Ambient Findability
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How do you find your way in an age of information overload? How can you filter streams of complex information to pull out only what you want? Why does it matter how information is structured when Google seems to magically bring up the right answer to your questions? What does it mean to be "findable" in this day and age? This eye-opening new book examines the convergence of information and connectivity. Written by Peter Morville, author of the groundbreaking Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, the book defines our current age as a state of unlimited findability. In other words, anyone can find anything at any time. Complete navigability.
Morville discusses the Internet, GIS, and other network technologies that are coming together to make unlimited findability possible. He explores how the melding of these innovations impacts society, since Web access is now a standard requirement for successful people and businesses. But before he does that, Morville looks back at the history of wayfinding and human evolution, suggesting that our fear of being lost has driven us to create maps, charts, and now, the mobile Internet. The book's central thesis is that information literacy, information architecture, and usability are all critical components of this new world order. Hand in hand with that is the contention that only by planning and designing the best possible software, devices, and Internet, will we be able to maintain this connectivity in the future. Morville's book is highlighted with full color illustrations and rich examples that bring his prose to life. Ambient Findability doesn't preach or pretend to know all the answers. Instead, it presents research, stories, and examples in support of its novel ideas. Are we truly at a critical point in our evolution where the quality of our digital networks will dictate how we behave as a species? Is findability indeed the primary key to a successful global marketplace in the 21st century and beyond. Peter Morville takes you on a thought-provoking tour of these memes and more -- ideas that will not only fascinate but will stir your creativity in practical ways that you can apply to your work immediately. "A lively, enjoyable and informative tour of a topic that's only going to become more important." "I envy the young scholar who finds this inventive book, by whatever strange means are necessary. The future isn't just unwritten--it's unsearched." "Search engine marketing is the hottest thing in Internet business, and deservedly so. Ambient Findability puts SEM into a broader context and provides deeper insights into human behavior. This book will help you grow your online business in a world where being found is not at all certain." "Information that's hard to find will remain information that's hardly found--from one of the fathers of the discipline of information architecture, and one of its most experienced practitioners, come penetrating observations on why findability is elusive and how the act of seeking changes us." "Whether it's a fact or a figure, a person or a place, Peter Morville knows how to make it findable. Morville explores the possibilities of a world where everything can always be found--and the challenges in getting there--in this wide-ranging, thought-provoking book." "It is easy to assume that current searching of the World Wide Web is the last word in finding and using information. Peter Morville shows us that search engines are just the beginning. Skillfully weaving together information science research with his own extensive experience, he develops for the reader a feeling for the near future when information is truly findable all around us. There are immense implications, and Morville's lively and humorous writing brings them home." "I've always known that Peter Morville was smart. After reading Ambient Findability, I now know he's (as we say in Boston) wicked smart. This is a timely book that will have lasting effects on how we create our future. "In Ambient Findability, Peter Morville has put his mind and keyboard on the pulse of the electronic noosphere. With tangible examples and lively writing, he lays out the challenges and wonders of finding our way in cyberspace, and explains the mutually dependent evolution of our changing world and selves. This is a must read for everyone and a practical guide for designers." "Find this book! Anyone interested in making information easier to find, or understanding how finding and being found is changing, will find this thoroughly researched, engagingly written, literate, insightful and very, very cool book well worth their time. Myriad examples from rich and varied domains and a valuable idea on nearly every page. Fun to read, too! |
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| 09-28-08 | 5 | 1\1 |
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This is a great introduction to some of the more important concepts in search and its corollary - beingfound. Finding information, things, or people on the Internet is one of the most important issues for today's researchers and knowledge workers. Similarly, for businesses or others with a message to get across - being found is critical. Being found is the basis for all search engine optimization and search engine advertising.
I found the information in the book regarding large scale databases and what can be found in them and what often cannot, to be worth the price of the book alone. The book also discusses geolocation tagging which is a very important concept that is just now becoming pervasive. The author also discusses folksonomies (a correlated concept to tagging often by the masses - i.e., by ordinary people). If you are interested in learning about search, about being found, about information architecture, as well as the Internet and some important concepts that need to be understood in order to use the Internet effectively, then I highly recommend this book. (Review Data Last Updated: 2008-12-04 05:35:49 EST)
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| 06-07-08 | 5 | (NA) |
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I highly recommend this book by Peter Morville. His analysis of Internet user behavior and understanding of information flow make this a must read for anyone doing business on the web. A telling point in the book is when he says that he suggests 'findability' is more important than design, architecture, product sold, etc. His predictions regarding the future importance of findability seem to have been confirmed since the book was published.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2008-09-29 04:02:52 EST)
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| 04-15-08 | 3 | (NA) |
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This is a book that I keep coming back to. There are significant pearls but you have to dig hard to find them. It is not clear that the abstract ideas could not have been presented with more clarity, but I suspect that perhaps that is the case.
This book could use an interactive website where the abstractness could have been explored with more concrete practical examples. Yeah, it is not a "how to" book, but ideas need to be grounded so that they can be more readily understood. Don't get me wrong, I highly recommend the book, but I am withholding the fourth "*" star because I tend to agree with other reviewers that there is something lacking. The book is extremely useful and disappointing at the same. (Review Data Last Updated: 2008-06-08 04:28:10 EST)
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| 01-23-08 | 3 | 0\1 |
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Covers too much ground and leaves you wanting more. Not particularly useful in itself, but readable and will help you think about the problems. What there is is more useful for extremely large sites and the Web itself.
Also a pretty good set of references, but would be better if they had been gathered together in a notes or references section at the end, as it is all references are only in footnotes, so you might want to jot down page numbers of references you want to check on as you go. (Review Data Last Updated: 2008-04-15 13:03:50 EST)
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| 01-22-08 | 3 | 0\1 |
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I first saw this book at my local public library, and the title hooked me. I had to read it. I read it, and I'm glad I did. It is entertaining and thought provoking. It also has a lot of problems. I thought the book was important enough that I should review it, but I had trouble organizing my thoughts so I decided to take a chance and look at the reviews. I'm glad I did. Those that are considering reading it for content should consider the reviews. I found most of them to be accurate and reasonable. Your opinion of the book is likely to depend on what you expected to find in it. Read some of the raves and some of the pans. (Review Data Last Updated: 2008-04-15 13:03:50 EST)
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| 11-06-07 | 4 | (NA) |
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"Ambient Findability" is a boundary-crossing book...well-written, insightful and eye-opening, this is a book worth reading.
This book addresses how individuals find information in a world of information overload. Peter Morville walks the reader through the potential implications of a world in which any information can be found on any topic from any location. I recommend this thought-provoking book to all readers. (Review Data Last Updated: 2008-01-22 19:54:53 EST)
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| 06-22-07 | 4 | 2\2 |
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This book is an interesting follow-up to Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by the same author. This time, instead of focusing on the nuts and bolts of IA, the author spoke about the nature of findability itself.
Morville shares research and anecdotes from business, history, library science, anthropology, and neurobiology in his quest for the perfect system where everything in the world is instinctively easy to locate. Can we ever achieve ambient findability? And what would the world look like in such a place? What are the social and political ramifications of findability? Will it be big brother, or will the very concept of unquestionable authority wither and die? Recent manifestations such as Google, Wikipedia, and blogger watchdogs suggest the latter is more likely... Ironically, the more information we have, the less likely anybody is to use it. Obtaining information is very painful, even if the data is easy to find. The relatively unknown Mooers law states: "An information retrieval system will tend to NOT be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it." -- Calvin Mooers Meaning, if I have a problem, I can either look up the answer, or ask somebody for help. If I ask somebody, then they might do all my work for me, which is good for me. However, if I look up the answer online, then I have to read it, understand it, and implement the solution myself. Not only must I confront my own ignorance, but its a lot more work. Stupid Google. Along the same lines, it's insufficient for information merely to be available and findable... it must also be believable, useful, and tailored to the audience so its easy to absorb. That's the top-to-bottom challenge, and very few people understand it. This book doesn't give much practical advice about absorbability, but it covers findability needs and existing technology quite well. The rest is up to you. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-09-07 07:58:23 EST)
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| 06-22-07 | 4 | 2\2 |
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This book is an interesting follow-up to Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by the same author. This time, instead of focusing on the nuts and bolts of IA, the author spoke about the nature of findability itself.
Morville shares research and anecdotes from business, history, library science, anthropology, and neurobiology in his quest for the perfect system where everything in the world is instinctively easy to locate. Can we ever achieve ambient findability? And what would the world look like in such a place? What are the social and political ramifications of findability? Will it be big brother, or will the very concept of unquestionable authority wither and die? Recent manifestations such as Google, Wikipedia, and blogger watchdogs suggest the latter is more likely... Ironically, the more information we have, the less likely anybody is to use it. Obtaining information is very painful, even if the data is easy to find. The relatively unknown Mooers law states: "An information retrieval system will tend to NOT be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it." -- Calvin Mooers Meaning, if I have a problem, I can either look up the answer, or ask somebody for help. If I ask somebody, then they might do all my work for me, which is good for me. However, if I look up the answer online, then I have to read it, understand it, and implement the solution myself. Not only must I confront my own ignorance, but its a lot more work. Stupid Google. Along the same lines, it's insufficient for information merely to be available and findable... it must also be believable, useful, and tailored to the audience so its easy to absorb. That's the top-to-bottom challenge, and very few people understand it. This book doesn't give much practical advice about absorbability, but it covers findability needs and existing technology quite well. The rest is up to you. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-11-07 10:34:56 EST)
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| 06-17-07 | 2 | 1\1 |
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Like most O'Reilly books, the credentials of the author are impeccable, and the concept is current and relavant.
However, like most techincal publishing houses, O'Reilly does not have enough editors fluent in enough technical areas of expertise to impose order on its authors. The result is that they produce excellent texts for those already familiar with the subject, and dreadful experiences for those hoping for something other than a "Dummies" book. "Ambient Findability" is no different. The subject is broad, the concepts are deep, and the order is completely lacking. O'Reilly seemed to have exercised no editorial restraint in the publishing of this book - it is andectoal, rambling and repetitive in parts, and generally jumps around (much like the subject of the book), without any common touch points. The main point of the book is that information is grouped in structured and not so structured ways on the web, and being able to "find" information is predicated on how it is percieved by other parts of the web. This already is a vast ocean of space to cover. 180 pages with a lot of graphics is bound to be light, but add on rambling discourse, and you can only swallow 20-30 pages at a time, before bed. I really believe the author is a great mind on this subject. He could do much better w/ a well disciplined editor. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-11 22:13:45 EST)
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| 06-08-07 | 5 | (NA) |
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. . . . But what a great philosophy book it is!
This may be the only O'Reilly book I have ever read that changed some of my basic notions about things I thought I understood, not at a "how to code this or that" level but at a "how the world works" level. The book presents itself as a thoughtful ramble through some issues around finding and retrieving content that a person might wish to have. And it does a very good job of laying out the landscape, identifying pitfalls, and pointing out unpredictable successes (and failures). But the real beauty of this book is its own internal organization. The author starts with tangible physical location and navigation, and then moves onto to fluently-written descriptions of virtual location and navigation. The book is thought-provoking and fairly balanced in presenting the perspectives of people who feel strongly about these issues while disagreeing vehemently with one another. This volume offers no easy solutions, but it illuminates a landscape that needs desperately to be better understood by more people, and it does so in a readable, accessible way. I learned some things, I unlearned some things, and I had a heck of a good time doing so. Will it make me a better information architect? I hope so, but it certainly made me a more thoughtful one. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-04 08:00:05 EST)
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| 04-19-07 | 1 | 2\3 |
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This felt like a long college senior thesis. Rambling, unfocused and without real-world applicability.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-04 08:00:05 EST)
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| 02-16-07 | 5 | 2\3 |
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I find the book most useful as a survey of technologies and ideas suitably themed "ambient findability". I agree with the idea that the future of search will be more than cyberspace. The ability to search the physical world with a search engine will be extremely useful and how to make (physical world) objects findable (even at different levels of granularity) an interesting challenge (RFID tagging is one way but perhaps there are others). The combination of cyberspace and physicalspace and how to bridge between them (from augmented reality, ambient objects, to ambient sensing) is interesting. The book provides a convenient overview, in one place, of where much of computing is heading.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-04 08:00:05 EST)
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| 02-15-07 | 5 | (NA) |
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Look, I'm new to the O'Reilly series so I'm not ready to just jump on the bandwagon of love just yet.
However, after Morville's FINDABILITY, I will at least *hail* said wagon. The genius of this book on design of informatin is stepping back and looking at the information design of this book. Peter takes you from an actual physical location, and then, drops you into familiar search engine territory, and then, gets you lost in the problem of 'why are we getting lost' so you 'feel' your own need to get out there and solve this problem - even if only assist in your own little small little way. Findability addresses all the critical issues of the next evolution of the web (I will refrain from calling it *that name*). It also provides the critical history surrounding these issues, and, some of the research and the insights of the leaders trying to make the world a better place by answering this. Kudos to Tim Ebbers Lee for calling forth the semantic web. Bollocks to the schmo who called him out afterwards (and I will not even deign to mention said Schmo's name). And kudos to this O'Reilly series from a non-lay, but non-doctorate reader. I highly recommend this book (though I suppose it helps to know more about me for that to mean more than text semantics). (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-04 14:18:13 EST)
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| 01-27-07 | 5 | 4\4 |
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The thesis of the book is that we are on the threshold of a convergence of Internet technologies and mobile devices so that finding information in cyberspace and finding people and objects in physical space will merge. The issues related to finding physical items are becoming relevant to cybersearchers, and the issues associated with cybersearching are becoming relevant to being found in the physical world. The need for finding and being found surrounds us, hence its ambience. This thesis allows Morville to explore the concept of 'information interaction,' or how people handle and use information, and what limitations that places on the success of various technologies and techniques.
This book is not perfect. I think it has flaws. But it is excellent for those new to the concepts discussed. As someone who has studied search engine precision, I was impressed by the author's command of many of the broader issues in information science and architecture. The book is wide-ranging, offering something for marketers, technology investors, futurists, and librarians. It is too general for those at the cutting edge of the field. As for the reviewers that were negative on the book, they are clearly already heavily involved in the communities that the author discusses. This book is more for people new to the issues of tagging and democratic metadata. It is not an advanced discussion of details of the topic, but a big picture thought piece that feels fluffy to experts in the field. Examples of flaws: he does not squarely face the contradiction between web sites that should have high search engine findability, such as the National Cancer Institute, and ones that game the system to get high rankings even if they do not warrent findability. Everyone wants to be found, but how many of us should be? Another flaw: his optimism makes him uncritical of current technology. Also, his grand thesis stretches thin in places. For some of the strengths: He does a good job of describing the issues around search relevance, precision and recall in Chapter 3. He does a good job showing the need for balance between push and pull. He gives a good critique of the issues surrounding the Semantic Web and the power of social software and folksonomies. All in all an excellent book that ties some of the issues surrounding the traditional library to the wider world of ubiquitous computing. For more details, see my review on WorldCat. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-03-26 10:28:52 EST)
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| 01-08-07 | 3 | 12\12 |
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My everyday work involves search engines, both using them for research and developing the technology. I was deeply impressed by the lengthy and highly enthusiastic reviews posted here. One day, I wandered into a bookstore and saw the book. I bought it without even opening it. I have to say that given the high expectation, I was quite disappointed by the book.
I read the book in detail for most parts of it and skimmed through the rest of it. The book I like most is that it is not just about Google, blog search, myspace, etc. It attempted to give a broad analysis of the topic, mostly from non-technical viewpoints, drawing literatures from very diversified sources, AI, social science, politics, history, etc. I learned terms like folksonomies, boundary objects and a lot of stories and quotes that I can use to make my next presentation on the same subject more interesting. This is what I gained from the book. The main weakness of the book is twofold. First, the book does not help you understand more about the problem of findability and where the future might be, let alone giving you a hint on the solution; it repeats what most people have already known and re-asserted it with more discussions and examples. Second, the writing adopted a style commonly found in online articles and blogs. Beautiful but confusing statements. The style is good for online writing where creating controversies and arguments is an important goal of writing, but I won't expect it from a book. For example, on Page 38, the author said "... visualization approaches fail because there's no there there." It is not only hard to understand, but once you do you find it not true. The purpose of information visualization is not to represent pages in 3D space with edges representing the distances between pages (see what the author quoted in the same paragraph) but one of the important goals, and obstacles, is to extract the themes of the pages and connect the themes based on their semantic relationships. A careful look at Fig 2-14, a screendump from Grokker, would reveal that what were shown on the screen were topics, not pages. On Page 143, when talking about a client's website become unsearchable because texts on the pages were rendered as images, the author said "one the web, the journey often begins with the destination." Beautiful, but the truthfulness of the statement depends on which end of the pipe you are looking into. There are too many examples like these that don't stand deep logical reasoning. A full elaboration will make this review too long. After reading the book, I felt like I have read a long blog from the author. Like reading any blog written by great minds, you often find shining ideas here and there, but you have to endure the style of writing and imprecisions, and organize the thoughts yourself. This is what the author advocated anyway (Chapter 7 Inspired Decisions). (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-03-26 10:28:52 EST)
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| 11-06-06 | 5 | 6\6 |
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This is one of the best books on information architecture I have read in the last year. Although the book is short (about 190 pages) it is PACKED with information and excellent references. Peter Morville is not only a very knowledgeable expert on the topic, but also an excellent writer and researcher. I find this combination of properties very refreshing!
First of all, don't be put off by the title. When I first saw the book, I thought the title little odd and only dealt with search issues. In fact this covers a LOT more topics then just how to find things. It also discusses many of the concepts in library science and the emergent areas of social software used to create on-demand tagging system. This is really a book that looks at how emerging technologies are having an impact on how we find things. Not just with Google but how site like flickr that are using folksonomies to allow users to quickly tag photos to aid search tools. Unlike many other information architects, Peter seems to be one of the few people that really undersands the impact of many Web 2.0 concepts built around "Architectures of Participation". The book also discusses many advanced topics such as semantics, taxonomies and ontologies in well-written, concise easy-to-read text. I am a metadata architect and my background is computer-to-computer communications. I am frequently put in a position to explain to my customers why I use structures like taxonomies to structure metadata registries. I found this book to be an excellent overview of of the options an organization can use to structure data and the impact these structures have on the way organizations communicate. Many of the topics address the way that we create standards for the meaning of data on-the-wire. I also found it interesting that this is one of the few O'Reilly books that is printed using color. About 1/3 of the pages use color. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-03-26 10:28:52 EST)
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| 11-01-06 | 5 | 6\6 |
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Ambient Findability by Peter Morville took me back to my days of college (deep thought and application). I initially purchased this book due to it's high reference from other respected designers and developers. My first inclination was that the book would be about SEO or something along those lines. Though the book was small, it packed a big punch of information! I was pleasantly surprised at what this book had to offer.
This book went much deeper than I expected. As a disclaimer, I had many of my co-workers laugh when I told them the title of the book I was reading. However, I had a quick response as to what the book contained as the author quickly defines both ambient and findability. The author starts by giving background to how we come to find things. Not just as humans, he takes it to an even smaller scale discussing how ants find their way during their long journeys. Though this may seem odd, it helps to really put things into perspective. How DO we find things? Do we all find things the same way? In relation to the web - what words or phrases do we use to find things? Do we use broad terms or more specific (long tail) terms? This book is very tough to review, as I felt it was packed with so much information. The only way for me to really elaborate would be to put it into context, and by that time you could have read the book. The information packed in this book has really opened me up to an array of new questions related to searching. Outside of the context of the web, how do people find things? Inside of the web, how do people find things? I constantly monitor our analytics at Barbour Publishing, Inc and watch how people find us, and where they go from there. Did they get the answer they were seeking? Was their search relevant? What terms did they use? What order were the terms? What punctuation is used? What did some of the other similar searches look like? What did their other searches look like? What did the spellings look like? So many aspects to look into - and then refine to make sure people can find the information they are seeking. Sometimes simple `like' queries aren't enough. Sometimes the index needs to be refined to incorporate stopwords, mis-spellings, aliases, and other pertinent information. Understanding the core principles, findings, and research will help you build a strong foundation and core. I have found this to be extremely valuable and applicable to web development and answering the deeper questions. As stated earlier, this book is rather small in size but packs a big punch content wise. The author avoids `fluff' or trying to tell stories, and simply dives into the core (which is sometimes even scary) - which is often times backed by a significant amount of research and supplemental resources. Though this book is not directly related to web development - the lessons learned here can be applied to that medium. If you are a web developer, SEO expert, or simply want to know how people find things (and their decision process) - then this a book for you. The book is very well written, very easy to read, and follows a logical progression. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-03-26 10:28:52 EST)
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| 10-23-06 | 2 | 8\10 |
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I agree with the other reviews that say this book is rambling and padded. It is really just a collection of the author's thoughts on the computer industry, user interface, and information. The first part of the book seemed fine, kind of like the fluffy introduction to any other book. But then it never got down into specifics. I kept expecting it to "get good now," but after page 70 I skimmed more and more. I just put the book down after reading yet again about taxonomies vs. folksonomies and realizing that the author still doesn't have anything to add. I don't think I'll read the rest.
I think this book had great promise. I was really interested in the topic, but the author doesn't seem to have a lot to add. The topic of findability seemed kind of seemed glommed on afterward as a way to try to unify a lot of random technology quotes and tidbits. I also agree with some of the other negative commenters that it is also too trendy. There are a lot of references and sections about 2005's trendy technologies and companies, many of which will not be around or popular in 2 years. Overall, a pretty disappointing book from O'Reilly, which usually has such high-quality publications. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-02-15 09:06:36 EST)
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| 08-16-06 | 4 | 3\3 |
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Despite some unfortunate copyediting issues, this slim book has enough meat and asks enough important questions to make it worth reading. I like the way Morville meanders, and the book is valuable for the chapter on the socio-economic web alone. Just the same, somebody else might get as much out of a different chapter. Will keep this on my shelf and revisit in a couple years to see how things have turned out.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-02-15 09:06:36 EST)
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| 08-11-06 | 2 | 9\12 |
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Having seen the adulatory reviews of this book, I was looking forward to reading it. I have to say that I was pretty disappointed. "Rambling", "already dated" and "pseudo-intellectual" are three adjectives that come to mind.
As with many management / business books, the core concepts could be presented succinctly in just a few pages; as it is, there is noticeable repetition from one chapter to the next. I found myself thinking "Get on with it" all too often. I had already come across almost all the ideas in the book; while it was mildly interesting to be reminded of them, and to see them linked in particular ways, at no time did I have any sort of "eureka" moment. I was irritated by the poor grammar (e.g. "Evolution moves slow" [sic]), the sloppy explanation of some concepts (actually, biological evolution can be extremely rapid), and the inclusion of images that really are fairly superfluous. I also thought some of the examples were already dated. I actually got more ideas and inspiration about the topic of "findability" from reading Vernor Vinge's novel "Rainbows End" [sic] - which disappointed from a narrative point of view, but posits some interesting consequences of current technology trends. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-09-28 10:10:44 EST)
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| 07-22-06 | 5 | 5\8 |
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The first chapters take you on a tour from the beginning of language to Google. The last four chapters discuss topics including taxonomy, semantic web, and the emergent network culture. The book stresses user interface, which is as important as findability in the author's view point.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-09-28 10:10:44 EST)
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| 06-30-06 | 5 | 5\12 |
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That that's a Document! ;) - read the book to get the ;) You might think that the title "says it all" but you would be missing a whole lot. P. Morville has presented us with a well-researched, well-balanced and comprehensive body of knowledge on the topic of findability. For a person with a fair degree of knowledge on the topic I must say that I learned a lot and had perspective layered onto my existing knowledge. He brought up lots of related topics I was not aware of, which immediately helped with my own findability with search phrases to use in my own research. For specific knowledge and for perspective, this is a must-read for inventors, investors, entrepreneurs and information architects.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-09-28 10:10:44 EST)
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| 06-23-06 | 5 | 3\5 |
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this book is THE eye-opener for any "Creative" (think journalist, inventor, venture capitalist, competitive analyst, etc.) who needs to stay up with theri kind of news - and knows that that it can be found in unexpected places today.Benkeler, Scoble, Lee Hopkins - and, yes, next ... Chris Anderson (The Long Tail, out next month) help so many of us on the edges to understand the The Power of Us. Web 2.0 and all that stuff in ways we can apply to our work and our lives. A big thank you to Morville, one of the key playersin the Think Tank for the info geek elites and for the rest of us
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-09-28 10:10:44 EST)
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| 05-06-06 | 2 | 13\21 |
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I get the feeling this could be one of those books people look back on 5-10 years from now and ask "Did we actually think this was the direction technology was going?" It's always risky writing about the future of technology, so credit to the author for giving it a try. I'm just cautious of academic-type books that consistently have to invent words to make their point (e.g. findability, everyware, wayfinding). The book is written well and interesting in parts (hence no 1 star rating), but not nearly as interesting or useful as the author's Information Architecture book (hence no 3+ rating).
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-09-28 10:10:44 EST)
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| 04-19-06 | 4 | 1\3 |
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This book deals with the concept of "findability", which, according to the author, is the quality of being locatable. He believes that every object has characteritics which make it findable, such as unique web addresses or library call numbers. "Ambient" means surrounding, encircling, and completely enveloping. So, putting the two words together, users should be able to find anything whenever they want.
Has this happened yet? No, but with the advent of computers and other searching devices, we are getting closer to the "perfect" search. Another topic discussed in the book is information literacy. Simply put, this is the ability to locate information, evaluate what is found, and decide if it is usable. Is all information reliable? Definitely not. Is some of it worthwhile? Absolutely. The job of the information-literate user is to evaluate and decipher what is reliable and apply it to fit his or her needs. The discussion continues with a description of new technologies which have emerged that can help searches. Trios, wearable computing, blackberries, and the internet all dot the information landscape, making searching much different than it was a decade or two ago. These technological advances have made it easier than ever to search for information. However, the problem still remains of knowing which parts of the information are useful and applying those parts appropriately. I read this book as part of the course requirements for a Master's degree course I am enrolled in. I wasn't sure what to expect after seeing the book's cover. The monkey on the front really raised my level of curiosity. This book provides excellent tips and examples of how to correctly search for information. Admittedly, it took a while for the book to "get going", but I did learn a great deal from it. I highly recommend this book to information seekers. It will definitely help the user who is searching for information. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-07 09:20:05 EST)
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| 03-11-06 | 5 | 2\5 |
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Are you a designer, engineer, teacher, anthropologist or librarian? Well, you're in luck! Author Peter Morville, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that will be helpful to people who want to find their way through the current age of information overload.
Morville, begins by explaining findability and findable objects with definitions, examples, and stories. Next, the author connects animal and human navigation in natural and built environments to transmedia wayfinding in the 21st century. Then, he exposes the long now of information-seeking behavior through the hard lens of evolutionary psychology. The author continues exploring findability, findable objects, and wayfinding at the wavefront of ubiquitous computing and corporal convergence. In addition, the author next describes how findability and the Web are transforming the marketplace and reshaping the rules of marketing. He also bridges the gap between social software and the Semantic Web by placing ontologies, taxonomies, and folksonomies into context. Finally, he concludes with a safari through the tangled hierarchies of artificial intelligence, irrational decision making, and human behavior. The good thing about this excellent book, is that it can show you how to combine streams of complex information to filter out only the parts you want. Furthermore, the author has made an extra effort to make this book into an unusual journey into the emerging reality that lets you find anyone or anything from anywhere at anytime. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-07 09:20:05 EST)
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| 02-21-06 | 4 | 5\6 |
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While there is not a lot in this book that someone involved with information / metadata/ web design, etc. doesn't already have a working sense of, Morville provides an entertaining and thoughtful review of the state of the field, current to about Sept. 2005. The chapter on the "sociosemantic web" is particularly useful as a counterweight to hype. Morville's idea of layers of information with different scales is also intriguing.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-07 09:20:05 EST)
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| 02-19-06 | 3 | 10\14 |
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Don't expect to find much practical advice in this book: it's more of a high level discussion that may (or may not) stimulate your thoughts. Don't expect to learn much, either -- unless you have been living under a rock for the last few years... The book is well-written, though, and contains a lot excellent references that make it worth reading.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-07 09:20:05 EST)
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| 01-30-06 | 2 | 17\20 |
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The back cover description of Ambient Findability begins with the following paragraph:
How do people find their way through an age of information overload? How can people combine streams of complex information to filter out only the parts they want? Why does it matter how information is structured when Google seems to magically bring up the right answer to people's questions? If you expect these questions to be answered or even addressed at a reasonable level of detail then you will be disappointed. Ambient Findability is more like a collection of essays related to findability than a book about how to improve the design and implementation of products, information, web sites, etc., to make them easier to find. Because of some repetition across chapters and many figures that are unnecessary the book could be shorter than its short 179 pages. The first chapter, Lost and Found, discusses how information is being used in new and interesting ways, presents a definition of findability, and a brief case study of work the author did on the National Cancer Institute web site. Chapter two presents how people have determined their location and how to get to where they want to go through history. Chapter Three, Information Interaction, reviews the difficulties of classifying and finding information and discusses Mooers (not a typo) Law which states that people will avoid obtaining information that is painful or troublesome to them. The fourth chapter deals with how products are incorporating information and findability. Chapters Five and Six, Push and Pull and The Sociosemantic Web, respectively, deal with issues that you might find in an information architecture book. The last chapter, Inspired Decisions, discusses the irrationality behind our so-called "rational" decisions, how information overload makes the situation worse, and the author's theory that all the information that flows through our senses shapes how we think and act. The book does have a great number of references to interesting research and trends in the areas of information architecture, cognitive science, usability, and related areas. In fact, the number of references is the book's main strength as there were a number of interesting papers and research efforts mentioned of which I was unaware. However, the numerous references could also be considered a weakness since it appears that Morville does much more citing than explaining. O'Reilly categorized Ambient Findability as a Marketing/Technology & Society book. The Technology & Society part strikes me as correct but I am not so sure about Marketing. If you are looking for markers or pointers to how information may be used in the future then this is an interesting book to read. If you are looking for concrete suggestions or discussions of how to improve findability in the here and now then this book is lacking. Full disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of the book for review. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-07 09:20:05 EST)
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| 01-28-06 | 4 | 3\5 |
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In "Ambient Findability", Morville navigates his way simultaneously through human history and human cognition. He cites (for one example) early means of wayfinding and juxtaposes our biological toolsets (landscape recognition, counting one's steps, etc) with the evolution of clever tools to amplify these inherent abilities (maps, charts, GPS, etc).
Morville examines this vague concept of findability by knitting together a whole lot of memes and references. It makes this book feel like a combination of literature review and prolonged web browsing session. He is constantly hopping in and out of references and tying ideas together in a stream-of-consciousness argument. This is obviously annoying to some readers who have criticized Morville for having thrown together references without insight. This is simply not true. The insight lies within the musings, intertwingled with the content. Morville is using his highly refined model of information flow (earned through years of consulting, writing, and paying attention) to help the reader to see through the morass of searching, browsing and push/pull content pipes to the underlying problems of finding the information that we need to find when we need to find it. Google is far from the last word on findability - and Morville will help you to see why. Don't expect to implement anything after reading this book - its not a technical guide. Expect instead to follow a thoughtful (albeit quirky) leader through a noisy and cluttered information landscape to a higher peak where you can more clearly see the dots (connecting them is left as an exercise to the readers ;) With one caveat (same as an early commenter, I hate how the editor uses footnote notation for references - this is especially unforgivable from Morville, who is a library science graduate), kudos to O'Reilly for experimenting with a book of this format. This is not a traditionally structured document - it is way more playful and,in this reader's opinion, fun. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-07 09:20:05 EST)
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| 01-25-06 | 5 | 2\4 |
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I borrowed this book from a colleague after hearing Peter Morville speak, and it surpassed all my expectations. I liked it so much that I actually just ordered a copy-- I just want to have it handy and be able to flip through it, refer back to it, and read some of the material quoted. I'm a librarian, and this readable, engaging book is the best overview I've come across to explain what the information landscape is like now, what services are out there, what works for users, and why. Peter Morville makes sense of it all, and in such an entertaining and even-handed way.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-07 09:20:05 EST)
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| 01-19-06 | 2 | 11\11 |
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Ambient Findability can be summed up as follows: There is a lot of information on the web so it's hard to find what you want, it's going to get worse, and the author claims to know what to do about it but won't tell you.
The book starts out with great promise. I believed it would contain insights, sage advice, and practical details about how to make my web pages findable to my audience. The first couple of chapters were great introductory material, and they whetted my appetite for the meaty material that was sure to follow. Then, there was some more introductory material, and I began to notice that the author threw a lot of quotes around but didn't explore them very deeply, and threw in illustrations of things mentioned in passing in the book that really didn't illuminate anything. For example, he mentioned the Tower of Babel, and then presented an illustration of a Bruegel painting of it, which illustrated... not much. After a dozen of these you wonder if they were just trying to make the book look bigger. Around page 100 or so, I wondered if the author would ever stop glossing over introductory material, and actually get to the meat of the book. Unfortunately this never happened as far as I was concerned, and so my frustration. Ambient Findability never delivered any practical tips or any insightful theories that could help an aspiring web designer. One thing you can say for the author, he has read a lot of great books, and Ambient Findability contains references to many great classics worth reading, including Blink, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, the Cluetrain Manifesto, and Don't Make Me Think. I wish the author had chosen to emulate those books and had worked to develop and present some insights of his own, rather than just drop quotes from other sources. As it is, this book is good for gathering a few references to other better literature, and not much else. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-30 11:55:39 EST)
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| 01-19-06 | 2 | 5\5 |
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Ambient Findability starts out with great promise. I believed it would contain insights, sage advice, and practical details about how to make my web pages findable to my audience. The first couple of chapters were great introductory material, and they whetted my appetite for the meaty material that was sure to follow.
Then, there was some more introductory material, and I began to notice that the author threw a lot of quotes around but didn't explore them very deeply, and threw in illustrations of things mentioned in passing in the book that really didn't illuminate anything. For example, he mentioned the Tower of Babel, and then presented an illustration of a Bruegel painting of it, which illustrated... not much. After a dozen of these you wonder if they were just trying to make the book look bigger. Around page 100 or so, I wondered if the author would ever stop glossing over introductory material, and actually get to the meat of the book. Unfortunately this never happened as far as I was concerned, and so my frustration. Ambient Findability never delivered any practical tips or any insightful theories that could help an aspiring web designer. One thing you can say for the author, he has read a lot of great books, and Ambient Findability contains references to many great classics worth reading, including Blink, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, the Cluetrain Manifesto, and Don't Make Me Think. I wish the author had chosen to emulate those books and had worked to develop and present some insights of his own, rather than just drop quotes from other sources. As it is, this book is good for gathering a few references to other better literature, and not much else. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-02-11 03:25:20 EST)
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| 01-10-06 | 3 | 6\6 |
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I bought "Ambient Findability" looking for (1) insights into how people search for and find desired information and (2) tips on how to make web-based information easier for people to find. It turns other that the book doesn't focus much on either of these issues.
The title, "Ambient Findability," is somewhat misleading. The book is a lot like listening to a thought leader (which Morville is) holding court on a variety of topics tangentially related to findability. You get a broad-ranging set of Morville's musings, many of them interesting, that fall all over the map. I would have appreciated knowing that before I bought the book. Unfortunately for me, there wasn't a lot of meaningful advice on making information more readily findable. I noted a few good references, but that was about it. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-25 09:51:53 EST)
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| 01-10-06 | 3 | 4\4 |
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The content in this book didn't work well for me, though it may for you. Hopefully, my experience will help you to better decide. I bought "Ambient Findability" looking for (1) insights into how people search for and find desired information and (2) tips on how to make web-based information easier for people to find. It turns other that the book doesn't focus much on either of these issues.
The title, "Ambient Findability," is somewhat misleading. The book is a lot like listening to a thought leader (which Morville is) holding court on a variety of topics tangentially related to findability. You get a broad-ranging set of Morville's musings, many of them interesting, that fall all over the map. I would have appreciated knowing that before I bought the book. Unfortunately for me, there wasn't a lot of meaningful advice on making information more readily findable. I noted a few good references, but that was about it. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-02-24 01:25:57 EST)
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| 01-03-06 | 5 | 2\4 |
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Since research, online searching, and digital information are all at the core of my profession, I try to keep up by the best I can by reading as many books in this area as possible. I can honestly say that this was the most insightful and compelling work I've read in several years on emerging trends in online research and digital information gathering. The book is easy to read, yet packed with countless nuggets of valuable information.
I highly recommend this book--if you read just this book in fact, you can instantly get up to date on most of the major emerging trends that are impacting how we search for information, and what the key implications are for all of us as these trends continue. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-25 09:51:53 EST)
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| 12-26-05 | 1 | 25\31 |
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I am deeply disappointed with O"Reilly. It is with them that I place the most blame for the personal misfortune I have suffered from paying $29.95 for this book. Their line of books has been consistently timely and exhaustive of the major technology topics of the day. When I discovered this title in their catalog, I was excited by the possibility of finding a solid work on some of the emerging ontological challenges and characteristics of the modern Web. But that is not what this text is, and for the reasons listed below, I don't believe they should ever have allowed this book to be published.
My chief complaint is Morville's inability to do more than leap around a subject, quoting other sources aggressively but shedding no original light of his own. This is combined with the unfortunate editorial choice of using the same symbols for both footnotes and bibliographic entries. It seemed that he did a poor job of citing all his sources; if he cited them as often as required, the pages would bristle with numbers, because the text is such a hodgepodge of other people's words and ideas. The entire book reads like the first few pages of a scope document, or a sales pitch, wild with glib, facile, sophomoric rhetoric, lacking any substance, intended to excite and to provoke, but providing nothing to back up the emotional language. And some of it is downright incomprehensible: "Our future will be at least as messy as our present. But we will muddle through as usual, satisficing under conditions of bounded rationality. And if we are lucky, and if we make good decisions about how to intertwingle our lives with technology, perhaps we too can reclaim a fragment of asylum." (p.97) When the work is original, it often disintegrates into a series of terse and mostly unhelpful definition lists. I kept asking myself: where is the value add? The text is profusely illustrated in a high-color format unusual for an O'Reilly book, but the images consist of low-resolution screen grabs which are largely unnecessary for an understanding of the material under discussion. This whiff of "shovelware" is unsurprising, given Morville's research methodology: "For most of my research, I found what I needed from where I sit, via the free Web, online databases, and my personal bookshelf." (p.172) The only concrete recommendations concerning increasing findability that I could glean are to stay away from bitmapped (i.e. graphic, not live) text in websites and replace "pushy" marketing messages with more verbose link descriptions. Perhaps the text would have been more focused if the author was able to define his professional identity more clearly. In each chapter he seemed to wear a different hat: designer, librarian, information architect, findability engineer. For him, "words are messy little critters" (p.15) but for the money I paid for this book and the time I invested in reading it, I would have hoped for an author with a little more control over the English language. In a positive light, there are a few interesting anecdotes, mostly personal, and an explanation of the term "folksonomy" and the popularity and power of sites like Flicker and Delicious that those unfamiliar with the rise of user-contributed keywords as means of organizing large amounts of dynamic information will find helpful. And he makes the excellent point that web developers should pay attention to how their site is being found, and that viewing the discipline of search engine optimization as somehow sleazy or secondary is an excuse to ignore questions of context and to shirk one's responsibility to the user. But as a whole, I cannot recommend this book, and am in fact going out of my way to warn other people about its content. Morville is a bright guy and he certainly has his mind in some interesting places. But I would have been better off reading his website. The material in "Ambient Findability" has all the buzzword-dense charm of the web but it exhibits its often frustrating lack of deep scholarship and originality. I hope O'Reilly exercises more caution in its selections for future titles of a more general nature. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-25 09:51:53 EST)
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| 12-05-05 | 5 | 7\10 |
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There are very few books that I would consider good enough to rate. This was excellent. The content was succinct and well-thought out and the examples given were not overwhelming. It reminded me that sometimes those of us designing websites and networks sometimes forget the "Information" part about information technology. I highly encourage anyone in the field to read this book.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-25 09:51:53 EST)
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| 11-19-05 | 5 | 26\33 |
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This book is a very thought-provoking read about what should be a major theme in information retrieval and in interface design -you cannot use what you cannot find.
There are plenty of books that will teach you information retrieval algorithms, and plenty of books that will teach you about human-computer interfacing and interaction, but none of them seem to be looking at the big picture. Moreville discusses the "anatomy of the large tail". This is the fact that there are millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bit stream. For example, Barnes & Noble carries 130000 titles. However, half of Amazon's book sales come from titles outside its top 130000 sellers. The implication is that the market for the number of books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than those that are. This book is filled with valuable insights and statistics such as this. I notice that Amazon shows no table of contents for the book, so I do that here: Chapter 1 "Lost and Found" is an introduction to the importance of being able to find information and an idea of the lost productivity and business revenue caused by a lack of findability. Chapter 2 "A Brief History of Wayfinding" - Through history, humans have learned to navigate environments of increasing complexity, creating wayfinding tools and vocabularies , all of which are ultimately adapted to more complex environments as they are invented until today we struggle to port these spatial metaphors to the web, where distance is poorly defined and "there is no there". Chapter 3 "Information Interaction" - Since Moore's Law implies that technology accelerates exponentially, it follows that we will be increasingly overwhelmed with information. Conversely, the paradigm of Human Information Interaction embraces social and psychological dimensions of information seeking behaviour. Using this paradigm, innovators such as Google have improved information retrieval by tapping into the fact that humans are drawn to gossip and the power of popularity. Chapter 4 "Intertwingled" - Findability is becoming more urgent as our environment becomes more complex, with information about the real world being imported into cyberspace. Accordingly, we strive to make good decisions on how to intermingle our lives with technology in order to make information manageable, viewing it with novel interfaces (orbs, digital paper, etc). Chapter 5 "Push and Pull" - Ideally, we want to increase our signal-to-noise ratio to pull people, places, products and ideas into our attention, while reducing the push of unwanted messages and experiences. Chapter 6 "The Sociosemantic Web" - The Semantic Web promises an era where search and navigation systems (i.e. agents) bring us the information we need. The author makes a case for a "sociosemantic web" that relies on the pace-layering of ontologies, taxonomies, and folksonomies to learn and adapt as well as teach and remember. Chapter 7 "Inspired Decisions" - The author discusses artificial intelligence concepts, irrational human behavior, and information overload. He discusses graffiti theory, which suggests that we are unconsciously shaped by the information we digest, and this produces feedback into the information we seek. The author has done a good job of weaving together his own theories with the theories of others into a well-written cohesive read on the subject of information organization and retrieval. There is a great deal of science in this book, but he makes it very accessible. I therefore highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in information retrieval, artificial intelligence, or user interface design, or just the general reader who would like to know what trends might be ahead in the field of data design and findability. It would also be useful to those who are interested in business and entrepreneurship who wish to find new ways for their potential customers to find them. However, if all of the author's theories are correct, ambient findability will only be ultimately achieved if it is implemented on a global basis, due to the fact that achieving findability requires a social effort as well as an individual one. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-25 09:51:53 EST)
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| 11-12-05 | 5 | 6\10 |
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I read about this book on an IA mail list and immediately ordered it. This is THE book for those interested in the current thinking on searchability and findability. Mr. Morville writes, in a very readable and understandable way, about; "Wayfinding, Information Interaction, Intertwingling, The Sociosemantic Web, and Inspired Decision," with authority and humor. Even though Morville clearly disagrees with some about the future of the web and information findability; he treats them with respect while positing insightful and useful alternatives.
I read this book late into the night and finished it wondering when was the last time a computer book, of any kind, was so interesting that it was worth loosing sleep over--this is one. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-25 09:51:53 EST)
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| 11-11-05 | 4 | 8\9 |
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You can think of this book as an extended essay on its topic. A pity is the clumsiness of the word 'findability'. But the author, who is a professional librarian, cannot find a better choice. (No pun intended.) And neither can I.
He offers a viewpoint that is a combination of both his formal library training and a more shall we say informal approach that is often encountered on the Web. The book describes two contrasting approaches to describing information. Both use metadata. But one seems to presuppose that most of us will adhere to a common classification of documents. Where the latter are typically web pages, but in general could be any digital data accessible on the Internet. This approach is exemplified by Tim Berners-Lee's Scientific American article in 2001 about the Semantic Web. Morville gives us a cautionary take on TBL's essay. He warns that this verges on the false promises of Artificial Intelligence. Which will no doubt infuriate some readers. But which thus far has proved true. Beware of the vision of a standard ontology. He does not say that groups should not actually pursue such a goal. But he suggests that in tandem, the finding of documents should reflect the reality of conflicting classification schemes. Plus, this searching might also be over sources where no explicit classification is imputed. The best attraction of the book may be its disabusing of the Semantic Web. Don't think that soon, this will magically appear and all will be changed, as analogous to the onset of the browser in 1993. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-25 09:51:53 EST)
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| 10-29-05 | 5 | 1\2 |
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One of the review blurbs praising this book is written by famed science fiction author Bruce Sterling, who comments: "I envy the young scholar who finds this inventive book, by whatever strange means are necessary. The future isn't just unwritten--it's unsearched." As a young scholar myself, I have often been frustrated with the emphasis that traditional education places on rote memorization when I see that workers of the future will increasingly need the ability to draw information from a diverse set of sources and rapidly solve complex problems rather than relying on a base of memorized knowledge.
With this sentiment in mind, this book was like a breath of fresh air. Along with other recent books that attempt to identify major trends in information technology (such as John Battelle's "The Search"), Morville's "Ambient Findability" provides a broad overview of what exactly it means to gather and process information, as well as coverage of the technologies that will improve the ability of individuals and businesses to navigate a wide range of data. (Review Data Last Updated: 2005-11-02 04:03:31 EST)
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| 10-22-05 | 5 | 10\13 |
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Have you ever stopped to think about how "information" and the ability to find it has changed our lives? Ambient Findability by Peter Morville takes you down a thought-provoking path as to what it all means...
Contents: Lost and Found; A Brief History of Wayfinding; Information Interaction; Intertwingled; Push and Pull; The Sociosemantic Web; Inspired Decisions; Index First off, this isn't a book along the lines of "follow these steps to increase your search engine ranking". In fact, if you're just looking for some quick hit suggestions on how to make your site easier to find, don't buy the book. It'd be a waste of your time. But if you're ready to really think about what "searching" means, read on. Morville examines how a number of trends have converged to make it possible to find out just about anything regardless of where you are and when you're looking for it. Wi-fi has made it possible to have search engine access outside the home or office. Google's massive indexing ability has allowed us to find things that would never be found otherwise. GPS, cell phones, and other technical marvels have made us locate-able regardless of where we (or the searcher) are. All this "ambient findability" changes who we are both as individuals and as a part of society. And with the continuing advance of smaller chips, more bandwidth, and integration of RFID into everyday products, this convergence of information exchange and interaction only promises to get deeper and more pervasive. As stated in the book... The future is already here, but it's just not evenly distributed yet... I'm a little surprised I liked this book as much as I did. As I've stated in the past, I tend to avoid philosophical musings and gravitate towards practical "how do I" titles. But this one snared me. It's well written to begin with, and I think the subject matter was one that I was already interested in. It's the type of book that you should read slowly and think about as you go. When you understand how we've arrived at our current destination, it tends to make you have a greater appreciation for things we (or at least I) have taken for granted. If you're ready for something that will make you think and ponder, Ambient Findability should make an appearance on your "need to read" list... (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-25 09:51:53 EST)
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| 10-21-05 | 5 | 3\5 |
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This was a fanastic read. Well thought out from cover to cover. This book is clearly written.
Peter nailed a lot of issues that made me laugh out loud. I was enlgihtened many times over. The topics discussed are entirely true. The book captures right now. This is a killer read, and should be a required read for anyone that uses the net, Google, wikis, blogs, have implanted RFID's, create folders, traverse horizontal folksonomies, want spimes... you get the picture. Peter questions where did you find the book? For me, this find was 100% serendipitous. Way along the Long Tail from what initially was searching for... (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-25 09:51:53 EST)
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| 10-21-05 | 2 | 22\29 |
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Given that the title of the book is "Ambient Findability", it's ironic that the author makes no attempt to make key points in the text clear or easy to find.
* There are no chapter introductions to set the chapter in context and prime the reader for what is to come. * There are no chapter summaries to summarize key points from the chapter. * Sections are not numbered making it difficult to reference them. * There are no highlights in the text to emphasize key ideas. * The text seems to be largely stream of consciousness lacking coherent organization. * There is no bibliography. I wish the author would practice what he preaches about findability! He should set a compelling example for his readers. Personally, I don't care for the writing style (however, this is just a personal preference - you might like it). The author writes in sound bites that are high on affect, but low on meaning. He quotes Korzybski, but clearly hasn't applied his teachings on noise, semantic reactions and meaning. Also, the style is very "punchy". This is certainly OK for a short article, but for a book of this length, it begins, after a while, to feel as though you are actually being punched. The book has a lot of pictures, but many of these are irrelevant eye candy - the sort of visual noise you get on poorly designed web sites. They add nothing to the text. If this was a coffee table book, that would be just fine, but it seems quite out of character for this particular O'Reilly series. One of the themes of this book is information overload and the book, perhaps unintentionally, makes a significant contribution to that. Instead of saying what he has to say and then moving on, the author quotes, references, digresses, sound bites and makes extensive use of his thesaurus using long, comma delimited lists of words, where a single word would actually be much more effective. Information is not meaning, and this book is heavy on information but light on meaning. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-25 09:51:53 EST)
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| 10-20-05 | 5 | 52\66 |
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Wow, wow, holy cow....I am rushing to finish up a book on Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time, and I am so very pleased to have gotten to this absolute gem of a book before closing out. Compared to the other 200 or so books I have reviewed--including such gems at ATTENTION, Real-Time, Early Warning, and so on, this is clearly a "top ten" read in the literature on information art & science.
Halfway through the book I was torn by a sense of anguish (the U.S. Intelligence Community and the beltway bandits that suck money out of the taxpayers pocket through them have no idea how to implement the ideas in this book) and joy (beyond Google, through Wikis and other collective intelligence endeavors facilitated by open source software, relevant findability is possible). This is a truly gripping book that addresses what may be the most important challenge of this century in a compelling, easy to read, yet intellectually deep and elegant manner. The author is a true guru who understands that in the age of a mega-information-explosion (not just in quantity, but in languages, mediums, and nuances) the creation of wealth is going to depend on information being useful, usable, desireable, findable, accessible, credible, and valuable (page 109). Especially important in the first half of the book are the author's focus on Mooers (not to be confused with Moores) who said in 1959 that users will make do with what information they have when it becomes too inconvenient to go after better information. This is key. At the same time, he focuses on the difference between precision and recall, and provides devasting documentation of the failure of recall (1 in 5 at best) when systems scale up, as well as the diminuition of precision. Bottom line: all these beltway bandits planning exobyte and petabyte databases have absolutely no idea how to actually help the end-user find the needle in the haystack. This author does. The book is without question "Ref A" for the content side of Information Operations. On page 61 I am just ripped out of my chair and on to my feet by the author's discussion of Marcia Bates and her focus on an integrated model of information seeking that integrates aesthetic, biological, historical, psychological, social, and "even" spiritual layers of understanding. This is bleeding edge good stuff, with nuances that secret intelligence world is not going to understand for years. There is a solid discussion of geocoding and locationally aware devices, and I am very pleased to see the author recognize the work of four of my personal heroes, Stewart Brand, Bruce Sterling, Kevin Kelly, and Howard Rheingold. Halfway through the book he discusses the capture of life experiences, and the real possibility that beyond today's information explosion might lie an exo-explosion of digital data coming from wired individuals feeding what they see and hear and feel into "the web". The opportunities for psycho-social diagnosis and remediation, and cross-cultural communication, are just astounding. The book wraps up with a great review of findability hacks, semantic tricks, and the trends to come in inspired and informed decisions. Like Tom Atlee, the author sees the day of collective intelligence enabled by the web, but I have to say, I thought I knew a lot, after reading this book I have the strongest feeling that my education has just begun. This is one of those books that could help define an era. It is about as thoughtful, useful, and inspiring a book as I have read in the past several years. DECENT! (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-06-25 09:51:55 EST)
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