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

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

Rating:
Summary: Some of the background, but not the full story
Review: It has been a few months since I read the book, just never getting back to writing a review. For whatever reason tonight is the night.
I found it to be an interesting book, to learn the firsthand accounts of some of the important architects of the WWW; and then some not so important. Opening my eyes to what was really going on in other parts of the world while I was just barely learning the WWW.
The reading was for the most part smooth, and easy read actually. If you want to learn part of where we have come from over a weekend go ahead and pick this up.

Rating:
Summary: A pre-dot bomb period piece
Review: Reid's book can safely be characterized as a pre-dot bomb period piece. The history of the Web is the history of making money in wonderously new ways, readers of *Architects* will learn. The actual Ponzi-scheme techniques by which much of the Web's money poured in (for a while) are not explored. But that is fine. Internet historians will refer to this now primary document as financial and cultural historians refer to the U2-can-get-rich books of the late 1920s. That is, prior to October of 1929.