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Pro Web 2.0 Mashups

<img src="/images/uploads/2008/01/promashupcover.jpg’ alt=‘Pro Web 2.0 Mashups’ class=“alignright” />I just finished technical review on a new book due out next month from Apress called Pro Web 2.0 Mashups: Remixing Data and Web Services. (A technical reviewer basically just makes sure all of the examples work and that the technical stuff the author writes is correct and provides evaluations of the text from a technical viewpoint as the book is written.)

Anyway, it’s an interesting book about remixing and mashing up data from multiple online services via APIs. But one of the coolest things about the book—are you ready for this?—the author, Raymond Yee, and publisher have agreed to release it under a Creative Commons Non-commercial Share-Alike license! In addition, the draft of every chapter is available online right now and the published version will be available shortly. It’s practically an open-source book.

I’ve already been paid for my work on the book but I still feel too close to it to be able to give an unbiased review. But who needs a review? Go check out the book yourself and if you like it please show your support for openness and buy a copy when it hits Amazon.

Comments

  1. Thomas on 2008-01-22 22:06:44 wrote: I was at a media conference a few months ago and attended several panels on Creative Commons. I’m constantly amazed that most people in the business end of conventional media, specifically in print media, cannot wrap their heads around the idea of free information. I’ve heard dozens of people of that persuasion assert that Creative Commons, GPL, etc, are the result of an intellectual fad and will fade away as soon as their innate anti-profitability is fully realized. They’re really missing the point.

  2. Raymond Yee on 2008-01-23 10:33:15 wrote: John – thanks for the plug for my book and for the excellent technical reviewing you did on it. I’m grateful to Apress for its willingness to publish books under open licenses. See other examples of Apress books freely available online: http://www.diveintopython.org/ and http://djangobook.com/ For many computer books such as mine, it makes a ton of sense for open it all up. If the book is any good (which, of course, I do believe it is), then serious readers will want to buy a print version. I myself buy quite a few book which I could already access digitally. But there is nothing like being able to curl up with a book to learn a subject. At the same time, once you want to work with the examples in the book, there’s nothing like having it online. Moreover, since my book is about a fast changing subject, I would like to have a fast changing medium to track it. Putting the book out in digital form for remixing, I hope, will help. Finally, I hope that the book will prove useful enough to lots of people that the content will worked into the rest of the Web. What else can an author of a book on mashups hope for – in addition to be some royalties from his book? :-)

  3. About the Technical Reviewer | flagrantdisregard on 2008-02-28 19:01:03 wrote: […] my copy today of the Pro Web 2.0 Mashups book I did the technical review for. Always neat to see something you’ve worked on become real. […]