Weaving the Web - Tim Bernes-Lee

Weaving the Web by Tim Bernes-Lee

Suggested reading from the CEO, this book by the guy who created the World Wide Web. I'm usually quite cynical about reading anything that "management" recommend reading as I usually find little of value in most "management books". However this one actually caught my interest. So I "ate my own dogfood" and made an online reservation from my local library, (actually it was someone else's dogfood and it tasted pretty bad).

I was pleased to find it an untechnical read, focusing more on the vision he has for the web; that primarily of a social tool. So the focus remains on how the web is and could be used, from the perpective of a much larger picture.

Tim talks significantly about the Semantic Web, and made clearer for me where this differs from and where is crosses over with the whole Web 2.0 thing, as these terms are often misunderstoood and interchanged, without explanation. While Web 2.0 incorporates a lot of different notions, the Semantic Web is very specifically about the data. The Semantic Web, as the suggests, is about adding a layer of "understanding" to the data; enough to help provide us with solutions above and beyond what is just spelled out in the data.

With the exception of the last chapter I found the book interesting, if a little light in areas. It often only briefly touched on something that would catch my interest, only to move swiftly on to the next idea. However this meant that the book did not get bogged down in technical data and that a lot was covered in a brief book; it is much more a social study than a technical one. Which is I think why I found it an enjoyable and interesting read.