No blog twopointouch algumas dicas de livros e textos para download sobre os meios sociais e a Web 2.o. Todos em inglês.

1) Social Media or, “How I learned to stop worrying and love communication” by Australian PRs Trevor Cook and Lee Hopkins. A good, introductory guide to Web 2.0, blogs and social media with useful tips on getting started with blogging and podcasting. It’s only 30 pages so is ideal for students and the very busy.

2) What is Social Media? by posh UK PR Antony Mayfield, is also an introductory guide to the subject. In Antony’s words, “The book is a romp through a definition of social media, why it is important, and some of the main iterations (blogs, wikis, podcasts, content communities and social networks) and a bonus bit on Second Life.” Also nice and short.

3) The Cluetrain Manifesto by Chris Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger. First published in 1999, this is the book that started all this engagement and ‘markets as conversations’ palaver. It’s available as a hardback on Amazon, but students and the like will appreciate that the entire text is also available online.

4) The Long Tail by Chris Anderson seemed to be everywhere over the summer. Cheats who missed the opportunity to read it then may prefer to catch up by reading this free, super-condensed, 30-page version. There’s some repetition in the real thing, to be honest, so I’d recommend that you do.

5) From Command & Control To Engage & Encourage by NY PR consultancy Envision Solutions talks about why social media matters to companies and what they can do to take advantage of the opportunities it offers. It’s based around the healthcare industry, but is equally applicable to any other sector. (author: Fard Johnmar)

6) Web 2.0 Mindmap by development guru Ed Yourdon. Not a book, of course, but a Mind Map covering all the key concepts around this phenomenon with a wealth of links to resources across the internet. It’s updated fairly frequently so keep checking back for the latest version. I’m not really a mindmaps person, but I still find it very useful.

7) Blogs and Community by Seattle-based e-facilitation and e-community specialist Nancy White is a slightly more academic look at the phenomenon of blogs and social networks and the different kinds of communication models that they entail. That might sound a little scary, but it isn’t. And there’s a handy podcast of the paper available here.

8) We Media by Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis (website here) is, as you might expect, about citizen journalism. In the authors’ words, “Historically, journalists have been charged with informing the democracy. But their future will depend not on only how well they inform but how well they encourage and enable conversations with citizens. That is the challenge.”

9) We-think by Charles Leadbetter is about “what the rise of the likes of Wikipedia and Youtube, Linux and Craigslist means for the way we organise ourselves, not just in digital businesses but in schools and hospitals, cities and mainstream corporations”. Published online, the idea is that readers’ comments become an integral part of the whole work.

10) New Influencers by Paul Gillin is to be published in dead-tree format next year. In the meantime, the author offers drafts of the whole thing in both HTML and MS Word format. It’s about the rise of blogs and blogging, what it means for businesses and how they can best engage with this new environment.

Any others you are aware of?

11) Thanks, Antony, for a reminder about Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler. The introduction says “Production is shifting from physical products like blue jeans, to decentralized information goods, like articles on the Internet. This gives users more power (they can publish instead of just reading), creates more opportunities for democratic participation, lowers costs for developing countries, and democratizes the creation of our culture.” It should keep you busy a while longer once you’ve finished the others…

12) Since I have allowed one academic paper, I shouldn’t miss the collection of Papers and Talks published by Danah Boyd. The talk about G/localisation is especially recommended.

13) Thanks, Ed, for the good word about Knock, Knock by Seth Godin. Not social media or Web 2.0 as such. It’s about creating websites that actually work, so probably all of us want to read this one, whatever your interests. And also Who’s There?, a follow-up I haven’t read yet, but which Ed reckons is more Web 2.0ish.

Alberto Marques