To say the least, writing a technical book takes a ridiculous amount of sacrifice. On the home front, I gave up more time with my wife, Baseeret, and daughter, Lindsay Belle, than I’m proud to admit. Thanks most of all to both of you for loving me in spite of my ambitions to somehow take over the world one day. (It’s just a phase, and I’m really trying to grow out of it—honest.)

I sincerely believe that the sum of your decisions gets you to where you are in life (especially professional life), but nobody could ever complete the journey alone, and it’s an honor give credit where credit is due. I am truly blessed to have been in the company of some of the brightest people in the world while working on this book, including a technical editor as smart as Mike Loukides, a production staff as talented as the folks at O’Reilly, and an overwhelming battery of eager reviewers as amazing as everyone who helped me to complete this book. I especially want to thank Abe Music, Pete Warden, Tantek Celik, J. Chris Anderson, Salvatore Sanfilippo, Robert Newson, DJ Patil, Chimezie Ogbuji, Tim Golden, Brian Curtin, Raffi Krikorian, Jeff Hammerbacher, Nick Ducoff, and Cameron Marlowe for reviewing material or making particularly helpful comments that absolutely shaped its outcome for the best. I’d also like to thank Tim O’Reilly for graciously allowing me to put some of his Twitter and Google+ data under the microscope in Chapters 4, 5, and 7; it definitely made those chapters much more interesting to read than they otherwise would have been. It would be impossible to recount all of the other folks who have directly or indirectly shaped my life or the outcome of this book.

Finally, thanks to you for giving this book a chance. If you’re reading this, you’re at least thinking about picking up a copy. If you do, you’re probably going to find something wrong with it despite my best efforts; however, I really do believe that, in spite of the few inevitable glitches, you’ll find it an enjoyable way to spend a few evenings/weekends and you’ll manage to learn a few things somewhere along the line.