Building a social web application that attracts and retains regular visitors, and gets them to interact, isn't easy to do. This book walks you through the tough questions you'll face if you're to create a truly effective community site - one that makes visitors feel like they've found a new home on the Web. Whether you're creating a new site from scratch or embracing an existing audience "Building Social Web Applications" helps you and your fellow web developers, designers, and project managers make difficult decisions, such as choosing the appropriate interaction tools for your audience, and building an infrastructure to help the community gel.With this book, you'll learn to: understand who will be drawn to your site, why they'll stay, and who they'll interact with; build the software you need versus plugging in off-the-shelf apps; create visual design that clearly communicates what your site will do; manage the identities of your visitors and determine how to manage their interaction; watch for demand from the community to guide your choice of new functions; and, plan the launch of your site and get the message out. "Building Social Web Applications" includes examples of different application types - member-driven, customer service-driven, contributor-driven, and more - and discusses different business models. If your company's ready to move into the world of social web applications, this book will help you make it a reality.

Gavin Bell is one of a group of volunteers behind talkeuro.com, development notes for which are on betageek.co.uk. Gavin designs infrastructure web products at the BBC, having previously worked in academia, publishing, and advertising. In his spare time, he is interested in reactivating political debate as well as the future of social software. He writes widely, though intermittently, on takeoneonion.org.