So it’s official, my first book del.icio.us Mashups has been unleashed upon the world!

And, well, holy crap, I actually wrote a book! It was challenging, mind-bending, and perhaps even painful at times, but it actually happened and I’m very happy it did. Yaye!!!

OK, enough of that. Why should you care? And more to the point, why should you bother to read this book?

Aside from a rich learning experience, I believe that one of this book’s strongest features are the projects inside. They’re the kind of projects that I’ve always wanted to do with del.icio.us and other web services but never got the chance.

Many of these projects address thoughts and ideas that still to this date I still see people asking about in blogs or on the del.icio.us Yahoo! Group. So, in addition to learning how they might be put together, the projects in this book have the potential of allowing you to get more use out of del.icio.us than ever before. How cool is that?!?

For example, some of the projects will show you how to:

• “Cache” your saved pages to Amazon S3’s web storage system - just like Google Caching.
• Stream MP3s posted to del.icio.us in iTunes.
• Roll your own custom del.icio.us Firefox extension that makes posting extra info. about your links - such as geocoding data - super easy.
• Even create your own custom, project-specific “version” of del.icio.us to coordinate real-world research, marketing efforts, and so forth with other people (with the real del.icio.us acting as the silent back-end to the whole thing, of course).

In addition to all this you’ll of course learn the complete ins-and-outs of the del.icio.us API as well as how to mash it up with Amazon’s web services (which I am now officially in love with), Yahoo! Maps and their geocoding service, Firefox, Greasemonkey, Wordpress, and more.

By the way, while the book covers a LOT of ground in its 400 or so pages, don’t feel that it’s going to be entirely inaccessible if you are a relatively new web developer. Even if you’ve only glanced inside the world of PHP/MySQL and the del.icio.us API, I think there’s a lot of good stuff you can work with right away and will lead to an excellent learning experience.

Sound cool? Then feel free to order it at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you see fit - and thanks for your support! (At the time of this posting Amazon.com has it for 30% off!)

And speaking of support, I realize that a book like this, just like del.icio.us, could potentially be a social experience, so please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or you find anything confusing or unclear. I’ll do my best to help and will be posting updates here as much as possible.

By the way, I should mention that book is a part of a series of other Mashup books all by new authors, all which are excellent. Be sure and check them out as well.

OK, back to the links.