Websites that work
Jon Smith
This is a savvy, inspiring and highly practical guide for anyone who wants give their site a makeover - but doesn't feel inclined to start learning HTML.
It's highly-accessible, jargon-free, and offers some great ideas on how to improve every aspect of your site, from basics such as look-and-feel and writing snappy Web copy, to tracking your customers.
Web Sites That Work is broken down into 52, easy-to-digest chapters, and offers not just technical advice, but also a great marketing overview to make you stop and think about exactly what your website is trying to achieve.
The book is simply and clearly laid out, with Q&As at the end of each chapter and tips on almost every page. Topics include:
- How to assess what you have - what works and what doesn't;
- How to get the most from search engines;
- Graphics that won't cause visitors to throw a fit;
- Techniques to create an online community;
- What copy works best for your market.
Author Jon Smith helped to set up Amazon before launching his own commercial website and he clearly knows what he's talking about. This is a 'must buy'
Richard Reed
|
 |
£12.99
Infinite Ideas
ISBN: 1904902189 |
 |
|
|
Jacquard's Web
James Essinger
Two hundred years ago, an out-of-work soldier and weaver in Lyons invented a loom that could produce incredibly fine pictures in silk, 25 times faster than previously possible.
It transformed the weaving industry. But unwittingly he had also started a revolution in the potential of machinery that has led directly to the information revolution of the last century and to today's desktop computing.
The key to Jacquard's loom was the use of punched cards to control the various stages of the process.
This book explores the chain of links from there to the modern Web and artificial intelligence, through some wonderfully creative and eccentric characters.
These include Charles Babbage, who dreamed of a mechanical calculating machine that was only recently realised; his lovely assistant, Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter; Herman Hollerith, who developed the punched card machine to extraordinary levels; and to the giants who created the modern computer industry, like Thomas Watson of IBM.
This is a great ride through the founding years of IT which has such profound impact even today. And yet it is highly readable and not heavy or too technical. An enjoyable book.
Andrew James
|
|
£14.99
Oxford
ISBN: 0192805770
|
|
|
|
Winning E-brand Strategies
Developing your on-line business profitability
Martin Brighty and Dean Markham
We've all heard of the rags-to-riches stories of entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson. But there are thousands of ordinary men and women - people like you and me - out there every day of the week, trying to build a business on a shoestring. It's refreshing, then, to read a book about two men who have done just that, and successfully built a thriving company. They are not high-flying glamour guys trying to promote their own self-image. They simply had a good idea, a little money, and put in all the hours to make it work. In fact Martin Brighty and David Walker had just £1,000 when they started their luxury tie business in 1996. And they ploughed that money into a week-long trip to New York, spending day after day pounding the streets and knocking on buyers' doors.
Winning E-Brand Strategies brings home just how close to the edge they were in those early days - one amusing anecdote recounts how the duo could only afford a single-bed hotel room, and decided who was going to get the bed that night on the basis of who won the most sales! But this book is far more than just a business life story - fascinating though that is. By exploring the development of Hunters Partnership into an effective e-commerce brand, Martin Brighty and co-author Dean Markham (a search engine specialist) provide a highly effective route map for anyone planning to do the same thing with their business.
They offer a wide range of insider tips and practical advice on how to turn a sluggish site into a real money-spinner - without spending a fortune on advertising or expensive external consultants. The book takes you through the steps of creating an online sales channel, from basic website content and design to building an online brand, before moving on to the more complex issues of search engine optimisation. Some of these latter chapters on optimisation require a high degree of computer literacy, and a few pages are really only suitable for those attempting their own site design. But there is enough meat in this book to give anyone the knowledge they need to put their business online - and, moreover, it makes an enjoyable and fascinating read.
Richard Reed
|
|
£16.99
Spiro Press
ISBN: 1904298540 |
|
|
|
little e, BIG COMMERCE - How to Make a Profit Online
Timothy Cumming
No business today can afford to ignore e-commerce, but the key is making it financially beneficial.
Timothy Cumming offers simple, plain speaking advice on how to move a business online, how to get the most from a website and ultimately how to stay online profitably. As well as providing step-by-step practical advice, he offers detailed information on e-customers, e-competitors and e-suppliers. This book is the definitive guide on what e-commerce really is and how to do it properly.
Cumming is a strategic marketer, e-commerce expert and self-confessed workaholic. He runs two marketing and communications businesses. As an authority on Internet and strategic marketing he is frequently invited to initiate or troubleshoot new e-commerce operations. He is an advisor to the DTI's 'Grow with Marketing' group, an Associate of Warwick Business School, and has lectured at London's South Bank University.
|
|
£9.99
Virgin Books
ISBN: 0753505428
|
|
|
|
How to survive the information age at work
Ron Hopkins
Ron Hopkins' book is a brilliant new guide to dealing with technological and environmental change in the workplace.
It presents a practical guide for workers, and a thought-provoking new perspective for genuinely forward-looking management.
Readers are shown how to cope with the bane of every e-worker's life - the dreaded e-mail, constantly overloaded with junk and trivial communication and unstructured information.
They are shown how to handle the stress that constant change inevitably brings into the workplace. They will learn how to master the best that new technology has to offer, and how to develop the key skills to survive and prosper in the new environment.
The book includes an extensive review of the whole area of corporate vision in a changing world - how to set it if you're the boss, and how to change direction and dovetail smoothly with the company vision if you're not.
Above all it shows you how to increase your creative problem-solving skills so that you can stay ahead of the game and generate real options for yourself as the goalposts continue to shift.
|
|
£12.99
Management Books
ISBN: 1852523557
|
|
|
|
Digital Futures: living in a dotcom world
James Wilsdon (Ed.)
We have been told time and again that the Internet will transform our lives - but it also has huge implications for the whole future of the planet. Digital Futures is one of the first books to explore how both businesses and the government can maximise the social and environmental benefits of the dotcom revolution. With contributors including Jonathan Porritt, Sir Peter Hall and Tom Bentley, Digital Futures takes a bold and imaginative look at the impact ecommerce will have on the way we live and work - and the environment on which we all depend. A must for anyone concerned about the future of the planet. For once, technology may be our friend.
Richard Reed
|
|
£19.99
Earthscan
ISBN: 185383789X
|
|
|
|
|
 |
