Customer Reviews

Architects of the Web: 1,000 Days that Built the Future of Business

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is a revisionist history which attempts to give the credit for the development of the web to businessmen, and almost completely ignores the people who actually designed the architecture of the web. Even Tim Berners-Lee gets only a token mention; and Ted Nelson, who invented hypertext, multimedia and "linking", is completely ignored.

The first chapter tries to credit Netscape with the invention of the web, and pretends that they lead the development of HTML. The truth, of course, is that Netscape has never managed to fully implement any of the HTML standards, let alone improve on them. Most of the HTML "improvements" thought of as Netscape's were defined in HTML 3.0 long before Netscape implemented them via gratuitously incompatible tags.

As the book goes on it gets even worse. CNET and HotWired as architects of the web? Yeah, right, and I suppose the Psychic Friends Network invented the telephone? I'll be generous, and assume that this book happened because some poor soul started believing the nonsense Internet companies put out in their press releases. The alternative is that it's a deliberate attempt to re-write history. Unfortunately, judging from the 'professional' reviews there must be plenty of suckers who actually do think CNET and WIRED magazine invented the web. I wish it was possible to give this book a score of zero; you could learn more about the real history of the web by spending half an hour browsing the W3C web site.

I would highly recommend Architects of the Web for anyone that is interested in the Internet phenomenon and it's increasingly monumental impact on modern business and society. The author successfully combines a keen industry insider's view with cogent business insight and compelling storytelling. While framed as the stories of the people that made the commercial Web happen, the book provides a fascinating history of how the Web developed into the medium we know today, as well as ample vision for where it's going. With it's combination of personality, anthropology, storytelling, and insight -- Architects is a "must read" for anyone that surfs!

Thorough, throughful and provocative. A "business biography" that was written in real time. Reid takes the reader on the roller coaster of innovation and drive to commericalize the some of aspects of the 'web. Contrary to the viewpoint of some readers, Reid adequately describes the academic roots of the web. Yet, as is stated in the title, Reid masterfully articulates the stories that are being re-written hourly that will alter the future of business and commerce

A great story - even better since its true. Perfect for students, entrepreneurs and web surfers.

Other books that come along later will be jaded by knowing too much. Only this book can tell it how it happened, since it was written at the same time; giving the reader a real-time perspective, not revisionist.

Reid gives his book the same kind of drive and intensity that the early web architects must have had!

Although you will know these key Web players well when finished reading, Architects of the Web is not just about personalities. It's about the Web, how it was created, how it is changing, and how it will impact us. Since each chapter focuses on a different profile and a different aspect of the Web, from software to content to service, Reid is able to survey these perspectives to extract the important themes. The book is well written, and written in a way that both industry professionals and web newcomers will enjoy

Architects of the Web helps you make sense of the big-picture changes wrought by the Web. Reid is a great story teller. His work gives you in-depth interviews that take you behind the scenes to learn how a few early Web innovators pioneered through this domain. This book will intrigue new comers on the Net while true Netizens may find the information dated

Click on the order button for this one! Architects of the Web tops the lists of "What's hot" about the Internet category. The author takes us down the path of the early days of the commercialization of the web. We accompany 8 pioneers -- from Mark Andreessen to Jerry Yang -- during their journeys across uncharted terrain. With them, we live through one of the most exciting times in the history of technology, and for that matter, the history of the world

The main impression you take away from this book is that there are a lot of millionaires in the Internet world that got there by accident and timing rather than outright brilliance. Written as if Microsoft is a dark malevolent force (which is how it is obviously perceived from the other side), this book goes too far in trying to canonize the newcomers. While many recent books have been written from the " MS is great" side, this counter view can be interesting, but takes many cheap shots. The hardest part of reading this is the horrible editing. You realize that you are noticing constant typos, grammar and layout problems as you go. In many cases, it looks like a quick spell check was done on dictated text as same sounding words show up totally out of context in their other spelling. This apparently was rushed to the press. The best part of this book is recognizing the significance of the sub-title. It truly has only been 1,000 days since the Web exploded

Robert Reid dives into the history that created the web as we know it today, for the internet in 1994 and even earlier was nothing like what it has grown to become. Little things that we take for granted were months of turmoil and hard work for these architects.
Reid highlights eight of the main people that were responsible for the internet's creation:
1. Marc Andreessen
2. Rob Glaser
3. Kim Polese
4. Mark Pesce
5. Ariel Poler
6. Jerry Yang
7. Andrew Anker
8. Halsey Minor
Giving each one of these people their own chapter, he also follows the company (or companies) that they worked for during the 1,000 days and sometimes the years before. Although it took hundreds if not thousands of people, from hackers to marketers to create the web, it is these people that had the first ideas on what the internet could do as a product and technology.
Within his narrative Reid tells of the rise and what could be fall of many of these companies, for it was written in 1997, shortly after the events in the book actually took place. This leaves many endings to each chapter very vague on what happens and what the technologies could become. In many of his hypotheses he seems to be telling of the technologies that we have today.
In Marc Andreessen's chapter it goes over the rise of the Netscape browser. He first started making browsers at NCSA, there he created Mosaic which was very crash prone yet it was still the best browser that anyone had created at the time. Soon he found himself creating Netscape Communication Corporation where they made a browser (Netscape) that was 1000 times faster than the first even though it was less than a year since the first browser. But sadly it was Microsoft that slowly made its way into the browser world and used its OS domination to make Internet Explorer "freer" than Netscape, but not necessarily better.
Another great example that Reid goes over is Jerry Yang who was one of the co-founders of Yahoo with Dave Filo. The two of them alone created the system for Yahoo searches which innovated themselves from other people by not using "spiders" (spiders being automated programs that scan websites to see the content and thus make it so searches will go to the site) but instead using categories to search for websites on the internet. They used this very simple and very different type of searching to get hundreds of thousands of people to visit their site and then get advertisers to pay for banners which had been first used by [...] only months before.
[...] was the baby of Andrew Anker, who did not create it but was the CEO of the internet side of this company. It was the sister company of Wired Magazine, which was created some years before. Although they were "sister" companies that actually did not share articles, as both used information to invite people to their website or their magazine, they were both very anti-shovelware. Shovelware is the action of taking some kind of product and bringing it to another medium. These and many other examples showed the true amount of work that people had to go through to make computers and the internet into the mega media that it is today.
This book is crammed with information on these people and many others that had a huge impact in the internet. Though it is very informative it does become too much information at some points and a very slow read as a result of the technicality of the subject matter. This may be due to the fact that in these 1,000 days so much had happened in this area that there was really no other way of writing and showing this technical information.
In conclusion this was a great read that had tons of knowledge despite being obsolete at this point, technologically speaking.

Reid wrote a book that covered many of the industries luminaries including Jerry Yang and Marc Andreessen and other forgotten people like Mark Pesce who dreamed too far ahead of the kerb.

The book dates better than business potraits because it allows insight into the creators of some of the webs cornerstones like Java and Yahoo! before the corporate comms people managed to use a PR backhoe loader to dump in excessive messaging, spin and massaging the annals of history.