Product Description
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Omega-class destroyer is a fictional vessel used by Earthforce, the military branch of the Earth Alliance, in the science fiction television series Babylon 5. The CGI model of the ship created through an early version of Lightwave made its first appearance during the opening scene of the opening episode of the second season, "Points Of Departure", which was initially aired in the United states on the 2nd of November 1994. It also appears in the later, and short lived, Crusade television series, the TV movies A Call to Arms and In the Beginning as well as the The Lost Tales (the first in a now aborted due to funding issues anthology series which were to be released on DVD) plus a number of written short stories and novels based in the same Fictional universe. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Profoundly Disappointing
It is profoundly disappointing that Amazon.com would sell books from Lambert M. Surhone, Miriam T. Timpledon, and Susan F. Marseken. Surhone, Timpledon, and Marseken's books consist entirely of information copied from loosely related Wikipedia articles without consent or credit. These alleged editors have 18,247 books credited to them. It strains credibility that anyone could edit so many books while maintaining any semblance of quality. Amazon.com should immediately withdraw these books from sale. Avoid these books.

Unauthorized
This book is unauthorized and was produced without consent of the show's creator.It's just a printout of Wikipedia articles, actually so save your money.
... Read more

Product Description
This little itty bitty art book is a wonderful handpicked selection of sims style 3D art from artists on all
four corners of the globe! Compiled by itty bitty art book guru Kelly P. Stedman the collection contains
fashion art topics. The images in the collection will show up in all their vibrant colors on Kindle PC and
certain cell phone handset applications. Will be greyscale on Kindle hand unit.
[MySims, SimCity, SimAnimals etc. are © Electronic Arts Inc. EA, the EA logo, MySims, and the MySims logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.] ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (25)

A Incredible surprise and a learning trip
I must confess that Jono Bacon actually caught me by surprise. While I was following the creation process of the book (O'Reilly invited UG leaders to send feedback) I could have never imagined I would one day have something so useful for someone who deals with communities on a day to day basis. In this universe Jono is a well known figure, with vast experience in managing and participating in online communities, which credits him as a perfect candidate to write a book like this one.

A book about how to manage and live amongst virtual communities has all the elements to be a boring book full of "do's and don't's", in summary a very repetitive and unpleasant book. However Jono proves his understanding of the communication channels (important part of any community) right off the bat in the book's introduction. Here he showcases his writing strategy, *telling personal experiences*. Building on top of this premise the author goes throughout the book presenting us with new concepts or strategies and following it up with a real life example from his and others' experience in communities. This makes the book a delightful read, easy and flowing, the kind of book you can pickup anywhere and have fun while you plow through the pages, perfect for the everyday life of lines and waiting. I recommend loading it up on your e-reader if you got one.

The book is incredibly broad and valid for numerous roles inside every community, from managers to members, volunteers, to the regular Open Source developer. Each level of the community stands to gain from this book and even people who work with or use the community, such as marketing people, and activists who need to learn how to communicate and win-over the communities. Each chapter dives into a different and fundamental aspect, like communication, building buzz, measuring, events and handling conflicts.

Anyone who has ever managed a community and looks at this table of contents will surely have a few flashbacks of various moments in their experience, I know I for one identified myself in quite a few situations, from my motivation to participate in the PHP community to the conflicts and the experience of contributing to Open Source. I usually like to give more details of each chapter when I do reviews like this one, but in this case that feels like I would be cheating the reader from the amazing experience of having Jono lead you through his experiences and concepts, so i'll not do it.

In summary, if you have any involvement with virtual communities, be it as a manager, member or just someone who interacts with them, this book should have its place in your shelf. Buy it, read it, enjoy it an have fun while you learn to take your community to the next level.

Published originally at: [...]

Fairly basic
Might be a good starting point for the complete novice, but as a community manager I found very little new info.
Writing was heavy on advice, light on examples.Lots of places where he gives you an over view of a topic and then tells you to go find a good book on the subject.

A good book with a misleading title
Jono Bacon's book makes a very interesting reading despite the misleading title.
I manage a few online communities and I was interested in learning from an experienced professional (Jono) how to improve my communities and my management style. The title of the book, as well many of the reviews I read were very positive. Only after reading a few dozen pages I recognized that this was not the book I was expecting. "The Art of community" is not about all online communities, it's only about online communities for open-source software. Great topic if your community is about developing some piece of software in an open-source context, but not very useful if your community is a group of people sharing a common interest but not working together toward a common goal. Jono tries to generalize his experience for a wider audience presenting a few non-open-source cases and examples.
But it's evident he has neither experience to support such generalization nor a real interest in adventuring outside the familiar open-source territory. If your community is an open-source community, get the book and religiously read every single word of it. If your community is about cars, movies, commercial software, or something else save your time and your money.

Disapointing
I found "The Art of Community" to be rather lacking in factual information, which is not to say that it wasn't but merely that it didn't provide much in the way of supporting information.There were many anecdotal references to the Author's experiences, which though interesting were not sufficiently helpful or informative to the extent where I would feel comfortable making a business decision based on the contents of this book.Perhaps, my judgment on this is a bit harsh; however, I think O'Reilly who caters to the web development community with a wide variety of informative books, which I've used on many occasions could have done a better job here.I think there is a dearth of knowledge generally as to the specifics of the ramifications of web 2.0 aside from the anecdotal; however for now I think I'll stick to peer-reviewed psychology and marketing rags until a proper amalgamation and concentration of peer-reviewed non-technical web 2.0 information is available.I should add that I bought this book strictly speaking as a web 2.0/social media book, so please ignore some of the harshness if you are not a web 2.0/social media application designer or programmer, because that's where my review was aimed.

much more "stories", please
This book is a good reference of topics on managing community.
This is well-diciplined, objective, practical, and providing good starting points.
However, I think it's too much objective and symmetrically-well-formatted, and therefore, repetitional.
As a technical doc or manual, it's good enough, but as a book, it might be just a little boring to read.
This is a good handbook, and I'm not disappointed about this book, but I honestly feel no excited.
And I had expected for much more "stories".
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Scholarly reading already out of date
Too often I've seen this happen - a cutting-edge social media book becomes out of date a year after the publishing date. This 2007 book is no exception.

MySpace is given a lot of pages; Facebook is barely mentioned in passing. Texting as a social phenomenon is ignored, while Twitter is not named at all. LinkedIn, Wickipedia, uTube and Flickr get their due discussion, however, as does the possible future of podcasting.

The short chapters are set up as compare/contrast essays, for example, discussing the merits of the Wickipedia vs the Brittanica, whether blogging hurts or helps journalism and whether or not social networks are doomed to failure.

While these are all fascinating topics, the writing here is pedantic and scholarly. I had forgotten how much I dislike the academic voice. Reading this took me back to the days of college sociology assignments.

It's not that the information is useless - there are good points made in each chapter. And it's a quick read - I was able to start and finish this in one afternoon. I just feel that if someone is seeking of-the-moment information on social media, then a "just published" book might be more appropriate. Or better yet, seek current websites blogging about social media on the Internet! ... Read more

Product Description
Latest DevelopmentsUser InteractionUser CollaborationMonetisationCopyrightRole of DRM Right across the media landscape a new trend has emerged: user-generated content. New services have arrived that allow ordinary users to upload and share digital material such as pictures and videos using their PCs and mobile phones. Meanwhile, some novelists have begun using material supplied by their fans online as part of new work. Within the music industry, major labels have begun experimenting with new releases where fans can remix and upload songs and videos based on the artist's original work. Elsewhere, clubbers can take pictures of themselves and submit them online or using their mobile phones.This report reviews the latest developments in UGC across the entire media arena in order to understand the opportunity for music brands, record labels, artists and new entrants.There are three main business opportunities for music-based UGC. This report describes each one using examples and illustrates the possibilities for the future. ... Read more

Product Description
Hate Writing? Or Just DON'T Have The Time For It?

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Make money from selling the product (this is what we call the up-sell),

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Sell the Private Label Rights or Source Code Rights to other Information Marketers at 10-20 times the product price!

Create your own multiple free reports and articles for content,

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These are just some of the ideas in a nutshell but imagine the kind of money you can make from any one or more of these profit centers with your own product!

"And That's Something You CAN'T Possibly Do With Other People's Product..."

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I'm an active Info Product creator with numerous E-Books and Private Label products to my credit, and I can definitely vouch for that horrifying truth. Also note that at the product development stage, you don't make any money here. The real cheese of reaping your monetary rewards come in when you market your product.

Sure, you could engage a ghostwriter but can you afford it? Maybe not.

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... Own the Private Label Rights to my latest collection of 3 brand spanking new reports?

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And When You Reach The End Of This Letter, You'll Discover A PRICELESS Bonus That Can Enable YOU To Profit From These Products Immediately! (HINT: NO, This Is NOT An Invitation To Join My Affiliate Program.) ... Read more

Product Description
The updated edition of a contemporary approach to merging traditional hand drawing methods with 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional digital visualization tools.

Jim Leggitt?s Drawing Shortcuts shows how communicating with hand drawings combined with digital technology can be ingeniously simple, and this new edition makes an already popular technique even better. Completely expanded with new chapters and a wealth of supporting images, this Second Edition presents practical techniques for improving drawing efficiency and effectiveness by combining traditional hand drawing methods with the latest digital technology, including 3-D modeling with SketchUp. This book?s step-by-step approach will sharpen and streamline your techniques whether you draw for pleasure, school or your design profession.

• Easy-to-follow instructions cover every aspect from the basics of drawing?such as composition, color, shading, hatching, and perspective?up to the most current technologies
• Incorporates Google SketchUp, Google Earth, computer generated renderings, digital scanners and printers
• Features new visuals from accomplished drawing experts
• Special new ?Gallery? section highlights the creative process with step-by-step examples of drawings
• Complete coverage of the ?Overlay and Trace Method,? ?Simple Composite Method,? ?Advanced Composite Method,? and ?Digital Hybrid Drawings?
• New matrices show alternative drawing techniques for specific visual effects such as Linework and Shading, Selecting the Right Views, Perspectives and Paraline Drawings, Drawing Detail, Camera Lenses, and Drawing Tools

Customer Reviews (14)

Excellent
Its a great book to begin draw and improve design techniques. very good. its like a stimulant for further work.

A very nice book
A very nice book, helpful for anyone doing renderings. Bridges new technology with older techniques

Drawing Shortcuts: Developing Quick Drawing Skills Using Today's Technology
This book is great!I have the first edition and there are a lot of things that are repeated and that is the only reason why I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars.This book really bridges the gap between hand drawing and computer drawing in clear understandable ways.I have not finished reading the book because I want to really absorb all the techniques.The only negative that I can say about this book is regarding the website.[...].I did log on and the site itself is wonderful however, there is an option to find out more about Mr. Leggitts classes.I immediately made an inquiry and have yet to get a responce.This has been over a month ago.I am assuming that due to the volume of requests he has not had a chance to reply.The book itself is a winner!

Tips on how to combine traditional, more emotion-based, hand drawings with today's computer technology.
Written for students and professionals in the building and landscaping arts, //Drawing Shortcuts// has numerous tips that will help today's busy professional speed up the drawing process without sacrificing creativity. Author Jim Leggit's processes combine computer technology with the more emotion-based, traditional, hand techniques to produce work worthy for presentations. His methods open to the professional more options where specific desires can be expressed fluidly, rather than from the stiffer-looking, computer-generated renderings. Color photographs help walk the reader through each step. Every technique is illustrated, every tip explained and every chapter summarized in the author's "Quick Tips." Rather than take years to learn the shortcuts, this book allows readers to quickly simulate spaces that tell a story. //Drawing Shortcuts// also includes photos and descriptions of how professionals have used the steps in their practice.

Reviewed by Susan Roberts

AMAZING BOOK!
Is great that some artists take the time to present a book like this; so helpfull for the every day life of a creating quick renderings... ... Read more

Product Description
We—the users turned creators and distributors of content—are TIME’s Person of theYear 2006, and AdAge’s Advertising Agency of the Year 2007. We form a new Generation C. We have MySpace, YouTube, and OurMedia; we run social software, anddrive the development of Web 2.0. But beyond the hype, what’s really going on?In this groundbreaking exploration of our developing participatory online culture,Axel Bruns establishes the core principles which drive the rise of collaborative contentcreation in environments, from open source through blogs and Wikipedia to SecondLife. This book shows that what’s emerging here is no longer just a new form ofcontent production, but a new process for the continuous creation and extension ofknowledge and art by collaborative communities: produsage. The implications of thegradual shift from production to produsage are profound, and will affect the very coreof our culture, economy, society, and democracy.

Building on an analysis of key sites including Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, and Second Life, it explores the intellectual, technological, and social implications of produsage, as well as the legal and economic models employed by produsage projects. In doing so, the book highlights the implications of produsage for our culture, democracy, and society. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good Information, Poor Writing
Although Bruns does a good job of covering the topic of social media in the current world's context, the book is overwritten and boring.Further, Bruns' need to use his own terminology in the book is cumbersome, as the intent often seems to make his new words more mainstream, rather than actually getting his message across.

If this book had not been required reading for a graduate course, I would have stopped reading after about 50 pages.

Worth a look
I read this book as part of my graduate studies in communication at the University of Utah. I stumbled upon the author, but when I read this book, I knew I was on to something.

Bruns covers a lot of ground in this book, providing a good overview of the current state of online information production. The book focuses on collaborative information production and how this is disrupting "industrial" forms of content creation. Anyone familiar with Bruns' previous book, "Gatewatching," will find this book to be an excellent extension of that work.

Bruns' key discussion in "Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond" is how the audience has moved from users to "produsers," a term he coined. Scholars and general observers alike will find his analysis helpful and well written. Most of the book is composed of insightful case studies. It's definitely worth a look. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
During its brief existence Wikipedia has proved astonishingly successful. Its 2.8 million articles (in English alone) are available freely to all with access to the internet. The on-line encyclopaedia can be seen as the 21st century's version of earlier historical attempts to gather the world's knowledge into one place. This unique book first offers a description of some of these earlier attempts. The author discusses five historical groups or communities of practice, all of which had similar ambitions to Wikipedia to make an impact on the society of their time through the dissemination of information. The second part is an analysis of Wikipedia itself, and the third part contains suggestions about how to approach it, how to contribute to it and what one might gain from it. Writing in an accessible style the author takes a socio-historical approach and argues that by looking at communities of practice in the past we can come to understand the radical, even political, nature of Wikipedia.The book will have a broad appeal to anyone interested in the development of this unique project, including information management professionals but also historians, sociologists, educators and students. ... Read more

Product Description

YouTube, blogging, Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, Second Life and other “new new media” are transforming just about every aspect of our culture from the way we elect Presidents to how we watch television.  New New Media details the benefits, opportunities, and dangers of these transformations.

Customer Reviews (5)

Terrific overview
This is a terrific overview by a well-regarded academic and futurist.Levinson is a McLuhan for the new millennium.

New New Media-Disappointing at best
This book is very basic. It discusses Facebook, Youtube, Wikipedia, Podcasts, etc. Most people will already know the information discussed in the book. If not, you can learn everything in here for free via the internet. The problem I had with the book, other than it being very basic is the author's repeated examples of all things Obama. Obama was mentioned over and over in this book. I'm talking an absurd amount of times. I have an idea....Why not write an informative book without all the political rhetoric. Write to a neutral audience. I think the author's continued use of Democratic political references was unprofessional. This is suppose to be an information book on new media. Hey, I can understand using an example or two as an illustrated example. Unfortunately, that is not what we have here. We have an all things Obama lovefest that continues over and over in this book. We get it. You're a liberal college professor. You're politics is you're politics, but this is not a book about politics. If you're looking for the cheering section for The Democratic Party this is your book. On the other hand, If you're looking for in depth information on social media there's better options.

Unamazing. A tour for the uninitiated
This book seems perfect for anyone who hasn't used the internet. After reading through this book, I had to look up the author. I feel hesitant bashing it, because he seems like a nice guy. However, "New New Media" feels like a forced book report about today's internet.

For example, the blogging section talks about how blogs are important today. If this is a surprise to you, then Levinson's 30 pages of generalized explanation is going to be spectacular.

From an "internet guy's" perspective, I just don't get the *point* of this book. Essentially, social media is really important and WAY different than how we used to do things. If you're okay knowing this, don't buy this book. If you don't know what the term "social media" means, read "New New Media" to catch up to 2010.

Or you can be forced to buy it for class. In this case, go used.

New New Media captures essence of the participatory internet
Paul Levinson is a foremost authority on media and communications, and his most recent book, New New Media, contributes significantly to that reputation. New New Media is a comprehensive introduction and users' guide to what is known as "web 2.0," the multiple forms of electronic interaction that did not exist in our culture only a few years ago. Levinson explores how these technologies are supplanting our attention and engagement, and therefore transforming our society.
This is the missing textbook to the course that everyone is taking. In it Levinson not only enumerates the various classes of new new media and their relationships with older forms, such as newspaper to blog or television to YouTube, he also, through means of germane examples from the contemporary political and social sphere, illustrates the good, the bad, and the ugly of each of these new forms, making it an excellent primer for thoughtful engagement with the unfolding culture.
Levinson's intellectual pedigree makes him ideally suited to render opinion on the range of new communication platforms like Wikipedia, MySpace, Second Life, and Twitter. His expertise as a scholar of media captures the essence of this new new milieu. Similar to McLuhan in the sixties, Levinson aims his (digital) camera at the present moment to quadrangulate the future not from the past, but from the present. New New Media demarcates a whole new class of communication media, which transform both time and space:
"Here in our 21st century, all new new media are both space-binding and time-binding, due to the speed (across space) and retrievability (across time) of any information conveyed on the Web."

While Levinson continues to contribute to the field of Media Ecology with this new work (he is Chair of the Department of Communications and Media Studies at Fordham University), New New Media is less scholarly interpretation and more a mash-up of reportage and travelogue. Levinson's narrative functions as "the antennae of society," capturing the transitory inputs in our movement from consumer to participatory culture, while fully understanding that the hidden ground of how we are communicating with one another represents the part we cannot see of our own unfolding.
He demonstrates that while the medium may still be the message, in new new media, the messenger is the medium. The social aspect of the media experience is placed at the forefront of our interactions with new new media and Levinson observes that the speed of participation is also heightened in an era when "anyone reading a blog can start a blog nearly instantly."
New New Media speaks of Levinson's own participation with these forms. He is both a blogger and podcaster, and there is no doubt that he intends to extend his new book through the very tools that he describes:

"I expect that New New Media and its updates will be available not only on printed paper but in various forms on the Web..."

In this way, Levinson aims to understand not just the qualities that define a medium as "new new," but also the transformative effects that our contemporary communications have on culture and society, and the forms of that culture, our media, like books.

New New Media serves both as a compendium to the present age of communication media and also as a record of how we first engaged with these "open forms".Everyone knows someone who is openly critical of new new media, perhaps without understanding how these emergent forms exist to compliment our new technologies and modes of interaction. If there is a Luddite on your gift-giving list, New New Media would be an excellent choice to help them seem less like a Connecticut Yankee at a Star Trek convention, and more like a citizen of this day and age.

New New Media

An Effective Introduction to Our Computer-Based Communication Environment
As an experienced media ecologist and communication scholar, Paul Levinson brings to his new work, New New Media, a keen insight into the effects of computer-based communication forms. Levinson documents his encounters with various contemporary forms including blogging, wikis, podcasts and social sites like Facebook and MySpace. Along with a multitude of examples from actual web experience, Levinson compares and contrasts the "new new" media with traditional media and suggests how widespread adoption of these new forms will affect existing social institutions and attitudes.

Levinson sets the phenomenon of blogging in both an historical and a media ecological context. To properly understand what is happening on the web today, it is necessary to understand the way differing media have influenced information transmittal over human history. Thus the nature of blogging is comprehensible if we understand the pluses and minuses of oral, print and mass media communication and the impact the various stages of communication development have had on social mores and cultural and political movements.

Levinson distinguishes the "new new" media from previous forms (including the "old" new media) by the relative ease of entry for non-professional content producers and the absence of gatekeepers. Anyone with a keyboard, a monitor and a web connection can become a movie mogul, a music megastar, a political pundit, an investigative journalist or a widely-read novelist. If Levinson is right, the various internet based media are dramatically altering our notions of professionalism, consumerism, artistry and performance.

Expertly conversant on the mechanics of blogging, Levinson presents not just a scholarly survey, but also a how-to for aspiring bloggers. He discusses individual and group blogging, the influence (or lack thereof) of blogging gatekeepers, and the monetization of blogging content. In comparing blogs to books, Levinson provides an easy reference point to which both Millennials and Baby-boomers can relate.
Blogging's influence on our social institutions is still in the state of becoming. For example, as the traditional print and mass media news outlets decline, the potential of blog-based investigative journalists to fill in the void remains to be seen. Levinson's discussion of bloggers' 1st Amendment rights is on target, and I'm sure would inspire some interesting online discussions.

This very immediacy may be the only shortcoming of Levinson's book. The relevance of many of Levinson's examples, while appropriate for this current edition, may quickly pass out of the public sphere, and therefore out of contextual significance. While we may still be talking about the "Obama Girl" during the next election cycle, other references may not be familiar to readers in 2012. This is both a strength and weakness of Levinson's use of hyper-current examples. The references illustrate his points well, but their possible fleeting nature may be a hindrance in the long term. Things change so fast that each new edition of the book may require significant re-writing, or perhaps a migration from the printed page to a hyper-text online wiki edition. This may be unavoidable given the nature of the topic.

Today's twenty-somethings and younger, members of the so-called "Millennial Generation," inhabit the world depicted by New New Media. They live in a world where texting, tweeting, blogging, Facebook and MySpace and a myriad of other social media are taken for granted and become the tools used for their interactions with their peers and the outside world. As a member of the "Baby Boomer," generation, I found myself continually checking out Levinson's references to these various social media on my computer. Levinson is deeply involved in many actual aspects of the "new new" media and documents this in his book. So I have viewed his blog pages, his tweets, listened to some of his podcasts, etc. Though this may seem to non-millenials as an introduction to a disorienting brave new world, Levinson's down-to-earth discussion of the "new new" media is an effective introduction to the impact of cyberspace structures and institutions on our current media environment. ... Read more