Bugzappy's Blog » book reviews

Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications

bugzappy — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:06:28 +0000

Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications, Toby Segaran, O’Reilly August 2007

I can’t tell how meaningful to real-world ‘collective intelligence’ software this book is, for lack of deep experience on the topic; but the techniques which I already knew of (e.g. Genetic Algorithms) are presented with sufficient detail and properly put in context. At the very least it’s a nice overview of what is — according to the book – going on “under the hood” at many large web2.0 websites.

Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations

bugzappy — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:03:23 +0000

Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations, Amy Shuen, O’Reilly August 2008

Based on the stories of Google and others, this book answers the question ‘how does web 2.0 economics work and how to generate profits within it. >> highly recommended <<

Intellectual Property and Open Source: A Practical Guide to Protecting Code

bugzappy — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:30:27 +0000

Intellectual Property and Open Source: A Practical Guide to Protecting Code, Van Lindberg, O’Reilly, July 2008

The first few chapters cover intellectual property principles from the ground up: patents, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks. For someone who knew some of these concepts better than others, it was a useful recap. Some typical software IP litigation cases are covered, enough to understand how the 4 types of IP can play out in the real world. Lastly the legal principles behind open-source licenses, and distinctions between the most popular of them, are presented. What I found lacking in the book is some form a strategic advice for protecting various types of software assets, for a software startup.