The Laws of the Web

This evening I started and finished a required reading for the upcoming book discussions, The Laws of the Web. How very refreshing to have such a short little book to read!

This wasn't my favorite book I have read for class to date, but still interesting. The idea of discovering patterns in use among such a diverse group of users of the Web is fascinating, and the author did a fairly decent job of illustrating some of the patterns he discovered and providing helpful examples. Still, for someone whose primary endeavor was to translate the patterns into layman's terms, I found some of the patterns a bit technical and hard to digest.

This is the book on which I will be leading a group discussion for class. A few discussion questions came to mind:

1) What are the major themes conveyed in this work?
2) Does the author make a good argument?
3) The author attempts to translate his sophisticated research into lay terms - does he succeed?
4) What of the laws explained by the author do you find most interesting? Most surprising?
5) What practical purpose do the laws demonstrated in this book have for information science professionals?
6) Have you ever encountered these laws at work in your personal use of the World Wide Web?