Financing Your Site Offering Premium and Freemium Models Marketing Achieving and Managing Critical Mass 363 Arriving with Context 365 Considering Contact Import APIs and Their Importance Using Tools and Services for Launch and Support 367 Nurturing the First Few Hundred Users Encouraging Your Community Evolving Your Site 370 Remaining in Beta 370 Balancing Feature Requests and Issue Management 370 lding Functionality 371 Build Something New or Refine the old? 371 Adding Functionality After Refining Watching for What Your Community Demands Keeping Up with the Competition (or Not) 376 Avoiding Feature-Led Development Encouraging Data-Supported Development Making Useful Products(Experience-Led) Determining When a Bug Is a Bug Planning for Redesigns and Refactoring Establishing the Rhythm of Your Evolving Application 382 I Table of Contents
Financing Your Site 361 Offering Premium and Freemium Models 362 Marketing 363 Achieving and Managing Critical Mass 363 Arriving with Context 365 Considering Contact Import APIs and Their Importance 367 Using Tools and Services for Launch and Support 367 Nurturing the First Few Hundred Users 367 Encouraging Your Community 368 Evolving Your Site 370 Remaining in Beta 370 Balancing Feature Requests and Issue Management 370 Adding Functionality 371 Build Something New or Refine the Old? 371 Adding Functionality After Refining 372 Watching for What Your Community Demands 373 Keeping Up with the Competition (or Not) 376 Avoiding Feature-Led Development 377 Encouraging Data-Supported Development 378 Making Useful Products (Experience-Led) 379 Determining When a Bug Is a Bug 380 Staying Focused and Coherent 381 Planning for Redesigns and Refactoring 382 Establishing the Rhythm of Your Evolving Application 382 Summary 383 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385 xvi | Table of Contents
Preface Over the past decade, the Web has become an increasingly social place. Social activity has moved beyond message boards to become a wider part of the Internet. Most people have heard of Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter; indeed, many people now have a profile on a social network. The term social media is part of our lives for better or for worse, and expressions such as citizen journalism are commonplace. Facebook alone has more than 200 million registered people. What is different in this new world? People will come to you with a prior existence; they are on the Web already You need to recognize and incorporate this change into your design and development processes. Your website needs to offer something genuinely useful and become a home away from home for your community; the people coming to your site need to feel comfortable talking to other people there and keen to come back for more. This book is about making applications in this new Web, frequently referred to as Web 2.0. Much heat and light(and a lot of hot air) have been spent on defining exactly what Web 2.0 is, but this book will focus on the social web. Over these 18 chapters, we 'll look at designing systems that support social human behaviors. I'll be using terms such as social software and community to describe what we are building and to reinforce the idea that there are people out there, beyond the servers Design As the Primary Approach This is primarily a"design is how it works"book, based on my experience as an inter action designer and product manager. The hardest part of creating a social application happens before any code is written. Understanding human behavior and creating something that fits in and perhaps changes current behavior is a tough nut to crack There will be plenty of technical discussion later in the book, too. This book will show you how the Web is changing, as well as some emerging patterns for widespread social interaction, where individuals act as a composite person across dozens of sites on the social w http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/04/active-facebook-tsers-by-country-200904.html
Preface Over the past decade, the Web has become an increasingly social place. Social activity has moved beyond message boards to become a wider part of the Internet. Most people have heard of Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter; indeed, many people now have a profile on a social network. The term social media is part of our lives for better or for worse, and expressions such as citizen journalism are commonplace. Facebook alone has more than 200 million registered people.* What is different in this new world? People will come to you with a prior existence; they are on the Web already. You need to recognize and incorporate this change into your design and development processes. Your website needs to offer something genuinely useful and become a home away from home for your community; the people coming to your site need to feel comfortable talking to other people there and keen to come back for more. This book is about making applications in this new Web, frequently referred to as Web 2.0. Much heat and light (and a lot of hot air) have been spent on defining exactly what Web 2.0 is, but this book will focus on the social web. Over these 18 chapters, we’ll look at designing systems that support social human behaviors. I’ll be using terms such as social software and community to describe what we are building and to reinforce the idea that there are people out there, beyond the servers. Design As the Primary Approach This is primarily a “design is how it works” book, based on my experience as an interaction designer and product manager. The hardest part of creating a social application happens before any code is written. Understanding human behavior and creating something that fits in and perhaps changes current behavior is a tough nut to crack. There will be plenty of technical discussion later in the book, too. This book will show you how the Web is changing, as well as some emerging patterns for widespread social interaction, where individuals act as a composite person across dozens of sites on the social web. * http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/04/active-facebook-users-by-country-200904.html xvii
Who this book ls for The book is aimed primarily at developers and designers(of all kinds: product,inter action, and visual), as well as project managers and editorial staff members. These are the people who will be implementing and running the actual product. If you are already running a web community, perhaps as a community manager or a developer evangelist this book will help you figure out how to extend the functionality of your site to make the most of your community. If you have one of the many other roles involved in making a web company tick-business owner, web producer, marketing, or editoriak-this book will help you understand the issues involved in bringing people to your website Who this book ls not for I hope this book has something to offer most people who are considering building a social web application. However, I should give you an idea of what you will not find in these pages. If you are looking for detailed code examples of how to implement the various features in social web applications, this book is not for you; it is deliberately light on code samples. Languages and frameworks rise and fall in popularity, and I'm i Ot a regular software developer. So, rather than include a load of code I didnt write poke to a range of active software developers and included their thoughts throughout the book What You'll learn There are dozens of decisions you will need to make before you can launch your new feature or site. This book aims to help with the ones that fall between project manage ment,design, and development. These are the decisions that derive the essence of the product you are making, but there is no single group of people that makes them. The title of this book deliberately focuses on the application side of building things for the Web. Websites are gaining application programming interfaces(APIs)and a means of data exchange, so they are becoming more application like and less a collection of pages The Web is important, but it is not all-encompassing(for most people). You need to see your website in the context of people's lives, not the other way around. Building social software focuses mainly on human behavior and expectations and less on tech nical issues, so there is not a lot of code in this book. Reading this book will challenge you with a wide range of questions about the site that you have or are planning. An- swering these questions will enable you to build an appropriate product that fits well into people's lives. This book will help you articulate and quantify some critical things I Preface
Who This Book Is For The book is aimed primarily at developers and designers (of all kinds: product, interaction, and visual), as well as project managers and editorial staff members. These are the people who will be implementing and running the actual product. If you are already running a web community, perhaps as a community manager or a developer evangelist, this book will help you figure out how to extend the functionality of your site to make the most of your community. If you have one of the many other roles involved in making a web company tick—business owner, web producer, marketing, or editorial—this book will help you understand the issues involved in bringing people to your website. Who This Book Is Not For I hope this book has something to offer most people who are considering building a social web application. However, I should give you an idea of what you will not find in these pages. If you are looking for detailed code examples of how to implement the various features in social web applications, this book is not for you; it is deliberately light on code samples. Languages and frameworks rise and fall in popularity, and I’m not a regular software developer. So, rather than include a load of code I didn’t write, I spoke to a range of active software developers and included their thoughts throughout the book. What You’ll Learn There are dozens of decisions you will need to make before you can launch your new feature or site. This book aims to help with the ones that fall between project management, design, and development. These are the decisions that derive the essence of the product you are making, but there is no single group of people that makes them. The title of this book deliberately focuses on the application side of building things for the Web. Websites are gaining application programming interfaces (APIs) and a means of data exchange, so they are becoming more application-like and less a collection of pages. The Web is important, but it is not all-encompassing (for most people). You need to see your website in the context of people’s lives, not the other way around. Building social software focuses mainly on human behavior and expectations and less on technical issues, so there is not a lot of code in this book. Reading this book will challenge you with a wide range of questions about the site that you have or are planning. Answering these questions will enable you to build an appropriate product that fits well into people’s lives. This book will help you articulate and quantify some critical things: xviii | Preface
How to go about creating the product-the vital initial planning phase How to figure out what to make first and what you are actually making How to model the relationships between yourself and the people on your site, as well as their independent relationships to one another How to represent these relationships in ways that feel right for your audience Understanding how your website interacts with the rest of the Web, how to make these connections stronger, and why this is a good idea How to implement these ideas in code, and the issues you will need to deal with when iterating your site after launch Why having an API is important for your site Why simple feature-for-feature copying of another site often fails You must know how to do the following things in order to encourage a devoted Build something that people will use · Make them feel at home · Give them ownership · Track then Let them follow what is happening on the site · Know what to build next I can't guarantee that reading this book will allow you to create the next Flickr or Facebook, but you will understand what made those sites a success, as well as how to apply those ideas and nuances to your own area. How This book ls Organized Chapters 1 through 8 set out a series of questions for you to answer so that you can plan and build a good website. Chapters 9 through 18 are more practical, exploring how social software works and how to create and manage your own social application Typographical Conventions Used in This Book The following typographical conventions are used in this book: italic Indicates new terms, URIs, email addresses, filenames, file extensions, pathnames and directories Preface
• How to go about creating the product—the vital initial planning phase • How to figure out what to make first and what you are actually making • How to model the relationships between yourself and the people on your site, as well as their independent relationships to one another • How to represent these relationships in ways that feel right for your audience • Understanding how your website interacts with the rest of the Web, how to make these connections stronger, and why this is a good idea • How to implement these ideas in code, and the issues you will need to deal with when iterating your site after launch • Why having an API is important for your site • Why simple feature-for-feature copying of another site often fails You must know how to do the following things in order to encourage a devoted community: • Build something that people will use • Make them feel at home • Give them ownership • Track them • Let them follow what is happening on the site • Know what to build next I can’t guarantee that reading this book will allow you to create the next Flickr or Facebook, but you will understand what made those sites a success, as well as how to apply those ideas and nuances to your own area. How This Book Is Organized Chapters 1 through 8 set out a series of questions for you to answer so that you can plan and build a good website. Chapters 9 through 18 are more practical, exploring how social software works and how to create and manage your own social application. Typographical Conventions Used in This Book The following typographical conventions are used in this book: Italic Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, and directories Preface | xix
Constant width Indicates code, text output from executing scripts, XML tags, HTML tags, and the contents of files This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general note This icon signifies a warning or caution. Safario books online Safari? Satar Books Online is an on-demand digital hbrary that lets you easily find the answers you need quickly With a subscription, you can read any page and watch any video from our library online Read books on your cell phone and mobile devices. Access new titles before they are available for print, and get exclusive access to manuscripts in development and post feedback for the authors. Copy and paste code samples, organize your favorites, down load chapters, bookmark key sections, create notes, print out pages, and benefit from tons of other time-saving feature O'Reilly media has uploaded this book to the Safari Books Online service. To have full digital access to this book and others on similar topics from O'reilly and other pub lishers,signupforfreeathttp://my.safaribooksonline.com We'd like to hear from you Please address comments and questions concerning this book to the publisher O'Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North Sebastopol, CA 95472 800-998-9938(in the United States or Canada) 707-829-0515(international or local) 07-829-0104(fax) We have a web page for this book, where we list errata, examples, and any additional information. You can access this page at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596518752 xx Preface
Constant width Indicates code, text output from executing scripts, XML tags, HTML tags, and the contents of files This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general note. This icon signifies a warning or caution. Safari® Books Online Safari Books Online is an on-demand digital library that lets you easily search over 7,500 technology and creative reference books and videos to find the answers you need quickly. With a subscription, you can read any page and watch any video from our library online. Read books on your cell phone and mobile devices. Access new titles before they are available for print, and get exclusive access to manuscripts in development and post feedback for the authors. Copy and paste code samples, organize your favorites, download chapters, bookmark key sections, create notes, print out pages, and benefit from tons of other time-saving features. O’Reilly Media has uploaded this book to the Safari Books Online service. To have full digital access to this book and others on similar topics from O’Reilly and other publishers, sign up for free at http://my.safaribooksonline.com. We’d Like to Hear from You Please address comments and questions concerning this book to the publisher: O’Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North Sebastopol, CA 95472 800-998-9938 (in the United States or Canada) 707-829-0515 (international or local) 707-829-0104 (fax) We have a web page for this book, where we list errata, examples, and any additional information. You can access this page at: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596518752 xx | Preface