While Web innovation is unpredictable, some clear trends are becoming apparent. Expect the following 10 themes to define the Web next year.

We Feel Fine is one of my favorite, longest-running, interactive art pieces that aggregates feelings from blogs around the world. The emotions captured are displayed in a self-organizing particle system, with a beautiful UI for sorting and filtering. Now in it’s fourth year, the site has created We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion—a wonderfully designed book showing collected data and notes about the exploration.

A Song by programmers, for programmers. (Via: Rajaram)

Entrepreneurship for the first time requires conditioning yourself to a set of attitudes, skills and knowledge you’ve never encountered anywhere else before. You’ve got to be prepared to learn faster than any time in your life. However, being prepared for this ‘knowledge hit’ hinders many young entrepreneurs in taking their $bn ambitions to actually realizing them. For those of you that are starting your entrepreneurial careers, you’ll find this list inspiring, immersive and essential reading, even providing comfort for those inevitable moments where everyone tells you that you can’t succeed. Here are 30 books I’ve read, my friends who are in the same league have read which I think you should too…

Attitude
These books will help you to get inspired, think big and refuse to back down when people say you can’t succeed.

• The Google Story ( The story behind the greatest start up in history)
• Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure (An emotional roller coaster through the founding of Go computer. How do u deal with technology which is too early for its market? Read this first)
• High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner’s Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars (The fly-on-the wall account of founding, growing and eventually selling Frontpage to Microsoft)
• The Nudist on the Late Shift: And Other True Tales of Silicon Valley (The story of silicon valley gold rush in 1999. Get into the mentality of an amazing time in history)
• EBoys: The True Story of the Six Tall Men Who Backed EBay, Webvan and Other Billion-dollar Start-ups (An insight into silicon valley during the boom, set around the founding of Benchmark capital and all the companies they funded)
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days (Interviews with some of the foremost founders of technology startups. Great starts are Max Levchin of Paypal and James Hong of HotOrNot.)
• Boo Hoo: A Dot Com Story (Boo.com received $160m venture capital in 1999. The story of the most prominent European dot com flameout ever)
• Against the Odds: An Autobiography (James Dyson never gave up trying to make the perfect product. The insight into his struggle to what he achieved is inspirational.)
• The Perfect Store: Inside EBay (The story of eBay, from Pierre Omidyar’s bedroom to where it is now)
• Icon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business (The unofficial biography of Steve Jobs. An unique insight into his dark and disturbing side)
• Losing My Virginity: The Autobiography (The autobiography of Richard Branson. Just how did he grow his empire from starting with a humble magazine ?)

Skills
Negotiation, networking, getting users, dealing with people and executing upon your plans, these books will help you avoid taking investor money and just burning it.

• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity (How do you execute if you can’t priorities. David Allen’s book will change your life)
• How to Win Friends and Influence People (Mediating a dispute with a co-founder, or trying to impress an investor for the first time. Dale Carnegie has all the answers)
• Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement with out Giving In: The Secret to Successful Negotiation (Negotiating for your first serious round of finance, or with a supplier can be make or break. This book will mean you’ll know how to squeeze out those extra details)
• Buzzmarketing: Get People to Talk About Your Stuff (Knowing how to build buzz is invaluable. Learn from the man who decided he would rename a town halfway Oregon to half.com Oregon just to build buzz. Incredible reading)
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (The title says it all. Do what you can to become more effective)
• Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time (Networking is an art. Know how to build, maintain and leverage your network. Business is all about who you know as well as what, so read this)
• The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything (The concise guide to making it happen. Everything from fund-raising, hiring, schmoozing, to getting your pitch right - with a dose of oomph)
• The Effective Executive (Execution starts with you. Peter Drucker nails down how to be that bit more effective)
• How to Be a Complete and Utter Failure in Life, Work and Everything: 39 1/2 steps to lasting underachievement (The only way to success is to know how to fail. This book gives you enough fodder to never fail again)
• Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (This book is the best book on making a usable website i’ve read. Start pleasing your users. Good start-ups are distinguished by good design. Build your advantage)

Knowledge
Starting a technology company is underpinned by some fundamental facts. These range from understanding long tail economics, how to push something to tipping point or what disruptive technology actually means. Read these or sink fast as others conquer.

• The Long Tail: How Endless Choice Is Creating Unlimited Demand (There is 80% of the market you aren’t thinking about. This is the long tail)
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (How do ideas, concepts or messages spread through network and reach mass popularity. Learn about the tipping point)
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (Getting ideas to have lasting power is tricky. This book will change your perspective on marketing)
• The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Taleb argues that rare events, can to be some extent be foreseen. Getting to that series A isn’t so random after all)
• Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (This will change your view on the serendipity behind life-changing events)
• The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (This book takes the concept of disruptive innovation and summarizes into a series of characterisable steps)
• The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (This book is a classic, illustrating the term disruptive innovation with studies of where disruptive technologies have changed markets. Essential for the budding Niklas Zennstrom)
• Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Technology Products to Mainstream Customers (How to bring technology from your early adopters into the mainstream? This book created those definitions)
• The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few (How can the average knowledge of a million people be more correct than an expert. With the Internet growing how it is, the wisdom of crowds could be your application’s next big weapon)

So what books do you think should in here? Reply in…

Most of these books are findable in libraries Or, if you want to get one, you can check them on http://flipkart.com as well.

Along with: Kris Nair

Is anyone else as sick as I am of all the mainstream news coverage on Twitter? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Twitter fan, and I’ve been a user since 2006. To me, it’s a form of public instant messaging — yet another way to maximize the value of my keystrokes. Still, I’m a little perplexed as to the media’s near-obsession with the service. If a day goes by now without the New York Times or CNN mentioning Twitter in some way, I become concerned. Am I really getting all the news? Or just the stupid, too long, non-140-character version of the news?

How it was done!

Hug A Developer

Facebook vanity URLs… http://facebook.com/shekharsahu

• Multicore and hybrid processors
• Virtualisation and fabric computing
• Social networks and social software
• Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
• Web mashups
• User Interface
• Ubiquitous computing
• Contextual computing
• Augmented reality
• Semantics

krisnair:

If you are trying to raise early stage venture capital and are actively engaged with a VC or two, you may have noticed a funny variance in the VCs level of interest, excitement and mood.

This is completely normal! As a startup’s dialog with a VC matures the VC will go through a totally natural “Deal Hype Cycle.” Above diagrammed the important stages in this venture capital deal hype cycle below and included some tips on how you can recognize these stages in your potential funding partner - and what you can do to help keep the process moving along.

As a startup CEO, you don’t have to be a passive participant on this roller coaster… you can positively influence the VC and keep your fund raise on track! Note also that this is the cycle for an investment that actually closes.

Read ‘The Venture Capital Deal Hype Cycle’