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Practical Internet Groupware

By Jon Udell
First Edition
Pages: 521 (More details)
(Average of 2 Customer Reviews)

This book is out of print, but is available on Safari Bookshelf.

Book description

This revolutionary book tells users, programmers, IS managers, and system administrators how to build Internet groupware applications that organize the casual and chaotic transmission of online information into useful, disciplined, and documented data.
Full Description

Collaboration. From its academic roots to the bustling commerce sites of today, the Internet has always been about collaboration: providing a means for people to communicate and work together effectively. But how do you build effective tools for collaboration? How do you build tools that are simple enough for people to really use, yet powerful enough to really facilitate collaboration? In 1995 Jon Udell became executive editor for new media at BYTE magazine, taking on the challenge of building an online presence for a traditional print publication. In meeting this challenge, he discovered that he was managing an online community, not just an online publication. He discovered that he was building not just a set of documents, but a suite of Internet-based groupware applications in which editors, writers, and readers all participated. Practical Internet Groupware details the lessons learned from that experience. Drawn from the author's real world experience, Practical Internet Groupware describes the tools and technologies for building and rapidly deploying groupware applications, and also discusses the design philosophy and usability issues that determine the success or failure of any groupware endeavor. The key to success lies in using simple tools, often open source, that effectively blend in established Internet technologies that have always had a collaborative aspect (SMTP, NNTP) with new technologies that enhance our ability to manage collaborative documents (HTTP, XML). The result is an approach that codifies the idea that many web content providers have long suspected: yesterday's online content is fast becoming tomorrow's network-based applications. In this book you'll learn how to:

Base groupware on standard Internet technologies (mail servers, news servers, and web servers)
Use simple server- and client-side scripts to automate creation, presentation, transmission, and search of electronic documents
Create a base of documents that contain semi-structured data representing much of the intellectual capital of an enterprise
Deploy these solutions in a way that scales from groups of a few collaborators to communities of thousands of users

If you've ever been disappointed watching a commercial groupware system used as little more than an expensive email client, or if you've ever wondered how to transform simple email, news, or web clients from document viewers into collaboration tools, then Practical Internet Groupware is for you.

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Book details

Title: Practical Internet Groupware
First Edition:
ISBN: 1-56592-537-8
Pages: 521
Average Customer Reviews: (Based on 2 Reviews)

Featured customer reviews

Practical Internet Groupware Review 1999-12-01 00:00:00 Kevin McDermott [Reply | View]

An amazing text.

This is a book that has opened my eyes to many of the things that I was already doing, and codified them.

Plenty of practical theory, some code (not pages to wade through).

And IDEAS, loads of them.

I couldn't recommend this book highly enough.

Thanks Jon!

Practical Internet Groupware Review 1998-11-27 00:00:00 Anthony R. Thompson [Reply | View]

This is an excellent book. When I first encountered it I wasn't really impressed by the title since I doubted someone could say anything new or interesting the ancient Usenet. Sometime later, though, I read Tim O'Reilly's review in his "Ask Tim" column (see http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/pracintgr_preface.html for the article). Tim recommended it so highly that I picked it up the next time I hit the bookstore. I'm very glad I did because Jon Udell has done a great job of looking at modern groupware concepts and applications, while also giving intelligent treatment to the historical roots of groupware in systems like Usenet.

This isn't a book about Usenet, or Lotus Notes, or any specific groupware product. It is about building and maintining modern groupware systems, and it examines this topic from a variety of conceptual and practical angles. As Kevin said, the book provides a lot of ideas--good ones. Many of the ideas are so wonderful because Jon always keeps an eye on the future, and provides advice toware ensuring that groupware systems use the best of current technology (e.g., XML) but still remain flexible for future developments. If you manage discussion forums of any kind, or are considering doing so, I recommend that you pick this book up.

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