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About the O'Reilly Network

Overview

The O'Reilly Network is the essential portal for developers interested in open and emerging technologies, including new platforms, programming languages, and operating systems. Just like O'Reilly & Associates' books, this hub site provides in-depth technical information, clearly and consistently, for expert developers. Beyond that, it creates a forum for the O'Reilly developer community, giving them the chance to interact both with each other and independent affiliate sites. A primary aim is to help developers cross over into new technical communities, which is essential for their professional development and personal satisfaction.

The O'Reilly audience is exceptional, passionate about and at the forefront of every new technology. Our company has grown in part because the technologies we cover are vital to the endlessly-growing Internet and its infrastructure; but our true success has come because we are inside the communities we cover, and they (and their need for information) are growing exponentially. We share a common vision of technology with them, and we understand their need for technical depth and excellence. All of this is reflected on the O'Reilly Network site. The O'Reilly Network hub is high-quality aggregator of information from affiliate sites, as well as provider of original content and FAQs on new technologies. The O'Reilly Network provides links to these affiliates, where extensive, in-depth resources on each technology are provided.

Our audience is not just passionate about technology--it's passionate about O'Reilly, revering the company as a leader in a community with few leaders. (We're not just tooting our own horn: for example, see San Jose Mercury News reporter David Plotnikoff's 1998 profile of O'Reilly & Associates: "O'Reilly delivers the first and last word on the Net... O'Reilly & Associates' (books) are widely hailed as being the definitive texts on their particular computer-related topics." The O'Reilly Network has emerged from this history and reputation.

Because the developer community is certainly one of its own best resources, we bring it together in several ways. First, we bring the independent affiliate sites, developed and managed by technology enthusiasts, into a larger network. We make their content easier to find, placed within the context of technologies that O'Reilly covers.

Second, our newsgroups provide forums where developers can meet and discuss these technologies in a moderated environment. Our goal is not simply to generate dialog. We aim to link together developers who have common interests, so they can collaborate on meaningful projects.

We are continually adding new affiliate sites. Currently, these sites are:

O'Reilly Network History

The O'Reilly Network grew out of a realization that the same intelligent developers who appreciate our books' technical depth and thoroughness need similar resources online. There were plenty of technology sites, search engines and newsgroups, but nobody was trying to integrate them for these developers.

We believe that developers who read our books also share a common vision of technology. Since O'Reilly & Associates was founded in 1978, we have always thought of our customers more as developers than simply book buyers. So with the O'Reilly Network, we want to provide services to them like those which software companies have provided to their developers. That involved organizing information to meet their needs, offering them support for their jobs and professional goals, and articulating a vision of where technology is headed.

We want to network developers. They are a great resource to each other and to the whole Internet community. And we want to help them cross technical boundaries. People may join an online technical community, and become very familiar with it. But their challenge is to be able to join different technology communities, to cross over from one to the other and understand the context. So the O'Reilly Network facilitates the movement from one technology to the other. We help developers understand how information is organized, who the players are and what the key developments are.

Dale Dougherty, the visionary behind the O'Reilly Network, has been instrumental in many of O'Reilly's most important efforts. He was founding editor of the company's Nutshell Handbooks. He was the developer and publisher of Global Network Navigator (GNN), the first commercial Web site and the first to announce an advertising-based business model, which launched in August, 1993. Dale was developer and publisher of Web Review, a widely-respected online magazine for professional Web designers. In Weaving the Web, written by the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, Dale Dougherty is described as "an early Web champion." Dale has written and edited numerous books at O'Reilly & Associates. Dougherty is a Lecturer in the School of Information Management and Systems (SIMS) at the University of California at Berkeley. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

O'Reilly & Associates

O'Reilly & Associates is recognized worldwide for its definitive books on open source software, the Internet, programming, Windows NT, and UNIX. O'Reilly also produces award-winning Internet software, technical conferences, and innovative web-based courses. From the pioneering bestseller The Whole Internet User's Guide (designated one of 100 Books of the Century by the New York Public Library) to GNN (the first Internet portal and commercial website) to WebSite (the first web server software for desktop PCs), O'Reilly has been at the forefront of Internet development. www.oreilly.com.


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