 7). This book was a major help in getting me started: through it, I learned how to post a profile picture and the basics of Twitter etiquette and how to link to other services I might want to work with, including my existing blog. I also learned about short URLs, a piece of knowledge that in and of itself may be worth the price of this book.
After reading the Twitter chapters, I went back and read through the forwards and Chapter 1. The actionable possibilities put forth in the first chapter are truly mind opening, but you almost need to dabble with some of the media in the rest of the book before it really strikes you. Suggestion: skim through Chapter 1, and come back to it after any time you have done some toe dipping in one of the later sections.
The two chapters on Blogging would be very helpful to the novice, particularly one who had little experience with any type of page set up experience. They take you through step by step how to set up a working blog on Google. At the time I read these chapters, I had started a blog on Wordpress and had already worked through some of the kinks of blog set up. However, some of the suggestions for further development in the Q&A and conclusions helped me to improve my blog.
The LinkedIn chapters were the next I gravitated to, and although I had had a LinkedIn account for several years (which I had perpetuated half heartedly), I learned several things about using LinkedIn and available features that have since helped me make my page more robust and join additional groups.
The Meetup Chapter was also a good refresher for this social media program that also has a real face to face component. Again, I had been a member of Meetup for 4-5 years, had actually been a member of several Meetup groups, yet still found that there were a few tricks about the site I had not previously taken advantage of.
The big test was Facebook. I had contemplated setting up my own Facebook page for awhile, but for a number of reasons, had put this action on hold. While undertaking an Emerging media class, the time now seemed right. Chapter 3 is a great examination of the "nuts and bolts" of Facebook for one who has never attempted this media before. I recommend it thoroughly for all newbies. (In fact, I just went back and viewed it again a few minutes ago, and found another option for messaging that I had not known existed.)
To take a slight detour here, I think that the above hits on one of the highly useful aspects of "Social Networking Spaces", namely that you won't absorb everything you read before you try, but you can always go back and check.
But back to Facebook....there are 3 other chapters on Facebook, and they are particularly useful to those who want to use this resource as more than a place to interact with your friends. If you want to tell your story (or someone else's) or find out if your business can benefit by using Facebook, these chapters are a must view.

I'm not yet ready for Flickr or Youtube (except as a viewer) or Ning or Virtual Worlds or some of the other topics covered by the author, but I'm sure that when I am ready, this book will be a great starting point.
Social Networking Spaces (Beginning) OverviewFacebook and Twitter are extremely popular tools for both personal communications and business use, and LinkedIn is fast becoming a requirement for business networking. This book not only explains how to use each of these tools, it also shows you how to integrate them and stay safe and secure while using them. It also addresses how to use these tools to communicate internationally, and it covers additional types of social networking via blogs and games.

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The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success Review

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The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success ReviewThis book is a good way to get familiar with online social tools. The author covers ways to use email, social networking tools and publishing tools. He has good information about establishing some goals and determining a strategy for meeting the goals. He also has a lot of useful references if you want to get more familiar with a particular topic.
I only gave it three stars for the following reasons:
- Too much coverage of the history of the internet, email, and web pages. If I was interested in that, I'd get a book on the history of the internet, email, and web pages.
- Misinformation on some tools, and missing information about other tools. For instance, the author mentions Joomla, a content management system that can be used to create websites and blogs. He mentions it in a way that may mislead people as to its uses when he states that it can pair with any number of applications. It might work with other applications, but that may require coding skills or money to pay someone to make them work together. He also ignores the multitude of other open source content management systems that are out there.
- A serious amount of repetition in sections one and two. A lot of what is stated in the second section is already in the first, so it added a few hundred pages without saying a whole lot.
This is a good book. It's less complete than the title suggests.
The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success OverviewThe Ultimate Guide To Social Media Marketing

The Social Media Bible will show you how to build or transform your business into a social media—enabled enterprise where customers, employees, and prospects connect, collaborate, and champion your products, your services, and your way of doing business.

Using the systematic approach presented in this comprehensive guide, you'll learn how to:
Increase your company and brand value by engaging people in new forms of communication, collaboration, education, and entertainment

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Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead Review

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Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead ReviewCharlene Li is one of the authors of Groundswell and that book helped set the stage for business use of social technologies. In Open Leadership, Li breaks away from her co-authors providing a discussion and examination of the social technology's impact on the enterprise in more detail. She enters a crowded world of recent social technology based books and adds value to the social technology conversation and less to the leadership conversation.
Overall this is a good book providing a starting point for people looking to understand what social technology is and what it may mean for the enterprise. However, the state of social technology has moved beyond naming names and describing solutions to understanding the tough decisions and executing plans to realize value in the enterprise. Li tries to take on these issues, but falls short, keeping this from being a great book. This is a four star social technology book and a two and a half star leadership book.
Open Leadership has more to say about social technology than a leadership or management. It spends most of its pages talking about social technologies and its implementations. The leadership aspects to this book are not unique to social technologies You can see this in terms of her new rules for open leadership
1.Respect that your customers and employees have power
2.Share constantly to build trust
3.Nurture curiosity and humility
4.Hold openness accountable
5.Forgive failure
These rules are important, but they are not unique to social technology. In fact similar rules have been the subject of management books for the last 15 years. It is not that these are wrong, or bad advice, but these are things that students of management and leadership already know.
I was looking for how one would use social technology to create open leadership and less about how social technology requires open leadership. Leaders should read this book, but more to get a sense of what others are doing, or can do with social technology than to see how their job and role changes in the enterprise.
STRENGTHS
The book is comprehensive covering a range of topics and questions. Li covers a wide swath of ground in social technology and the enterprise.
The book positions its discussion in multiple frameworks and classifications ranging from rules for open leadership, to types of leaders, to assessments and action plans. These are helpful to understand the issues and to coalesce the thinking described in the book.
The use of company examples and descriptions provide real life examples, which is good. The examples are from multiple industries, which is another plus. The case examples descriptive but do not provide sufficient depth for the reader to understand the issues they faced, the alternatives available and the reasons why they chose a particular course of action. Leaders need that depth of analysis as Li's recommendations seek to change their deeply held behaviors.
The book mentions a wide array of social technology solution providers, providing a market scan of what people are using and some of the benefits they are getting. This is helpful for right now, but the long-term value of these names will diminish over time.CHALLENGES
This book describes a first generation approach where companies use social technology as an overlay or channel for their existing marketing, sales and support activities. These first generation solutions are powerful and important, but they also do not fundamentally challenge what it means to be a leader or a manager - in large part because the solutions described do not change the fundamentals of the enterprise.
The tools in the book are understandable, straightforward and applicable to a broad audience. This is good but it can leave corporate executives with the impression that they are trivial for their situation. I know that the book has case examples from CISCO, Ford, Best Buy and others, but when you go to use the advice you use the tools not the stories. The business cases examples illustrate this point. They are hypothetical and in some cases double count benefits. They illustrate terrific returns on investment in percentage terms, but they do not show the tens of millions of dollars in benefits that would lead executives to consider changing their approaches.
The book distills leadership and management issues down into a set of policy upgrades that Li calls "sandbox covenants." It is a catchy idea and policy changes are important, but Li does not address leadership issues of organizational structure, business process, performance measurement, among others to make this a book about leadership. Omission of these leadership issues further reflects the use of social media at it inception as an overlay and channel rather than a deep force requiring reform and change across the enterprise.
The book's multiple frameworks, recommendations and chapter structure do not fit together as well as they could. It is as if Li is unsure of which argument to advance so the author provides multiple ones. Examples of this include the five rules and the overall chapter structure - they are similar in some areas but not in others. The major themes form the case studies in the last chapter do not connect to the rules, or the other aspects of the book. This is understandable given the breadth the author is trying to cover, but it detracts from the impact of the book as its always telling me new things that are loosely related with the old.
OVERALL
You may think that I dislike this book. I don't.
It's a good book and one that you will benefit from reading. But, this is much more of a book about social technology than about leadership and management. If in this review, your feel that I have been too critical, then please accept my apology as it is not my intent to do so. Given the exploding number of books out on social technology and the limited reading time we all have, I thought that it would be better to be clear about this book's content and strengths which fall more in the area of social technology than leadership or management.
If you are new to social technology, I recommend this book over Groundswell, as the state of the art has advanced and this book provides a good overview of where people stand in terms of social technology. It is a four star book in terms of social technology.
If you are a student of social technology, then you can read this book to learn more, but do not expect to learn a great deal more about changes in leadership or management. It is a two and half star book about leadership.
If you are a manager looking to learn more about social technology, how it changes your job etc. Then you can read this book as well, but know its limitations.Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead Overview

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Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day Review

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Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day Review
I loved this book. Over the past year or so I have read quite a number of tomes regarding social media and social media marketing, but none until this one have been written in a planner or workbook format. This one is well written, well organized, and full of content. It has 14 chapters split into the following four parts or sections:
I. The Foundation of Social Media
II. Month 1: Prepare for Social Marketing
III. Month 2: Social Media Channels
IV. Month 3: Complete Your Plan
Two books similar to this one on how to put together a business plan are: "16 Weeks to Your Dream Business" (ISBN: 9780071588362, and "Self Employment: From Dream to Reality" (ISBN: 1563709228). And a book similar to this one on how to put together a fundraising plan is: "The Fundraising Planner" (ISBN: 0787944351). The instant book being reviewed touches on the marketing issues of social media, and then devises a systematic approach to putting together a social media marketing plan customized to your small business.
Each of the 14 chapters ended with a summary section. I found it very easy to cruise through this book by first reading the summary sections and then tackling the rest of the book after having a pretty good idea of what was being covered.
After reading this book you will have devised a social media marketing plan that addresses (1) platform, (2) content, and (3) interaction. You will have decided whether to use Technorati, MySpace, Socialvibe, Flickr, Facebook, Friendster, Linkedin, and/or YouTube. Technorati is the tunnel through which to learn more about the blog or blogs you will create.
So if you want to tap into the power of the Social Web through connected networks and consumer-oriented media, then I recommend this book as one of the tomes you seek out and read in order to build your company's social media marketing plan. 5 stars!
PS. Take a look at the Search Inside feature at Amazon for this book. There you can access the book's Table of Contents and see exactly what is covered.Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day OverviewIf the idea of starting a social media marketing campaign overwhelms you, the author of Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day will introduce you to the basics, demonstrate how to manage details and describe how you can track results. Case studies, step-by-step guides, checklists, quizzes and hands-on tutorials will help you execute a social media marketing campaign in just one hour a day. In addition, learn how to integrate social media metrics with traditional media measurements and how to leverage blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts, and user-generated content sharing sites like YouTube.

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Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a Connected World Review

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Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a Connected World ReviewIntended to be an introduction and guide to the application of social network analysis (SNA) to the realm of social media, readers interested in how we can use methodologies of SNA and mathematical applications of graph and networking theory, to analyze the social media networks that form when individuals link-up or respond to each other, will want to purchase and study this book.
First, some background notes. This book has its roots in the work of an organization that has received generous funding support from Microsoft, called The Social Media Research Foundation. The Foundation has made significant progress in the development of open tools and open data sets for the purpose of encouraging open scholarship in the realm of social media and worked hard to develop tools that allow for better visualization and analysis of such widely used services as email, Wikis, Twitter, flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and the World Wide Web (WWW).
However, tracking content flowing through social media can be like trying to drink from an open fire hose. Realizing this, the Foundation began to focus resources and personnel on efforts to utilize ideas from the social sciences to follow the "social media swarm" of comments, favorites, product tags, ratings and links, in order to discern the key words, individuals and topics being communicated here and there. One of the tangible results of their work is the Foundation's release of a free and open product referred to as "NodeXL." The application itself is "a spreadsheet add-in," that is designed to support macro-views of networks for the purpose of "discovery and exploration." The Microsoft-funded research team built this tool to fit inside the user's copy of Excel in either Office 2007or 2010.
Does it work? Well, users say that it "makes the creation of social network maps as easy as making a pie chart."
Users can use NodeXL to make maps of public social media conversations based upon topics that matter to them. These maps of connections between people who mention a product, or a brand or some other key word or phrase, can reveal to users key positions and clusters in the crowded social networks. In this manner, users can zero-in on individuals who discuss a topic as they appear to be the "center" of the display and often are one of the key and influential members of the population being analyzed as well as have the ability to measure changes over time.
With small and multinational businesses alike, entrepreneurs, private individuals, and State and Federal government agencies all looking to SNA tools for help in discerning trends, networking connections, and changes in social media interactions, Microsoft's NodeXL free, open-source plug-in for use with Excel provides users with instant graphical representations of the relationships that exist between complex networked data. This is an obvious breakthrough for researchers, students and end-users alike who seek to study and understand visual and network analytics and develop applications useful in the real world.
Still interested? Then, this is a book for you - as members of the application development teams present readers with good overview case studies and how-to explanations regarding the developments behind each NodeXL application feature. Here's the table-of-contents to whet your interest:
I. Getting Started with Analyzing Social Media Networks
1. Introduction to Social Media and Social Networks
2. Social media: New Technologies of Collaboration
3. Social Network Analysis: Measuring, Mapping, and Modeling Collections of Connections
II. NodeXL Tutorial: Learning by Doing
4. Getting Started with NodeXL, Layout, Visual Design, and Labeling
5. Calculating and Visualizing Network Metrics
6. Preparing Data and Filtering
7. Clustering and Grouping
III Social Media Network Analysis Case Studies
8. Email: The Lifeblood of Modern Communication
9. Thread Networks: Mapping Message Boards and Email Lists
10. Twitter: Conversation, Entertainment, and Information, All in One Network!
11. Visualizing and Interpreting Facebook Networks
12. WWW Hyperlink Networks
13. Flickr: Linking People, Photos, and Tags
14. YouTube: Contrasting Patterns of Interaction and Prominence
15. Wiki Networks: Connections of Creativity and Collaboration
Appendix- NodeXL for Programmers
Principal authors are - from the University of Maryland - Derek L. Hansen of the iSchool and Ben Shneiderman of the Department of Computer Science and with Marc A. Smith, a sociologist, that is presently Chief Social Scientist with the Connected Action Consulting Group in Silicon Valley, California.
Highly recommended for college and university library collections, and readers interested in methodologies used to better understand the social networks permeating our personal and professional lives.
R. Neil Scott, MBA/MSLS
Middle Tennessee State University
Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a Connected World Overview
Businesses, entrepreneurs, individuals, and government agencies alike are looking to social network analysis (SNA) tools for insight into trends, connections, and fluctuations in social media. Microsoft's NodeXL is a free, open-source SNA plug-in for use with Excel. It provides instant graphical representation of relationships of complex networked data. But it goes further than other SNA tools -- NodeXL was developed by a multidisciplinary team of experts that bring together information studies, computer science, sociology, human-computer interaction, and over 20 years of visual analytic theory and information visualization into a simple tool anyone can use. This makes NodeXL of interest not only to end-users but also to researchers and students studying visual and network analytics and their application in the real world.

In Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL, members of the NodeXL development team up to provide readers with a thorough and practical guide for using the tool while also explaining the development behind each feature. Blending the theoretical with the practical, this book applies specific SNA instructions directly to NodeXL, but the theory behind the implementation can be applied to any SNA.

To learn more about Analyzing Social Media Networks and NodeXL, visit thecompanion siteat www.mkp.com/nodexl

*Walks you through NodeXL, while explaining the theory and development behind each step, providing takeaways that can apply to any SNA

*Demonstrates how visual analytics research can be applied to SNA tools for the mass market

*Includes case studies from researchers who use NodeXL on popular networks like email, Facebook, Twitter, and wikis


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Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business Review

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Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business ReviewQualman insightfully advises companies to patiently build relationships with customers through social media, rather than instantly getting a customer's name and e-mail address into its database. "Good businesses realize that it's not all about the instant win of getting someone into a database," he says. "Rather it is cultivating that relationship via social media. If it's done correctly, you will have a relationship that lasts a lifetime." Throughout the book he tries, but doesn't quite succeed, to show how to "correctly" cultivate such relationships.
Another insight: He says on page 111 that marketers will need to create content (news, entertainment, and how-to information, for example) for their websites, not just advertising messages.
Unfortunately, insights like those are few and far between.
Qualman's platitudinous premise is stated in the introduction, and again in the conclusion:
"It's all about the economy, stupid. No, it's all about a people-driven economy, stupid. If anything, I hope that you have learned this from reading this book."
(In the introduction, Qualman explained that the phrase "It's the economy, stupid" was coined in 1992 by James Carville, Bill Clinton's campaign manager. Qualman merely "adjusted" that phrase to create the book's alleged premise.)
After reading the book, I still don't have the slightest idea how the "people-driven economy" differs from "the economy." Or what the adjusted phrase means.
This book is full of superficial anecdotes and miniscule case studies, platitudes and generalizations, unsupported opinions, idle speculation, specious claims, inconsistent style, imprecise language, typos, and bad punctuation.
In some of Qualman's examples, I couldn't tell whether the facts were real or hypothetical. In many of the micro-case studies, he shows how a company accomplished a certain objective through social media, but does not establish that the objectives could not have been accomplished more cost-effectively through other marketing channels.
He describes the case of Dancing Matt--about Matt Harding, who filmed himself dancing around the world and put his videos on YouTube. The videos were hugely popular, so Stride Gum sponsored his further travels and video production. Stride exercised restraint and placed its logo discreetly at the end of the video (in the post roll). Qualman claims Stride earned "millions of dollars in brand equity," but does not support that claim with any data or sources. Is it his own guesstimate, or did the company tell him it earned "millions"? No clue.
He claims that social media activities "connect parents to their kids like never before." He offers no source, data, or study to support that statement, and he is clearly not qualified to offer that opinion.
Regarding microblogging, he says, "What once took place only periodically around the watercooler [sic] is now happening in real time." Huh? What can be more real-time than water cooler conversations?
He says (on page 52) that micro-blogging functions as a kind of log that you can look back on--at the end of a day or week or month--and review your posts and updates. "It's extremely enlightening because it shows you how you are spending what precious time you have." Ah, yes, it's not only improving the way parents relate to their kids, it's therapeutic as well.
As a downside of social media, he says, Generation Y and Z [are having] difficulty with face-to-face conversations." No support for that claim. Is that his personal observation? He's a marketer, not a sociologist.
He says that staying connected, through social media, to the people who elected Obama president will be the "key to his success as president." The key!
He says social media "allows for a government to be more in tune with the country and to truly run as a democracy by stripping away the politics and getting to the core of what matters." Uh huh.
He recites marketing platitudes that have been true for decades or centuries, but treats them as though social media makes them especially true. An example: "Companies that produce great products and services...will be winners in the socialnomic world."
Here is an example of idle speculation. Qualman uses an example involving NBC's failure to put its 2008 Olympics coverage online in certain circumstances. "Most likely, NBC and their advertisers...were judging themselves using old metrics..." Sorry, you can't prove a point with a "most likely." Qualman could have contacted NBC's marketing department and asked them why they didn't. But that would have required real journalism.
Regarding the concept of network neutrality (although he doesn't use that phrase), Qualman says that if Internet service providers start charging for usage ("per stream") rather than a fixed monthly fee, that would be "malicious."
Qualman devotes almost five pages (perhaps the longest case study in the book) to the Scrabulous case, where the Agarwalla brothers created an online game similar to Scrabble, which they called Scrabulous and which attracted 500,000 daily users at its peak. Hasbro, owner of the Scrabble brand, issued a cease-and-desist letter and pushed Scrabulous off the web. Qualman excoriates Hasbro for being heavy-handed in the case, and he quotes several other marketing professionals who likewise criticize Hasbro for being short-sighted. Yet Qualman presents not a single quote or statement from Hasbro, nor does he speculate as to why Hasbro's believed its legal action was necessary.
I could go on, but you get the point.Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business OverviewPraise for Socialnomics
"It's obvious that Erik Qualman's passion is social media."—Dan Heath, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Made to Stick and Switch
"People are hot for social media . . . Erik Qualman says it's about listening first, then selling."—Forbes
"Erik Qualman has been doing his homework on the social media phenomenon."—The Huffington Post
"This is a must-read for anyone trying to leverage the social graph rather than be squashed by it."—Steve Kaufer, CEO, TripAdvisor
"You learn a lot about someone from how they treat their moms. Erik is a trustworthy guy."—Chris Brogan, New York Times bestselling author of Trust Agents and Social Media 101
"Qualman is to social media what Demming is to quality and Drucker to management."—Scott Galloway, Professor, Stern School of Business, NYU
The newly revised and updated guide to the social media revolution!
Welcome to the world of Socialnomics—where consumers and the societies they create online have profound effects on our economy and the businesses that operate within it. Online word of mouth, social search, social commerce, and the influence of peer groups are making traditional marketing strategies obsolete. As a result, we no longer have a choice on whether we do social media; the question is how well we do it.
Join Erik Qualman in Socialnomics for a fascinating look at the business implications of social media, and tap its considerable power to increase sales, cut marketing costs, and communicate directly with consumers.

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