Between the idea and the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow
T.S. Eliot a.
Ralph Noble b.
Dept of Cognitive Sciences c.
Carnegie 01 d.
X6493 e.
nobler@rpi.edu
f.
Yahoo AIM gordon9462000 g.
Office hours 11-12 tuth
Course Description
Course concept
Historically people adapted to the demands of the environment and the requirements of technology. Increasingly, it is possible to adapt technology and the environment to people's demands, and in the information age ignorance of human nature is both a major constraint to advancing technology, and a major source of human unhappiness. Technologically sophisticated students are creating the “ New Frontier” , hopefully they should be able to evaluate the possible consequences of their actions.
Objective: My approach is to teach the course organized around phenomena, processes, problems and possibilities that are designed to teach critical thinking and problem solving skills situated within the behavioral sciences methodologically but taking a fundamentally transdisciplinary approach to important issues and phenomena.
.

Increasingly we live in cyberspace, working, playing, learning , and even loving online. The average rpi student spend 30 hours a week online and the likelihood is that future generations will behave similarly. Cyberspace is undergoing rapid and not entirely predictable transformations at a rapid rate and these transformations mirror the larger society. The study of life in cyber space exploits the major advantage that cyberspace can be explored and almost entirely documented from the comfort of a laptop supporting classroom. The Cyberspace that the internet supports a natural library for the study of human behavior and the explication of most dimensions of the human experience under conditions that are somewhat simplified, largely digitalized and fully doumentable for future study. For the first time it is feasible to carefully not only freely occurring human behavior but also the conditions under which the behavior occurs.
The transdisciplinary approach to the study of life in cyberspace lends itself to supporting many of the goals of the first year studies program, and my personal agenda which is to provide students with sophisticated critical thinking and problems skills anchored in the social and behavioral sciences. It has the major pedogoic advantages of empowering the students in fact because they know more about cyberspace than I do both as builders in cyberspace and as inhabitants of cyberspace, and of being totally real and rooted in the students lives. It brings the raw data right in to the classroom in readily analyzable form. Finally , it is a real frontier and the students benefit from the exhilarating realization that they are creating real knowledge of personal interest to them and to the larger scientific community.
Lab Activity : Goal: recreating Cyberspace in the classroom. Many interesting phenomena related to communication , diversity, and
Basically setting up a network in which all the activities in cyberspace can be recreated in real time in the classroom. Thanks to the laptop program the logistic requirements for this real time simulation/experiment has minimal requirements
Class Schedule
Topics list: general topic every 2 weeks : specific exemplars for each topic chosen first week of class, students will share responsiblity
I.
Cyber space the New frontier
II.
The history and Desgn of the Internet
III.
Architecture of Cyberspace : physical and sociological.
IV.
The dimensions of cyberspace, physical , spatial, temporal, social, political
V.
Economics of Cyberspace
VI.
Psychology of cyberspace
VII.
Blended Reality : the future of cyberspace
Monday : lecture/ presentation day
Thursday Lab Day

Assignments and Grading
Grades will be based on class participation, two presentations which will be developed into formal papers ,
Class participation 20 percent
Presentations
Papers (2)
Total
40 percent
40 percent
100%
Class Participation.
I expect you to do any assigned readings before you class and to participate actively in the. I need to hear a useful contribution from you in nearly every class for you to get an A in class participation. Most of the topics discussed in class do not have unique right answers but reflect a point of view. It will enrich the discussion for everyone if you contribute from your personal perspective!
Presentations.
Every student is expected to make an oral presentation as part of a small team. The presentations are intended to be part of the class generated ‘text’ for this course. The first paper reviews a significant issue of the current state of the internet .
Do a literature search for sources throw light on your question. The second paper will predict in detail the future state of some key aspect of live on the internet.
Proposal. Each presentation will begin with a proposal that is consistent with the following guidelines ;
1.
Provide a title for the paper.
2.
Describe the question you are addressing in the paper in one paragraph.
3.
Describe what interests you about this topic, the aspects you are exploring, and how the topic relates to the course. Sketch a tentative answer to the question you are posing.
4.
Provide key references that you expect to make use of and that you make available for the class
Papers.
You will write 2 papers based on the presentatons. . The first paper is due on
Thursday, November 2 . The second paper is due on Monday, November 27. A list of topics will be developed during the first two weeks of class.
Other Assignments.
There may be other short, informal assignments. These will not be graded but their completion will count toward class participation
2.
Papers

The internet is evolving and morphing far too quickly for traditional t eaching materials. This course is built around materials developed during the course and building on materials developed by previous classes. There is a website developed by last year’s class that will be part of the course materials.
5.
Formats
Suggested topics and guidelines for writing an effective paper will be made available during the first two weeks of class . Papers should be the electronic equivalent 10 pages double-spaced. The papers should include a cover page with the title of the paper, your name, and the date. A digital copy of all work is to be submitted via email before the presentation and a complete collection of all work done during the semester will be submitted by Dec 7 collected on 1 CD for each group. . . Much of the effort for the presentation will consist of locating the right material, as this will provide the substance for your arguments.
The research paper should include in-text citations to references and a table or graph.
(They do not count as pages of text.) At the end should be a separate page with a list of references cited. This list should include 3 references, at least one of which is at least 5 pages long.
The RPI Writing Center offers online resources and personal assistance: check it out at http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/writecenter/web/handouts.html
. I urge you to take advantage of this valuable service. In particular, consult the online handout on citations for how to handle an Internet reference.
If you want to change your topic after the proposal is approved, you must submit a revised proposal. I will not accept a paper if I have not previously approved the proposal for it. The proposal and the paper are both due as hard copy in class on their respective due dates and as e-mail attachments. Get them in on time: points may be deducted for each day late.
6. Presentations
Each presentation is based on a question, formulated in terms of a controversy, related to the readings and films. (The topics are described below.) The presentation will set the stage for a class discussion. The objectives of the assignment are to learn new material and to develop skills in research, oral presentation to your peers, and leading a discussion.
Potential discussion Topics ( examples from previous semesters)
1.
What motivates the unpaid volunteers that run the internet
2.
What role does traditional economic motives play on the internet

3.
How are cooperation and competition managed on the net
4.
Are there any gender differences in cyber space
5.
What makes a hot website
6.
What are the rules for social interaction online :as differ from face to face
7.
Have any unique roles developed in cyberspace
8.
What are the key strategies for making money in cyberspace
Presentation guidelines b. Advance Materials
In advance of the presentation, you need to send an e-mail message to the class to alert everyone to your topic. Provide several discussion questions. The job of this email is to provide, get them acquainted with your topic, and have the class start thinking about the topic so they can participate more fully.
Aim for 4-6 good discussion questions that can sustain discussion for at least 5 minutes each. A good question is one that stimulates responses.
You should send this message by midnight the preceding Saturday for a Monday presentation and by midnight the preceding Tuesday for a Thursday presentation so there is ample time for review. Send the message directly to the class. c. Presentation.
Briefly introduce the topic. You will probably use Power Point slides.
If so, do not cram material onto slides; put only a few keywords on each slide. Face the listeners and make eye contact while talking. Check your watch to pace your timing. d. Discussion
Lead the discussion on the questions that you distributed in advance, make sure that things move along, and stay on time by cutting off discussion of certain points if necessary.
7. Resources
RPI Writing Center : http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/writecenter/web/handouts.html
.
Online Assistance in Formatting References:
Citation Machine ( http://citationmachine.net/index.php?g
=) or
EasyBib ( http://www.easybib.com/ ).
Apa Style guide
Elements of Style
8. Policy Issues
Attendance.
A major goal of the course is to provide opportunities for interactive learning and active participation. Students can only participate when present and are expected to attend class . Failure to attend class is no

excuse or not participating in class based activities. When an individual does not attend class they are responsible for contacting fellow group members and getting caught up on course work. Group members are responsible for supporting each other and keeping each other up to speed.
Attendance is not optional: I expect you to come to class, be prepared for the day’s discussion, and participate in the discussion. Points may be deducted for each absence after the first 2. You are responsible for making up any work missed.
GRADING CRITERIA
The following guidelines will be used in evaluating projects and in class performance. A=solid mastery of the material combined with significant originality;B=solid mastery of the material, a workmanlike job without much originality; or a creative but content free performance; C=a minimal effort, as one might get from throwing something together the night before it's due, and handing in a first draft. Students may schedule a discussion of a project grade within a week of receiving the grade. Protests much delayed and handing in a first draft. Students may schedule a discussion of a project grade within a week of receiving the grade. Protests much delayed will be summarily denied.
Class participation can influence your grade. The student contributing
The most is not necessarily the one who talks the most. But it is also unlikely to be someone who doesn't talk at all To contribute to a discussion one must first think critically about the issues raised, and then say something interesting and relevant. The amount of constructive participation will be taken into account when assigning grades and will determine the grade in borderline cases.
Class participation will be evaluated largely but not exclusively on the email submissions of in class exercises. The impact of class participation on the course grade will be calculated on the following basis:
1.
all work submitted and of good quality : baseline grade from the three projects will be increased as much as a full letter grade for outstanding work ; most groups that hand in all exercises in acceptable fashion can anticipate a “bump” of one half letter grade.
2.
All work submitted in adequate form: base grade is unchanged
3.
Work missing or of inadequate quality (notices will be provided when records are collated after second paper) grade will be lowered as much as one half grade .
Taking initiative within project groups can also influence your grade.
In all cases the project coordinator will be given the benefit of the doubt when their course grade is borderline. Groups can also identify individuals warranting special consideration.

Laptop Policy. Bring your laptop to every class. When not in use for class purposes the lid will be closed.
Class rules . be nice , learn something, have fun. Be polite.
Academic Honesty.
Student-teacher relations are built on trust. For example, students must trust that teachers have made appropriate decisions about the structure and content of the courses they teach, and teachers must trust that the assignments students in have been carried out in the manner called for.
Acts which violate this trust undermine the educational process.
The Rensselaer Handbook defines various forms of academic dishonesty and procedures for responding to them. All forms are violations of the trust between students and teachers. Students should familiarize themselves with procedures for responding to them. All forms are violations of the trust between students and teachers. Students should familiarize themselves with this portion of the Rensselaer Handbook and note that the penalties for plagiarism and other forms of cheating can be quite severe.
All work submitted by you must be your own or that of your group. Given the nature of the internet there are many judgment calls so when in doubt check with the professor.
Copying someone else’s work is a very serious offense and will be treated accordingly.
Both plagiarism and other acts of academic dishonesty (such as submitting the same paper to 2 courses) will be prosecuted according to the university guidelines as described in the Rensselaer Student Handbook. A paper that contains plagiarism will receive an F.
You should write a paper using your own ideas and your own words. Avoid making use of someone else’s exact words, bu if you do this must be indicated by using quotation marks and indicating the source with a reference. If you are paraphrasing someone else’s words, you need an explicit and complete reference. If you are unsure whether quotes or a reference are necessary, it is better to err on the side of caution and provide a reference.
Failure to follow these guidelines constitutes plagiarism.
Key Resources:
List of sources will be prepared over the preceding summer
Writing guide

Guidelines
1.
The opening paragraph of your paper should describe the question you are addressing and briefly indicate your position on it.
2.
In subsequent paragraphs, develop your position and provide evidence for it.
3.
The closing paragraph should clearly state your conclusions.
4.
Be sure there is a clear transition from the end of one paragraph to the beginning of the next one.
5.
Proofread your paper before submitting it. Then proofread it again. Papers with careless errors will be returned ungraded for revision within 24 hours.
6.
The paper should be submitted both in hard copy in class on the due date and electronically.
Rules for structuring an essay
1. Think about what you want to say. Gather the ideas you want to use from the course materials, your personal experiences and any other sources at your disposal a. what is the specific topic to be addressed b. what are the key issues involved c. what are the important details d. how do your personal experiences relate to the theoretical and conceptual issues in the course materials. e. collect the relevant information and think about it.
2. Develop a thesis statement or main point to the essay
This statement tells the reader what you intend to do in your paper. It is a clear concise statement about how you intend to structure your essay, what your main focus is, and what points you want to make. Be sure to think about what your thesis. It should be specific, and written so that your reader can follow what you set out to do. Most thesis statements fail to be specific enough. Talking helps! Or go back to your text and check your train of thought. Once you have a solid thesis statement, rewrite the rest of the essay to be consistent with the focus of the essay. I know you are supposed to start with a thesis statement but writing is a process of thinking and discovery and often the last thing we discover is what we are trying to say. Expect to write more than one draft of your paper-no one writes good copy on the first pass.
3. Develop a structure for your paper and follow it. Your paper should have:
* beginning (introduction of the topic, maybe a brief summary of the article, your thesis statement; what is your paper all about? What do you intend to argue).
* middle ( present the argument that supports your thesis. Each paragraph here should follow logically from the one before, and
*end (returns to the thesis statement and demonstrate that you have successfully accomplished what you have set out to do; do not bring up new ideas here, the argument should be sound and well supported
4. Check and recheck your structure

Writing an outline may help you to check the structure of your essay, because you are forced to think logically. an outline is a way to organize your thoughts ( e.g. chronologically, according to general concepts and specific applications, according to cause and effect) so that the reader can easily follow and be convinced by your argument.
Writing the first draft
Treat each paragraph like a miniature essay ( first sentence to connect to the previous paragraph and presents the idea that will be developed in the following sentences).
Keep your paragraphs a reasonable length ( general rule 5-6 paragraphs per page). Use quotations sparingly, it is better to put your argument in your own words. When you have finished your first draft then start polishing it up. First make sure it says what you want it to say, then make sure it says it clearly, and convincingly, and at last work on details of grammar and style.
Be Aware of your Grammar and Style
* write for your reader (a college professor with limited experience outside the academe)
* Make no major error in grammar
* Use the active voice
* Be specific and use examples
* Let your words show commitment
* Avoid sentence fragments and run-on sentences
* Write in short sentences
* Omit needless words source: adapted from Colander, David; and Gamber, Jennifer (1996): Case Studies in
Microeconomics-selections from the Wall Street Journal, New Haven
A quick and Dirty Guide for Busy People
I recognize that the writing skills of the people taking this course vary greatly. This guide is intended for people who have not mastered the art of producing usable copy consistently, on deadline, and with a minimum of pain. This approach works for sleep deprived individuals writing at odd hours. There is no guarantee that it is the ideal for well rested individuals with time on their hands.
The key to writing on deadline is to keep writing, no writer's block or creative difficulties. The only way to keep writing is to keep it simple. Do one small thing at a time and don't worry about the big picture. Never try to write and edit at the same time-they are different psychological processes. Most people are not good at doing more than one thing at a time.
Step one : Write down anything that might be relevant to the topic at hand. If nothing comes to mind just start typing (e.g., I will never take another course as long as I live" ) until you get bored silly and can start doing the assignment. Don't be critical, just type, type, type.

Step two : Go over what you have written and cross out all the duplications; you've probably made the most important points several times. One way to find out what you think is important is simply to count.
Step three : Cross out all the stuff that is completely irrelevant, no matter how beautiful the phrasing. When in doubt leave it in-don't think too hard.
Step four : Put the remaining sentences in a reasonable order. When in doubt flip a coin, if you can't tell which sentence goes first it may not matter. If you don't like the results of the coin toss then you know what order to put things in.
NOW TAKE A FIVE MINUTE BREAK (LONGER IF YOU CAN)
Step five : Edit for sense: Look at each sentence and ask " Does this say what I want it to say and do I really want to say it?" rewrite each sentence til you can say yes to both questions
Step six : Check for spelling and grammar-computers are good at this but not great.
Step seven : Have someone else read it and tell you what you think it means-this is what friends are for. Fix any discrepancies.
Step eight : Sleep on it and reread it at least 24 hours later.
Step nine : Mail it and forget about it.
NOTE: RENSSELAER HAS AN EXCELLENT WRITING CENTER . IT CAN HELP
YOU WITH CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE WRITING TASK.

Content resources for the class , basic background on cyberspace
Potential discussion Topics ( examples from previous semesters)
What motivates the unpaid volunteers that run the internet
What role does traditional economic motives play on the internet
How are cooperation and competition managed on the net
Are there any gender differences in cyber space
What makes a hot website
What are the rules for social interaction online :as differ from face to face
Have any unique roles developed in cyberspace
What are the key strategies for making money in cyberspace
An onlinecurse
Preface
Education and Research
Higher Education
Delivering learning content effectively
Negotiating content online
Self-directed learning tools
Resource-based Learning
Digitising resources for preservation
Creating electronic documents
The social life of documents
Other Research Perspectives
Has the Internet helped or hindered research?
How are technologies affecting scholarship?
The Internet in Schools
How will schools use the Internet to enhance their teaching?
Will schools be able to keep up with rapidly advancing technology?
Should Internet “research” be encouraged?
Should we limit access to certain areas of the web?
The Virtual Marketplace
Trends in the Digital Economy
Information becomes a commodity
Information exchange is vital
Markets become global
Disintermediation and cybermediaries
Ebay - the Ultimate Cybermediary?
Evolution of E-commerce
Initial resistance
Reluctant first steps
Buying and selling online
Buying and selling information-based products
Virtual Products and New Economies

Web Advertising
Something for Nothing? Gift Economies
Problems arising from the Virtual Marketplace
Taxation across Borders
Further reading
The Information Society
Social theory and the Internet
Post-industrial Societies
Network Societies and Flows
Work in the Information Society
Remote working
Work, Surveillance and Privacy
Equality and Human Rights
The Digital Divide
Open Societies, Open Governments
Internet Subversion
New Interactive Media
Singularity Theory and Inhumanism
Legal Issues 1
Patents and the Digital World
Some benchmark cases
Domain Name Piracy or “Cybersquatting”
Copyright Law
Copyright on the Web
Hyperlinking and Reuse of Information
The Public Domain and Finite Copyright
The Concept of the Commons
Eldred vs. Ashcroft
Practical Considerations
The Digital Copy
Peer to Peer File Sharing
A Current Case: Music Publishing
Some Solutions
Code, Copyright and Law
Some conclusions
Legal Issues 2
The need for security
Three areas of Internet security
Three aspects of data protection
Cryptography
Types of Encryption 1: Symmetric
Types of Encryption 2: Asymmetric
Problems with Strong Cryptography
Computer Crime and Legislation
Computer Misuse
Content Regulation

Firewalls and Intranets
Privacy and Data Protection
The Data Protection Acts
Further reading
Intelligence and Ubiquity
What is AI?
Uses of AI on the Internet
AI in Infrastructure
AI in Usability and Interaction
Autonomous Agents, Crawlers and Bots
What is an agent anyway?
Agents in Online Communities
Robots for Data Harvesting
Robot Protocols
Aside: Robot Ethics
AI today and tomorrow
The Ubiquitous Computer
Calm Technology
Wearable Computers
The Cyborg Body
Cyberspace Philosophy
What is Cyberspace?
The Shape of Cyberspace
Mathematical approaches
Approaches from Geography
The Death of Distance
New Geographies
Knowledge and the Internet
What is Knowledge?
Hyperlinks - meaningful and meaningless
Transient and persistent
Memory and Findability
Authority and the creation of canonical works
The Semantic Web
Cyberspace and Responsibility
Is cyberspace really a space?
The Future of Cyberspace
The Internet as a Technological Revolution
Bibliography
Glossary of Terms
Index



Michael Benedikt, "Cyberspace: First Steps" (BK1)
 William Gibson, "Johnny Mnemonic" (T7)
Kevin Robins, "Cyberspace and the World We Live In" (BK4)
 Mark Poster, "Postmodern Virtualities"
 David Weinberger, from Small Pieces Loosely Joined : Chapter 1: A New World and Chapter 2: Space


Marshall McLuhan, Part I of Understanding Media


Pierre Levy, "Collective Intelligence" (T25)
 Donna Haraway, "A Manifesto for Cyborgs" (BK18, or here )
Judith Squires, "Fabulous Feminist Futures" (BK22)
Selections from Sadie Plant (T2, BK19, BK29)


Michael Heim, The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace" (T8 or here )
 Slavoj Zizek, "From Virtual Reality to the Virtualization of Reality" (T3)
Slavoj Zizek, "Hysteria and Cyberspace"
 Slavoj Zizek, "No Sex, Please, We're Posthuman"
 Paul Virilio, "Cyberspace Alarm!" (T4)
 Douglas Kellner, "Globalization and the Postmodern Turn"
 Shoshana Zuboff, "Dilemmas of Transformation in the Age of the Smart
Machine" (T13)
 Critical Art Ensemble, "The Coming of Age of the Flesh Machine" (T18, or here )
 Arthur Kroker & Michael A. Weinstein, "The Theory of the Virtual Class" (T15 or here )
 Arthur & Marilouise Kroker, "Code Warriors" (BK5 or here )


Herbert Schiller, "The Global Information Highway" (T17)
 Jon Stratton, "Cyberspace and the Globalization of Culture" (BK47)
The Cybracero Program

 Manuel Castells, "The Informational Economy" (T16)
 Manuel Castells, "Information Technology, Globalization and Social

Development"
Manuel Castells, "The Network Society and Organizational Change" and "Identity
 in the Network Society"
Saskia Sassen, "Urban Economies and Fading Distances"
 Howard Rheingold, from The Virtual Community : Introduction (T27 or here )


Mark Poster, "Cyberdemocracy" (T26 or here )
 Paulina Borsook, "Cyberselfish"
Michele Willson, "Community in the Abstract" (BK42)
 Michael Ostwald, "Virtual Urban Futures" (BK43)
 Susan Zickmund, "Approaching the Radical Other" (BK15)
 Howard Rheingold, from The Virtual Community : Chapter 10: "Disinformocracy"
 Sherry Turkle, "Virtuality and its Discontents"


Julian Dibbell, "A Rape in Cyberspace" (T20 or here )
 Theresa M. Senft, "Baud Girls and Cargo Cults"
Julian Dibbell, "The Unreal Estate Boom"
 Edward Castronova, "Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and
Society on the Cyberian Frontier"
 Allucquere Rosanne Stone, "Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?" (BK32, T19, or here )


Diane Gromala, "Pain and Subjectivity in Virtual Reality" (BK38)


N. Katherine Hayles, "The Seductions of Cyberspace" (T31)
 N. Katherine Hayles, "The Materiality of Informatics"
Anne Balsamo, "The Virtual Body in Cyberspace" (BK31)
Jennifer Gonzalez, "Envisioning Cyborg Bodies" (BK34)



Tiziana Terranova, "Post-Human Unbounded" (BK17)
 Ed Regis, "Meet the Extropians"
Ray Kurzweil, from The Age of Spiritual Machines : Chapter 6, Building New

Brains
 Ray Kurzweil, "After the Singularity"
Claudia Springer, "Digital Rage" (BK20)
 Deborah Lupton, "The Embodied Computer/User" (BK30)


Sherry Turkle, "Who Am We?" (T24)
 Allucquere Rosanne Stone, "Violation and Virtuality"
Shannon McRae, "Coming Apart at the Seams"
 Gareth Branwyn, "Compu-Sex" (BK24)
 Lisa Nakamura, "Race In/For Cyberspace" (BK46, T23, or here )
 Kali Tal, "The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: African American Critical Theory and Cyberculture"


Cameron Bailey, "Virtual Skin" (T33)
 Guillermo Gomez-Pena, "The Virtual Barrio" (T28)
Daniel Tsang, "Notes on Queer 'n' Asian Virtual Sex" (BK27)
 Paul Bausch, Matthew Haughey, and Meg Hourihan, from We Blog: Publishing

Online with Weblogs , Chapter 3: Navigating the Blog Universe
 Rebecca Mead, "You've Got Blog"
Joe Clark, "Deconstructing 'You've Got Blog'"
 J. D. Lasica, "Blogging as a Form of Journalism" and "Weblogs: A New Source of News"


Noah Schachtman, "Blogs Make the Headlines"


Adam Geitgey, Kaycee Nicole Swenson FAQ
 Theresa M. Senft, "Debating Reality: An Online Hoax Is Not a Pox"
Michelle, Confessions of an Internet Loser
Stuart Tiros , and my commentary
 George Landow, "Hypertext and Critical Theory" (T10)

 Espen Aarseth, Introduction to Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature


Lev Manovich, "The Aesthetics of Virtual Worlds"


Lev Manovich, "Database as a Symbolic Form"
 Brenda Laurel, "Computers as Theater" (T11)
Timothy Allen Jackson, "Towards a New Media Aesthetic" (T34)
Marie-Laure Ryan, "Immersion vs. Interactivity"
 Talan Memmott, "Lexia to Perplexia"
 N. Katherine Hayles, "Metaphoric Networks in Lexia to Perplexia "
 Interview With Talan Memmott
 "How They Got Game: The History of Videogames and Interactive Simulations"
 Hnery Jenkins, "Art Form for the Digital Age"
 McKenzie Wark, "The Video Game as Emergent Media Form"
 Talmadge Wright, Eric Boria and Paul Breidenbach, "Creative Player Actions in

FPS Online Video Games"
Sue Morris, "Online Gaming Culture: An Examination of Emerging Forms of
Production and Participation in Multiplayer First-Person-Shooter Gaming"
 Tim Lenoir and Henry Lowood, "Theaters of War: The Military-Entertainment
Complex"
 Ted Friedman, " Civilization and Its Discontents: Simulation, Subjectivity, and
Space"
 Ted Friedman, "Making Sense of Software: Computer Games and Interactive

Textuality "
 Alex Handy, "Baang You're Dead!"
Shawn Miklaucic, "Virtual Real(i)ty: SimCity and the Production of Urban
Cyberspace"
 Celia Pearce, "Sims, BattleBots, Cellular Automata God and Go: A Conversation with Will Wright"
 Daniel Sieberg, "The World According to Will"
 Nicholas Yee, "The Norrathian Scrolls: A Study of Everquest"
 Anne-Marie Schleiner, "Parasitic Interventions: Game Patches and Hacker Art"
 Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka and CT's Stalker, "How To Survive in Any RPG"
 Graham Barwell and Kate Bowles, "Border Crossings" (BK45)
 Lawrence Lessig, "Innovation, Regulation, and the Internet"

 Lawrence Lessig, "The Laws of Cyberspace"
 Tim May, "Untraceable Digital Cash, Information Markets, and BlackNet"


Andrew Ross, "Hacking Away at the Counterculture" (BK16 or here )
 Julian Dibbell, "Viruses Are Good for You"
The Surveillance Camera Players
 John Perry Barlow, "The Economy of Ideas"


Gary Shapiro, "The New Copyspeak"
 Jessica Litman, "The Art of Making Copyright Laws"
Richard Stallman, "The Right To Read"


Congressman Rick Boucher , "Time to Rewrite the DMCA"
 Declan McCullagh, The New Jailbird Jingle
The Atlantic , Roundtable on Copyright
 From John Alderman, Sonic Boom : Introduction and Chapter 1
 Jaron Lanier, A Love Song for Napster
 Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies
 Hypertext, Cybernetics, Cyborgs, and Virtual Realities


Cyberculture, Identity, and Gender Resources
 Race, Class, Ethnicity, and the Internet
Cyberarts Web
 Lost Library of MOO
 Intellectual Property Resources
 Globalization, Communication and Society Resources
 Psychology of Cyberspace


Eatonweb Blog Portal
 Weblog Resources FAQ (a bit out of date, though)
Blogger


Live Journal
 Greymatter
Movable Type


Blogroots
 Bloghop
Blogdex
 Daypop

 Memeufacture
 Technorati
 All Consuming
 Weblogs Compendium--Tools
 Class Bulletin Board
 Present and Past Research Projects
Steven Shaviro's homepage
1.
Jurisdiction I: US Law
1.
Reading
1.
U.S. vs. Thomas , 74 F.3d 701 (CA 6, 1996).
2.
Playboy Enterprises v. Chuckleberry Publishing, Inc ., 939 F. Supp.
1032 (S.D.N.Y. 1996).
3.
Zippo Mfg. Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc . , 952 F.Supp. 1119
(W.D.Pa. 1997)
4.
Cybersell, Inc. v. Cybersell, Inc ., 130 F.3d 414, (9th Cir. 1997)
5.
U.S. v. Kammersell, 196 F.3d 1137 (10 th
6.
15 USCA § 1125(c) & (d) (as amended)
Cir. 1999)
7.
The Florida Attorney General's Opinion on Internet Gambling
(October 18, 1995).
8.
The decision of the Minnesota court of appeal in the Granite Gate case, 568 N.W.2d 715 , affirmed by an equally divided court, 576
N.W.2d 747 (Minn. 1998)
2.
Optional Reading
1.
A useful review of the background on many types of jurisdiction is found at pages 38-92 of ABA, Achieving Legal and Business
Order in Cyberspace: A Report on Global Jurisdiction Issues
Created by the Internet (London Meeting Draft)
2.
Bochan v. LaFontaine , 68 F.Supp.2nd 692 (E.D. Va. 1999)
3.
Porsche Cars N.A. v. Porsch.com
, 51 F.Supp.2d 707 (E.D. Va.
1999) [pre-ACPA case]
4.
Dan Burk, Federalism in Cyberspace , 28 Conn. L. Rev. 1095
(1996).
5.
Thomas R. Lee, In Rem Jurisdiction in Cyberspace , 75 Wash. L.
Rev. 97 (2000).

2.
Jurisdiction II: That Unruly World
1.
Reading
1.
ABA, Achieving Legal and Business Order in Cyberspace: A
Report on Global Jurisdiction Issues Created by the Internet
(London Meeting Draft) [pages 7-37]
2.
Hague Conference on Private International Law: Preliminary Draft
Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments in Civil and
Commercial Matters (Oct. 30, 1999)
3.
James Love, Views of the Consumer Project on Technology [re:
Hague Convention]
4.
Attorney General's Dept.(Australia), International Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil
Matters: Draft Hague Convention Issues Paper
5.
Welcome to Sealand. Now bugger off.
Wired 8.07 (July 2000).
6.
Sealand's View of its history: " History of Sealand "
7.
About HavenCo and Why HavenCo and HavenCo FAQ and
HavenCo AUP
2.
Optional Reading
1.
Sealand Factfile
2.
Legal opinions on Sealand (available on reserve in the library).
3.
David Johnson & David Post, Law and Borders - The Rise of Law in Cyberspace , 48 Stan. L. Rev. 1367 (1996)
4.
Jack Goldsmith, Against Cyberanarchy , 65 U.Chi. L. Rev. 1199
(1998).
5.
ABA, Achieving Legal and Business Order in Cyberspace: A
Report on Global Jurisdiction Issues Created by the Internet
(London Meeting Draft) [pages 92-end]
3.
Content Control I: Porn Control
1.
Reading
1.
Speech regulation online & off
1.
Reno v. ACLU , 521 U.S. 844 (1997).
2.
COPA
3.
American Civil Liberties Union v. Reno , 217 F.3d 162 (3rd
Cir. 2000)
4.
Urofsky v. Gilmore , 216 F.3d 401 (4 th
Cir. 2000)
5.
PSINET v. Chapman (W.D. Va. Aug. 8, 2000) [concentrate on parts I(C), III & IV]
2.
Introduction to content filtering
1.
Paul Resnick, PICS, Censorship, & Intellectual Freedom
FAQ

2.
Lawrence Lessig & Paul Resnick, Zoning Speech on the
Internet: A Legal and Technical Model , 98 Mich. L. Rev.
395 (1999).
3.
Filtering in the courts
1.
Mainstream Loudoun v. Board of Trustees of the Loudoun
County Library , 24 F.Supp.2d 552 (E.D. Va. 1998)
4.
Miscellany
1.
Reuters, Florida Council votes to shutter "Voyeur Dorm"
2.
Suppose you were a parent seeking some sort of filtering software to install on a home computer that would be connected to the Internet and used by a child.
1.
What would you want to know about the software?
2.
Determine to what extent this information is available about two products of your choice from this list at Yahoo (if possible, please investigate products with a listing that starts as the same letter as your last name).
3.
Optional Reading
1.
ACLU, Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace Burning? How Rating and
Blocking Proposals May Torch Free Speech on the Internet
2.
Lawrence Lessig, What Things Regulate Speech: CDA 2.0 vs.
Filtering, 38 Jurimetrics 629 (1998)
3.
Internet Filter Effectiveness: Testing Over and Underinclusive
Blocking Decisions of Four Popular Filters
4.
Jonathan Wallace, Why Libraries Shouldn't Buy Censorware
5.
Mark S. Nadel, The First Amendment's Limitations on the Use of
Internet Filtering in Public and School Libraries: What Content
Can Librarians Exclude?
, 78 Texas L. Rev. 1117 (2000).
6.
Junichi P. Semitsu, Burning Cyberbooks in Public Libraries:
Internet Filtering Software vs. The First Amendment , 52 Stan. L.
Rev. 509 (2000).
7.
Daniel Laprès,
Webliography on the Yahoo Case
4.
Content Control II: Thought Control?
1.
Hate regulation
1.
LICRA ET UEJF vs YAHOO! Inc. and YAHOO FRANCE
(Superior Court of Paris May 22, 2000) [unofficial translation of this decision ]
2.
Carl S. Kaplan, French Nazi Memorabilia Case Presents
Jurisdiction Dilemma , New York Times (Aug 11, 2000)
3.
Reuters, German Urges Global Rules on Hate on Web (June 28,
2000)
4.
Canada Tries to Bar Pro-Nazi View on Internet , New York Times
(Aug. 2, 1998)

2.
The 'Great Firewall of China' and other cases of subversive speech regulation
1.
Leonard R. Sussman, Censor Dot Gov: The Internet and Press
Freedom 2000
2.
Human Rights Watch, Freedom of Expression on the Internet
3.
AP, Chinese govt. seeks control of Web , Aug. 4, 2000
4.
Craig S. Smith, Ambivalence in China on Expanding Net Access ,
New York Times, Aug. 11, 2000
5.
Reuters, China says provinces setting up Internet Police
6.
Please review Froomkin, The Internet As A Source of Regulatory
Arbitrage
3.
Dangerous speech regulation
1.
David A. Vise, EPA to limit web information (Apr. 27, 2000)
2.
Reuters, Fight Brews Over Swiss Bid to Block Web Sites (May 16,
2000)
3.
Tom Spring, CNN, Surfing with U.S. Customs (Oct. 20, 1999)
4.
Optional Reading
1.
Bertelsmann Foundation: Self-Regulation of Internet Content
(1999) [.pdf]
2.
Balkin, Noveck & Roosevelt, Filtering the Internet: A Best
Practices Model (Sept. 15, 1999) The summary doesn't really do it justice: Click here to download the full report .
3.
Christopher D. Hunter, Negotiating the Global Internet Rating and
Filtering System: Opposing Views of the Bertelsmann
Foundation's Self-regulation of Internet Content Proposal
5.
Service Control I: Spam Control
1.
Legislation
1.
Washington State
1.
Washington Unsolicited Electronic Mail Act
2.
Court Transcript before Washington Superior Court Judge
Palmer Robinson, March 10, 2000 on e-transcript (via
U.Washington). I've included the text of this decision in your packet, but you should try the link, download the program, and see what you think about an "e-transcript". Is this going to catch on?
3.
Note that the state is appealing direct to the state supreme court
2.
California
1.
Bus & Prof Code §§ 17538.4 and § 17538.45
2.
Ferguson v. Friendfinder , Cal. Sup. Ct. (S.F.) (June 7,
2000)
2.
Civil Actions to Block Spam

1.
Jane Doe One v. Oliver, 2000 WL 863093 (Sup. Ct. Ct. March 7,
2000)
2.
CompuServe, Inc. v. Cyberpromotions, Inc..
, 962 F. Supp. 1015
(S.D. Ohio 1997)
3.
Technical Means...
1.
Lawrence Lessig, The Spam Wars , The Standard (Dec. 31, 1998)
2.
Spam-L FAQ, Tracking Spam & Blocking Spam
3.
Paul Vixie, Realtime Blackhole Rationale
4.
David G. Post, Of Black Holes and Decentralized Law-Making in
Cyberspace , Vand. J. Ent. L. & Pract. (forthcoming 2000)
4.
...and the Ensuing Lawsuits
1.
Laurie J. Flynn, Harris Files Suit Against AOL Over Blocking of
E-Mail , New York Times (Aug. 3, 2000); Judge Denies TRO in
Harris v. Maps Case (Aug. 8, 2000)
2.
Patricia Odell, Richard H. Levey, Yesmail Gets Restraining Order
Against MAPS Blacklist , DirectNewsline (July 17, 2000); Yesmail and MAPS Agree to Put Litigation on Hold , DirectNewsline (July
26, 2000)
5.
Optional: Harris's Complaint Against MAPS [.pdf file - scanned so it's enormous and slow]
6.
Service Control II: Anonymity Control
1.
Reading
1.
Froomkin, Part II.A of Flood Control on the Information Ocean:
Living With Anonymity, Digital Cash, and Distributed Databases
2.
Froomkin, Legal Issues in Anonymity and Pseudonymity , 15 The
Information Society 113 (1999). [This document is not available online, but a more dated treatment of the same topic can be found in parts II.B of Froomkin, Flood Control on the Information
Ocean: Living With Anonymity, Digital Cash, and Distributed
Databases ]
3.
Stefanie Olsen, Nearly undetectable tracking device raises concern
(July 12, 2000)
4.
Edgar Bronfman, Jr, Remarks (May 26, 2000). This document seems to move every week. If that link doesn't work, try this one .
5.
Michael M. Mostyn, The Need for Regulating Anonymous
Remailers , 14 Int'l Rev. L. Computers & Tech. 79 (2000)
2.
Pondering
1.
In light of American Library Ass'n v. Pataki , 969 F.Supp. 160
(S.D.N.Y. 1997), can states legislate against anonymity?
2.
Imagine your client wants to run an anonymous remailer. Are there any civil or criminal liaibility issues you might wish to warn your client about?
3.
Optional Reading:

1.
Claudia Rocio Vasquez R., Columbia Orders Control of All Pre-
Paid Call Cards (Aug. 17, 2000 )(Use the babelfish translator if you don't read Spanish)
2.
Altern.org,
Loi sur la liberté de communication, 28 juin 2000
(In
French, but there's always babelfish )
3.
PGP
1.
Freeware int'l PGP: http://www.pgpi.org/
2.
The original PGP rant (by Phil Zimmerman): http://www.pgpi.org/doc/whypgp/en/
3.
PGP FAQ Pages:

 http://cryptography.org/getpgp.htm
http://www.andrebacard.com/pgp.html
 http://web.bham.ac.uk/N.M.Queen/pgp/pgp.html
4.
A good modern PGP rant: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/9648/pgp200
0-eng.html
7.
Crime
1.
Draft convention on cyber-crime: available as a MS word file or a .pdf file
2.
Pages 1-9 of John F. Murphy, Computer Network Attacks By Terrorists:
Some Legal Dimensions (note: this link takes you to a page from which you can access the document).
3.
Carnivore Diagnostic Tool, Statement for the Record , United States
Senate, the Committee on the Judiciary, 09/06/2000, Laboratory Division
Assistant Director Dr. Donald M. Kerr
4.
United States Telecom Association v. FCC, 2000 WL 1059852, also in
HTML
5.
AOL Detective Finds Clues in E-Mail , Washington Post Aug. 28, 2000 p.
A1
To Part 1
To Syllabus Index
To Class Policies
Tuesday September 21
The Internet: Its origins and the hacker ethic
Readings: Berners-Lee, " The Founder’s Message "; Himanen, " The Hacker Work
Ethic "
Internet: Open Source and the Ethics of Good Code
Reading: Wired, " The bugs in the machine ". Homework assignment to e- mail to Clayton Lewis before class: go to web site http://spot.colorado.edu/~clayton/hcw2.htm
.
Optional readings:Himanen, " The Academy and the Monastery " Introduction from Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution. Gates, " An Open
Letter to Hobbyists ".

Link of the Day: http://slashdot.org
Tuesday September 28
Tuesday October 5
IP Law and Digital music and film "sharing"
Readings: Mann, " All the World's a Bootleg "; Boucher, " Time to Rewrite the
DMCA "; " Key Court Case Summaries on Fair Use "; " Checklist for Fair Use.
"
Short writing assignment #2 to be posted to your web site today by
5pm.
Thursday October 7
IT's societal impact: Ubiquitous music
Tuesday Oct 12
IT's societal impact: Ubiquitous computing and Wi-Fi
Readings: Wired, " Hack "; " A New Spin on Wireless "; Business Week, " All Net All the Time.
"
Optional reading: Werbach, " Monster Mesh: Decentralized Wireless Broadband "
Info on intellectual property
Thursday October 14
IT's societal impact: Privacy, Identity Theft
Readings: Lessig, “ Privacy ” in Code; Wired, “ Wired, " How to Disappear ", “ The
Surveillance Society .”
Optional reading: Hurley, " Security and Privacy Laws: The showstoppers of the
Global Information Society "
Links of the Day: http://www.junkbusters.com
, http://www.nettrace.com.au/
Other privacy websites
Tuesday October 19
IT's societal impact: Digital Divides
Readings: Castells, " The Digital Divide in Global Perspective "; Investigate http://digitaldividenetwork.org
Thursday October 21
IT's societal impact: Gender and Information Technologies
Reading: Margolis and Fisher, 2002. "Computing with a Purpose" in Unlocking the Clubhouse.
Cambridge: MIT Press. pp. 49-75.

Tuesday October 26
Virtual Reality
Reading: Selections from Neil Stephenson, Snow Crash.
Link of the Day: www.HabboHotel.com
Thursday October 28
Artificial Intelligence
Readings: " It's Alive!
" Wired Magazine summary of Artificial Intelligence (read each 1-paragraph subsection: adaptive learning, text parsing, pattern recognition, expert systems, speech processing);
Optional reading: AI in recent computer games, " Gaming's Evolutionary Leap ."
Links of the day: www.agentland.com
, http://www.nik.com.au/alice/
Short writing assignment #5 to be posted to your web site today by
5pm: Identify an opportunity to make the world a better place, and discuss how
AI technology, as described in the reading, could help.
Monday November 1 TAM Dinner and a Movie featuring "Gattaca",
6:30-9:00pm in ECCR 150
Tuesday November 2
Bioinformatics, Biotechnology and Robotics
Reading: movie Gattaca (prior showing at TAM Dinner and a Movie)
Link of the Day: Human Genome Project homepage
Short writing assignment #6 to be posted to your web site today by
5pm: Gattaca presents a worst-case scenario of genetic engineering. What are some of the potential benefits of genetic engineering and, in your opinion, do they outweigh the risks? To answer, you’ll want to read something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering for background on the technology (note Wikipedia has a built-in glossary feature).
Thursday November 4
The Future of Advertising: IT, Convergence and New Approaches to the
Consumer
Reading A: Selection from the leading study on the topic, “Reinventing Media” in
Cappo, The Future of Advertising: New Media, New Clients, New Consumers in the Post-Television Age (Chicago, McGraw-Hill, 2003). Thought questions:
1.
What are some of the fears that advertising executives and manufacturers have in a post-mass media television market?
2.
What particular new challenges do cable and satellite programming pose for advertisers? And what are potential responses to that challenge?

3.
What impacts has “going digital” had on advertising in traditional print media, and why are advertisements likely to go “multimedia”?
4.
This expert believes that interactive television is the promising future of advertising. Evaluate his argument on the basis of his evidence. Is it a compelling argument?
5.
Why is the author skeptical about direct “below-the’belt” advertising through cell phones and PDAs. As a consumer, do you agree with his assessment?
6.
Randall Rothenberg proposes the convergence of advertising and entertainment as the future of advertising. Is this a more convincing argument than Cappo’s? Why or why not?
Reading B (optional, read more about it): Recent article in the journal The
Economist on advertising saturation. How does the advertising industry propose to reach consumers already saturated by advertising and equipped with filtering mechanisms to ignore most ads? http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2787854
Tuesday November 9
Information Technology and Voting
Reading: Information Technology and Voting
Short writing assignment #7 to be posted to your web site today by
5pm: at least 10 annotated live hyperlinks related to your final paper topic.
Thursday November 11
Information Technology and World Politics
Reading: Information Technology And World Politics
Tuesday November 16th
IT and the Future of Art
Readings: Lev Manovich article “Models of Authorship in New Media” from the cutting-edge online journal “Switch”: http://switch.sjsu.edu/nextswitch/switch_engine/front/front.php?artc=65 ;
Summary definition of Artist Innovators, from the Information Technology
Association of Canada’s initiative to support multimedia artists whose work is driven by new information technologies: http://www.itac.ca/Library/ITAndArt/ITandArt-ArtistInnovator.htm
Optional reading: Interview with Meats Meier, creator of “The Future of Art”

short animation (winner of the Slamdance competition 2001) and current hot commodity in multimedia art http://www.insidecg.com/printfeature.php?id=7
Questions for discussion
Thursday November 4
The Future of Advertising: IT, Convergence and New Approaches to the
Consumer
Reading A: Selection from the leading study on the topic, “Reinventing Media” in
Cappo, The Future of Advertising: New Media, New Clients, New Consumers in the Post-Television Age (Chicago, McGraw-Hill, 2003). Thought questions:
7.
What are some of the fears that advertising executives and manufacturers have in a post-mass media television market?
8.
What particular new challenges do cable and satellite programming pose for advertisers? And what are potential responses to that challenge?
9.
What impacts has “going digital” had on advertising in traditional print media, and why are advertisements likely to go “multimedia”?
10.
This expert believes that interactive television is the promising future of advertising. Evaluate his argument on the basis of his evidence. Is it a compelling argument?
11.
Why is the author skeptical about direct “below-the’belt” advertising through cell phones and PDAs. As a consumer, do you agree with his assessment?
12.
Randall Rothenberg proposes the convergence of advertising and entertainment as the future of advertising. Is this a more convincing argument than Cappo’s? Why or why not?
Reading B (optional, read more about it): Recent article in the journal The
Economist on advertising saturation. How does the advertising industry propose to reach consumers already saturated by advertising and equipped with filtering mechanisms to ignore most ads? http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2787854
Tuesday November 9
Information Technology and Voting
Reading: Information Technology and Voting
Short writing assignment #7 to be posted to your web site today by
5pm: at least 10 annotated live hyperlinks related to your final paper topic.

Thursday November 11
Information Technology and World Politics
Reading: Information Technology And World Politics
Tuesday November 16th
IT and the Future of Art
Readings: Lev Manovich article “Models of Authorship in New Media” from the cutting-edge online journal “Switch”: http://switch.sjsu.edu/nextswitch/switch_engine/front/front.php?artc=65 ;
Summary definition of Artist Innovators, from the Information Technology
Association of Canada’s initiative to support multimedia artists whose work is driven by new information technologies: http://www.itac.ca/Library/ITAndArt/ITandArt-ArtistInnovator.htm
Optional reading: Interview with Meats Meier, creator of “The Future of Art” short animation (winner of the Slamdance competition 2001) and current hot commodity in multimedia art http://www.insidecg.com/printfeature.php?id=7
Questions for discussion
Listen to Slide Cast
Course Description
Is it feasible to live ethical, meaningful lives in the context of the Social Web today?
This course formulates a critique of the Social Web. Based on the rapid growth of participation in social life online and in mobile space-- from social news, referral, social search, media sharing, social bookmarking, tagging, virtual worlds and social networked games, social mapping, IM, social networking, blogging and dating, this class formulates a critical analysis of the international Social Web with regard to privacy, intellectual property, and the utilization of social creation of value through the lens of a small number of case studies in the areas of education, political activism, and art. The course starts with a history of computer-facilitated networked sociality. We’ll discuss the preconditions, motivations, and typologies of participation in order to then start to debunk the Web 2.0 ideology. The course concludes with an examination of the future of the Internet (mobile social space, net neutrality, and the changed nature of the digital divide) in order to then locate fields of possibility for social change.
Key theoretical texts that we’ll study include Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks,

Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture, Trebor Scholz’ What the MySpace generation should know about working for free, Jurgen Habermas on the Internet and the public sphere, Fred Turner’s Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy, Jeff Jarvis’
“Who owns the wisdom of the crowd? The crowd.,” Nicholas Carr’s “Sharecropping the long tail,” Michael Hardt’s “Affective labor,” Olga Goriunova’s “From Art on Networks to Art on Platforms“ and Adam Arvidsson’s “The Crisis of Value and the Ethical
Economy.”
This is a theory-based course that also teaches you to participate, discuss and analyze practices on the Social Web (e.g., the use of Facebook, Twitter, IM, blogs, SecondLife).
• Week 1 (08/28,08/30)
Overview and Introduction to the Syllabus

• Week 2 (09/04, 09/06)
A History of the Social Web
Required Readings:
Allen, Christopher. "Life With Alacrity: Tracing the Evolution of Social Software." Life
With Alacrity. 13 Oct 2004. 12 Jul 2007
< http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/10/tracing_the_evo.html
>.
"History of the Internet." the history of computing project. 19 Mar 2001. 17 Jul 2007
< http://www.thocp.net/reference/internet/internet1.htm
>.
Suggested Reading:
Kelly, Kevin. "Wired 13.08: We Are the Web." Wired News . 1 Jan 2005. 26 Aug 2007
< http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html
>.
• Week 3 (09/11, 09/13)
A History of the Social Web
Required Readings:
Donath, Judith. "Sociable Media." Sociable Media Group - MIT Media Lab. 15 Apr
2004. 9 Jul 2007
< http://smg.media.mit.edu/papers/Donath/SociableMedia.encyclopedia.pdf
>.
Turner, Fred. "Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy ." Stanford. 1 Jan 2007.
26 Aug 2007
< http://www.stanford.edu/~fturner/Turner%20Tech%20&%20Culture%2046%203.pdf
>
Scholz, Trebor. A History of the Social Web. (unpublished, I’ll email you)
Suggested Reading:
"List of social networking websites - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Main Page -
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 16 Jul 2007. 16 Jul 2007

< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites >.
Udell, Jon. "Tag mania sweeps the Web | InfoWorld | Column | 2005-07-20 | By Jon
Udell." InfoWorld - Information Technology News, Computer Networking & Security. 2
Jul 2005. 26 Aug 2007
< http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/07/20/30OPstrategic_1.html
>.
"Social Software Timeline / Many-to-Many Space." Socialtext Documentation /
Socialtext Documentation. 1 Jan 2007. 26 Aug 2007
< http://www.socialtext.net/m2m/index.cgi?social_software_timeline
>.
Glickman, Matt, and Mark Horton. "Netnews History - Usenet Server, Jim Ellis, Tom
Truscott, Steve Bellovin." Internet history, design, web, email.... 1 Jan 1996. 17 Jul 2007
< http://www.livinginternet.com/u/ui_netnews.htm
>.
• Week 4 (09/18, 09/20)
Social Isolation, the Public Sphere and the WWW
Required Readings:
Boeder, Piter. "Habermas' heritage." First Monday. 21 Aug 2005. 26 Aug 2007
< http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_9/boeder/ >.
Kluge, Alexander, Peter Labanyi, and Oskar Negt. Public Sphere and Experience:
Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere (Theory and History of Literature). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Kellner, Douglas. "Habermas, the Public Sphere, and Democracy: A Critical
Intervention." Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. 1 Aug 2007. 26
Aug 2007 < http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/habermas.htm
>.
• Week 5 *(09/25, 09/27)
The Participatory Turn
Tuesday (09/25): Who Cares? The Social Web in Numbers
Required Reading:
Rosen, Jay. "PressThink: The People Formerly Known as the Audience." Department of
Journalism at New York University. 27 Jun 2006. 16 Jul 2007
< http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html
>.
Heuer, Chris. "Social Media Club- The Importance of Social Media." Social Media Club.
19 Sep 2006. 11 Jul 2007 < http://www.socialmediaclub.org/2006/09/19/the-importanceof-social-media/ >.

Suggested Reading:
"Top 10 highest traffic websites." Canadian Content Forums. 27 Jan 2007. 12 Jun 2007
< http://forums.canadiancontent.net/computers-internet/56699-top-10-highest-trafficwebsites.html
>.
"Nielsen BuzzMetrics - Bloggers' Top-Cited Wikipedia 2006 Entries: "Web 2.0," "Steve
Irwin" and "Mark Foley Scandal," Says Nielsen BuzzMetrics." MarketWire. 13 Dec
2006. 9 Jul 2007
< http://www.marketwire.com/2.0/release.do?id=709391&sourceType=1 >.
Hamman, Robin. "cybersoc.com: "nearly 50%" of US users visit social networking sites...sort of." cybersoc.com. 15 May 2006. 27 Jun 2007
< http://www.cybersoc.com/2006/05/nearly_50_of_us.html
>.
Thursday (09/27): Quality. The Wisdom or Ineptitude of Networked Publics
Required Reading:
Lanier, Jaron. "Edge; DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online
Collectivism By Jaron Lanier." Edge. 30 May 2006. 31 Jul 2007
< http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html
>.
"Reactions to Digital Maoism. Many-to-Many:." Many-to-Many:. 3 Feb 2006. 27 Jun
2007 < http://many.corante.com/archives/2006/06/07/reactions_to_digital_maoism.php
>.
Suggested Reading:
Levy, Pierre. Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace. New
York: Plenum Publishing Corporation, 1999.
• Week 6 (10/02, 10/04)
The Web 2.0 Ideology
Required Reading:
Best, David. "Web 2.0Next Big Thing or Next Big Internet Bubble?." Lecture Web
Information Systems. 11 Jan 2006. 9 Jul 2007
< http://page.mi.fu-berlin.de/~best/uni/WIS/Web2.pdf
>.
O'Reilly, Tim. "Not 2.0?." O'Reilly Radar. 5 Aug 2005. 9 Jul 2007
< http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/08/not_20.html
>.

O'Reilly, Tim. "O'Reilly -- What Is Web 2.0." O'Reilly Network -- Developers' Hub -- web development, open source development, open and emerging technologies. 30 Sep
2005. 9 Jul 2007
< http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
>.
Scharmen, Fred (2006, May). "You Must Be Logged In To Do That!" Yale Arch 752b
< http://www.sevensixfive.net/myspace/myspacetwopointoh.html
>
Arvidsson, Adam. "Crisis of Value and the Ethical Economy - P2P Foundation." The
Foundation for P2P Alternatives - P2P Foundation. 26 Jun 2007. 26 Aug 2007
< http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Crisis_of_Value_and_the_Ethical_Economy#Text >.
Hiram Soltren, Jose, and Harvey Jones. "Facebook: Threats to Privacy." MIT. 1 Jan
2005. 26 Aug 2007
< http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/6.805/student-papers/fall05-papers/facebook.pdf
>.
Suggested Reading:
"Web 2.0 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 9 Jul 2007. 9 Jul 2007 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
>.
Barnes, Susan. "A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States." First
Monday. 1 Jan 2006. 26 Aug 2007
< http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_9/barnes/index.html
>.
Carr, Nicholas. "Nicholas Carr: The net is being carved up into information plantations |
Technology | The Guardian." Guardian Unlimited home | Guardian Unlimited. 17 May
2007. 26 Aug 2007
< http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/may/17/media.newmedia
>.
"Web Worker Daily &raquo; Blog Archive The Two-Edged Sword of Web 2.0
&laquo;." Web Worker Daily . 29 Mar 2007. 26 Aug 2007
< http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/03/29/the-two-edged-sword-of-web-20 />.
Mchenry, Robert. "Web 2.0: Hope or Hype? - Britannica Blog." Britannica Blog. 25 Jun
2007. 9 Jul 2007 < http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/2007/06/web-20-hope-orhype/ >.
Hardie, Martin . "The Factory without Walls." The Factory without Walls. 1 Jan 2005.
26 Aug 2007 < http://openflows.org/~auskadi/factorywoutwalls.pdf
>.
"Facebook | Terms." Facebook |. 24 May 2007. 12 Jun 2007
< http://www.facebook.com/terms.php
>.
• Week 7 (10/09, 10/11)

Art and the Social Web
Instructor’s lecture from excerpts:
Bishop, C;Aire. Participation (Documents of Contemporary Art). Cambridge,
Massachusetts: The Mit Press, 2006.
Required Reading:
Goriunova, O.; Shulgin,A. From Art on Networks to Art on Platforms (Casestudies:
Runme.org, Micromusic.net and Udaff.com. Unpublished, 2006.
• Week 8 (10/16, 10/18)
Education and the Social Web
Required Reading:
Catone, Josh . "Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students." Read/WriteWeb. 22 Jun
2007. 27 Aug 2007
< http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_20_backpack_web_apps_for_students.php
>.
"The Web Credibility Project: Guidelines - Stanford University." Stanford University. 1
Jun 2002. 27 Aug 2007 < http://www.webcredibility.org/guidelines/index.html
>.
• Week 9 (10/23, 10/25)
Political Activism and the Social Web
Required Reading:
Spouse, Ea. "ea_spouse: EA: The Human Story." ea_spouse. 10 Nov 2004. 20 Jun 2007
< http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
>.
"Hello Garci scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 24 Jun 2005. 20 Jun 2007
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_Garci_scandal#_note-10 >.
Zuckerman, Ethan. "My heart is in Accra “; Mapping land distribution in Bahrain." Ethan
Zuckerman. 31 Oct 2006. 20 Jun 2007 < http://ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=1085ap/ >.
The Internet and youth political participation. 1 Dec 2006. 20 Jun 2007
< http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_8/kann/#author >
Video:
"Bush/Blair Love Song." Archive.org. 19 Dec 2003. 20 Jun 2007
< http://ia300131.us.archive.org/0/items/bush_blair/bush_blair.mov
>.

Suggested:
"Kiva.org - Loans that change lives." Kiva.org - Loans that change lives. 1 Jan 2004. 20
Jun 2007
< http://www.kiva.org/ >.
Dale, Michael, and Warren Sack. "Metavid." Metavid. 27 Apr 2007. 20 Jun 2007
< http://metavid.ucsc.edu/ >.
"FAQ." wikileaks.org. 1 Jan 2007. 20 Jun 2007 < http://wikileaks.org/faq >.
• Week 10 (10/30, 11/01)
Preconditions and Typologies o Participation
Questions:
Which different types (and intensities) of participation can you identify?
Kann, M. First Monday. 27 Jul 2007. 31 Jul 2007
< http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_8/kann/#author >
• Week 11 (11/06, 11/08)
Motivations for Participation
Questions:
What motivates people on the Social Web to engage?
Required Reading:
Gefen, David, and Catherine M. Ridings. " Virtual Community Attraction:Why People
Hang Out Online." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 1 Nov 2004. 31 Jul
2007 < http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue1/ridings_gefen.html#s2 >.
• Week 12 (11/13, 11/15)
The Ethics of Participation. Got ethics? Labor, what?
(The production of value on the Social Web)
Questions:
What are ethical standards on both, the side of the users and the corporate platform providers?
What’s the difference between moralistic posturing and discussions about contextspecific ethics?
Does talk about ethics mean that we can’t have any more fun?

Do the activities on the Social Web qualify as immaterial labor?
Required Reading:
Scholz, Trebor. " What the MySpace generation should know about working for free -
Trebor Scholz 'journalisms' - Collectivate.net." home - Collectivate.net. 3 Apr 2007.
26 Aug 2007 < http://www.collectivate.net/journalisms/2007/4/3/what-the-myspacegeneration-should-know-about-working-for-free.html
>.
Roush, Wade. "Technology Review: The Moral Panic over Social-Networking Sites."
Technology Review: The Authority on the Future of Technology. 7 Aug 2006. 26 Aug
2007 < http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17266&ch=infotech >.
Jarvis, Jeff. "BuzzMachine Blog Archive Who owns the wisdom of the crowd? The crowd.." BuzzMachine. 26 Oct 2005. 12 Jun 2007
< http://www.buzzmachine.com/2005/10/26/who-owns-the-wisdom-of-the-crowd-thecrowd/ >.
Suggested Reading:
Wyrick, Brian, and Dmytri Kleiner. "Infoenclosure 2.0." Mute magazine - Culture and politics after the net. 29 Jan 2007. 26 Aug 2007
< http://www.metamute.org/en/InfoEnclosure-2.0
>.
Terranova, Tiziana. "Free Labor." Universitat Oberta de Catalunya UOC. 15 Aug 2000.
12 Jun 2007
< http://www.uoc.edu/in3/hermeneia/sala_de_lectura/t_terranova_free_labor.htm
>.
Pollard, Dave. "Finding People to Make a Living With." Recently Changed Weblogs. 7
Feb 2007. 26 Aug 2007 < http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2007/03/26.html#a1818 >.
Rauch, Peter. "Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins: Fable and Other Moral Tales: A Study in Game Ethics (Part One)." Confessions of an Aca-Fan:
The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins. 1 Aug 2007. 26 Aug 2007
<http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/08/games_and_ethics.html>.
• Week 13 (11/20, 11/22)
Fields of Possibilities
Questions:
What are the core characteristics of the Social Web?
How can networked publics fight back?
Today, is it practical to live ethical lives in the context of the Social Web and mobile social space? If so, tactics could be learned and shared with others.

Required Reading:
Jarvis, Jeff. "New News: Deconstructing the newspaper." BuzzMachine . 18 Jan 2006.
26 Aug 2007
< http://www.buzzmachine.com/2006/01/18/new-news-deconstructing-the-newspaper/ >.
• Week 14 (11/27, 11/29)
The Future of the Social Web
Required Reading:
Cascio, Jamais. "WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green
Future: The Rise of the Participatory Panopticon." WorldChanging: Tools, Models and
Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future. 4 May 2005. 12 Jul 2007
<http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002651.html>.
• Week 15 (12/04, 12/06)
Presentations, Finals add to del.icio.us
by [Trebor] | Post a Comment | 1 Reference
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
Response: Web 2.0: What went wrong?
at elearnspace on August 29, 2007
Trebor Scholz has made his course syllabus available for Social Media. The presentation is subtitled "web 2.0, what went wrong". It's tough to get a sense of what the author thinks went wrong from only slides. I don't think anything...

Cyberspace references from amazon
73 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
Manifesto for the 21st Century of Informed Prosperous Democracy ,
August 9, 2006
By Robert D. Steele
Edit of 14 Apr 08 to add links (feature not available at the time).
Lawrence Lessig could not say enough good things about this book when he spoke at
Wikimania 2006 in Boston last week, so I ordered it while listening to him. It arrived today and I dropped everything to go through it.
This book could well be the manifesto for 21st Century of Informed Prosperous
Democracy. It is a meticulous erudite discussion of why information should not be treated as property, and why the "last mile" should be built by the neighborhood as a commons, "I'll carry your bits if you carry mine."
The bottom line of this book, and I will cite some other books briefly, is that democracy and prosperity are both enhanced by shared rather than restricted information. The open commons model is the only one that allows us to harness the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth, where each individual can made incremental improvements that cascade without restraint to the benefit of all others.
As I write this, both the publishing and software industries are in the midst of a "last ditch" defense of copyright and proprietary software. I believe they are destined to fail, and IBM stands out as an innovative company that sees the writing on the wall--see especially IBM's leadership in developing "Services Science."
The author has written the authoritative analytic account of the new social and political and financial realities of a networked world with information embedded goods. There have been earlier accounts--for example, the cover story of Business Week on "The
Power of Us" with its many accounts of how Lego, for example, received 1,600 free engineering development hours from its engaged customers of all ages. Thomas Stewart's
"The Wealth of Knowledge," Barry Carter's "Infinite Wealth," Alvin and Heidi Toffler's most recent "Revolutionary Wealth," all come to the same conclusion: you cannot manage 21st Century information-rich networks with 20th Century industrial control models.
Lawrence Lessig says it best when he speaks of the old world as "Read Only" and the new world as "Read-Write" or interactive. His fulsome praise for this author and this book suggest that the era of sharing and voluntary work has come of age.
On that note, I wish to observe that those who label the volunteers who craft Wikis including the Wikipedia as "suckers" are completely off-base. The volunteers are the

smartest of the smart, the vanguard for a new economy in which bartering and sharing displace centralized financial and industrial control. Indeed, with the localization of energy, water, and agriculture, this book by this author could not be more important or timelier.
One final supportive anecdote, this one from the brilliant Michael Eisen, champion of open publishing. He captured the new paradigm perfectly at Wikimania when he likened the current publishing environment as one in which scientists give birth to babies, the publishers play a mid-wifery role, and then claim that as midwives, they have a perpetual right to the babies and will only lease them back to the parents. What a gloriously illuminating analogy this is.
I will end by tying this book and this author to C.K. Prahalad's "The Fortune at the
Bottom of the Pyramid." That other book focuses on the fact that the five billion poor are actually worth four trillion in disposable income, versus the one billion rich worth one trillion. C.K. Prahalad posits a world in which capitalism stops focusing on making disposable high-end high cost goods, and turns instead to making sustainable low-cost goods. I see the day coming when--the avowed goal of the Wiki Foundation--there is universal free access to all information in all languages all the time.
If Marx and his Communist Manifesto were the tipping point for communism, this book is the tipping point for communal moral capitalism. Yochai Benkler is--along with
Stewart Brand, Howard Rheingold, Bruce Sterling, Kevin Kelly, Lawrence Lessig, Jimbo
Wales, Ward Cunningham, Brewster Kahle, and Cass Sunstein, one of the bright shining lights in our constellation of change makers.
He ends his book on an optimistic note. Despite the craven collaboration of the U.S.
Congress in extending copyright forever into the distant future, he posits a reversal of all these bad laws (it used to be legal to discriminate against women and people of color) by the combination of cultural, social, economic, and technical forces that have their own imperative. Would that it were so, sooner.
See also:
Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge
Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century
Organization
Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Power at the Edge of the 21st Century
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time
Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

I beg indulgence for listing five books I have published. I know you all know about
Smart Mobs, Wisdom of the Crowds, Army of Davids, etc. See also the literature resilience, panarchy, and social entrepreneurship.
Peace (and prosperity) for all, in our time.
Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? ( Report this ) ( Report this )
Last edited by the author on Dec 8, 2007 11:18 AM PST
Robert D. Steele says:
Thank. I check for new comments once a day, they have significantly improved my reviews in those instances where I make a mistake or misunderstand something. I never expected to be in the top 100 over-all, I think Dick Cheney has driven America back into reading non-fiction and I get a great deal of satisfaction from providing summative reviews rather than just attaboys. Thanks for taking the time to express appreciation.
Yochai Benkler just agreed to have his words used as a forward to a book edited by Mark
Tovey of Canada, called COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace. I am the publisher, and as with all the books I publish a copy will always be offered free on line. You can see the galley version (awaiting typos and then indexing at www.oss.net/CIB. Once published, each chapter, and the book as a whole for ease of digital searching, will be posted at that address in pfd file format.
Benkler is a Moses for our era--combine his book with C.K. Prahalad and mine on public intelligence, and you get heaven on earth. For the big picture, check out Earth
Intelligence Network, just starting up as a non-profit to facilitate all this.
In reply to an earlier post on April 14, 2008 10:31 AM PDT
Last edited by the author on April 14, 2008 10:34 AM PDT
Robert D. Steele says:
Thank you. It is truly helpful and encouraging to have comments. I think the world of
Yochai Benkler, and was thrilled when Hassan Masum and Mark Tovey got him to agree to a re-mix of key portions of his book as the Foreword to a new book with 55 contributors edited by Mark Tovey, COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a
Prosperous World at Peace. The book is both on Amazon at an affordable price (a labor of love, each contributor gets two copies of the book, the editor gets a case of 20), and also free online at www.oss.net/CIB where you can either pull individual chapters including the remixed Foreword as documents, or get the whole book in easily-searchable
PDF. All of our books are offered in that two-track fashion. You have inspired me to add links, a feature that started after I reviewed this book. The last link is to the new book.
--CONTENT GOES HERE (static)--
-- CONTENT GOES HERE (simple)---- CONTENT GOES HERE (simple)----
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Survival Manifesto for Anyone with A Brain, February 11, 2001
By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
First off, this book made the cut above another ten or so options on the fringes (the amazon reviews helped). It was a good choice. The author captures the essence of many other books as well as real-world experience with two fundamental points that every manager and every employee--including fast-food employees and others in "drone" jobs--needs to absorb: first, that the existing bureaucratization of the economy at every level is costing so much as to place those companies in jeopardy during the forthcoming economic shake-out, and second, that the sooner every individual begins the process of inventorying their personal capabilities and creating the networks for offering their personal services and knowledge via the Internet to all comers, the sooner they will be able to share in the profits associated with their direct individual contributions to the new economy.
The Department of Defense acquisition and contracting examples are especially shocking because they show, so credibly and in detail, how we have institutionalized multi-billion dollar waste.
This is a special book. It is by a practical man who has drawn very personal and transformative lessons from the school of hard knocks, and whose recounting of those lessons have value for anyone who expects to work for a living today and in the future.
This is not a "get rich quick" book as much as it is a "get rich together or get left behind" book.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Understanding the coming Future, March 10, 2001
By Timothy Wilken (Carmel, CA USA) - See all my reviews
With the publication of Infinite Wealth, Barry Carter has established himself as a voice on the leading edge of the synergic paradigm.
The synergic paradigm is a place where you and I can be much more by working together than we could ever be by working
This product
10 used & new from $16.49

separately. It is a place where we both can win. It is a place where we can create a win-win world in contrast to our present win/lose and often lose/lose world.
To solve the problems facing us (humanity) at the beginning of the 21st Century will require nothing less than our learning to work together. We must learn to Co-Operate. As Barry Carter explains in his Conclusion to Infinite Wealth:
"Our social institutions are dying. The pain we feel is the pain of death and birth simultaneously, the death of one civilization and the birth of a new one. We have entered a period in which the conservative person who does not take risks and needs stability has become the risk taker, the radical, and the gambler. It is a period in which the one who refuses to change will surely be the one who will lose the most in the coming years. There is no going back to the way things used to be. Back to the basics is a failed policy. The future has already begun, and the trend is clear.
"Starting today you must have a completely new outlook on life. You must be responsible. You can no longer depend on employers, unions, or governments to look out for your economic well-being, to provide you with a job, retirement, social security, health care, or a safety net.
"From this day forward you and your global network of partners are responsible for creating work and wealth for yourselves. If you have no network you have no security. All of the rules have changed. The guarantees and promises made to you by
Industrial Age society are null and void and will be breached.
"The government and controlled economies have no choice. The power bestowed on them in the Industrial Age is slipping away--to you the individual supplier and customer. You the individual supplier and customer have no choice about accepting this responsibility. Mass victimization is no longer an option.
"Because most companies and employees are not seriously preparing, the number of companies that fail to make the transition could be extremely high. And there likely will be no unemployment benefits, no welfare, and no Social Security safety nets to catch those who fall. Your network is your security. As we stand poised on the edge of the greatest advancement and growth boom in history, we may stumble. Many may lose life, fortune, and standard of living and suffer tremendous hardship.
"We the individuals are the only ones who can make the change. Our corporate and political leaders do not have the power, vision, or intelligence to address the root causes. We the people must wake up from the Industrial Age sleep into which our factory-style schools, jobs, and governing system have lulled us. We must come out of our defined compartments and take responsibility. Our leaders cannot do what has to be done to correct our problems; this responsibility does not lie in their bureaus of specialty. It is not in their job descriptions.
"History has shown that real change usually comes only through crisis. The evidence shows that the crisis has begun. Tens of thousands are dead from the transition. We can possibly lessen or prevent the crisis if we align ourselves with the change.
Today we have the technology, knowledge, power, ability, intelligence, and willingness to move faster toward win-win wealth creation.
"We must use intelligence to recognize what is occurring and move with the natural flow of things and with all deliberate speed. Either way, we have to make the transition. Meandering along simply means that we will pay a higher price in life, death, suffering, standard of living, and debt for our children. Meandering also risks complete collapse and possibly a dark millennium.
"The universe does not guarantee our standard of living or our survival. Perhaps our ancestors had to meander during periods of social transition because there was little or no precedent and little knowledge to use the precedents there were. We are fortunate because we can learn from their mistakes. As the late Carl Sagan said, "we see further because we stand on their shoulders" (1980).
"Becoming aligned with the coming change will allow us to avoid pain and to prosper. Let's get on with it. Let's stop the bleeding and start the fun, passion, and living! This will be the most fun and exciting time of our lives!"
Barry Carter has discovered one of the biggest secrets of science: "When you read and understand the work of a world's leading expert, you can become the world's second leading expert."
Carter spent 12 years of his life studying the world's leading experts in the synergic paradigm. In Infinite Wealth, he shares what he has learned and interprets his new understanding from his unique perspective developed from working as a cog in the

wheel of our present Industrial Civilization. With this interpretation he has expanded the paradigm. As a synergic scientist working in the field for 27 years, I was surprised and delighted to learn more. Infinite Wealth has much to offer to both novice and expert.
This is an important book that explains the shape of the coming future. I recommend that every thinking human read it!
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An Excellent Book..., January 25, 2000
By Michael S. Abrams (Sao Paulo, Brazil) - See all my reviews
If you can overlook certain things that I find a bit grating--especially the author's touting companies like Microsoft and Amway as exemplars of the new "win/win" economy (I prefer to see them as the WORST examples of the exploitative Industrial Age economy)--you will realize this is an important and timely book. The author has created an inspiring and stimulating collage-his work itself an example of the infinite possibilities for creativity that the Information Age offers.
I regularly scour library catalogs for new books in subjects like "Information Society" and "Knowledge Management." This is one of the few that I've read from cover to cover.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Infinite Wealth, January 11, 2000
By Gabor Kardos (California, USA) - See all my reviews
I wish I had this book at my disposal when I started to change the management system at my own company. I begun a bold and seemingly insane program to get our employees more interested and involved in the company's future for the same reason
Barry Carter decided to write this book. We both realized that today's big corporations are nothing more than mini Soviet
Unions, controlled and socialized economies, where wealth creation is inefficient, the people are unmotivated and unhappy.
(When I first got in contact with him, he thought I read his book). With this book I could have explained to my partners and the employees why I thought we needed to change and avoid the traditional pyramid structure in our company and create a selfmanaged environment.
The author provides a clear historical and organizational analysis of our current corporate environment through his personal experience and skillful inclusion of other modern thinkers on the subject. I started my movement from a gut feel, and was doing it by the seat of my pants, while feeling like an idiot sometimes, not being able clearly define the final structure, and at the same time, I felt very lonely in the wilderness. After reading his book, everyone at my company would have clearly seen the advantages and reasons for abandoning the old management structure and creating a modern organization that could have thrived in the Information Age. I highly recommend this book and the WEB site to anyone who is aware of our changing world, who wants to survive in business, and who cares about the customers and employees by creating or changing a company to the new way of doing business, where wealth creation is maximized, while people are creative and happy.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Infinite Wealth - Not exactly as you might think, February 10, 2000
By Bernie Slepkov (Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
Assuming that Futurists do their homework right, one should be able to act on their insights with a fair degree of confidence.
With "Infinite Wealth" the same trending snapshots caught by noted futurists such as Faith Popcorn, Alvin Toffler and John

Naisbitt take on more personalized dimensions. Barry Carter opens up before his readers doors to personal fulfillment, inviting them to join the driving forces of 21st Century new economies. If ever there was insider information worth its weight in gold, this is it.
Whether or not you are already a pioneer of the emerging Free Agent Nation, this book is a must read! If you are one of tensof-millions sensing that the world you thought you knew is changing, not certain where you might fit in, I highly recommend
"Infinite Wealth" as a beginner's guide to learning. But be forewarned! "Infinite Wealth" is not really about material wealth - per say, and if that is what you seek...well then maybe you should read the book. Otherwise, you may never know what hit you.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Barry Carter understands the transformation the world is in., July 25, 1999
By A Customer
I thoroughly enjoyed reading a book about leadership, organizations, paradigm change, and creativity by an author who's lived what he writes about. Barry obviously experienced what he wrote about before he became a student of the transformations the world is in the midst of. This gives him an unusual credibility in a world of celebrity guru's who have not lived what they pontificate about.
Barry painfully describes the reality of even those organizations considered the best. They are all mediocre compared to what they could become. His description can only come from one who has been in the "pit."
Barry's description of the emerging world comes from an internalized understanding of a shift from a mechanical to an ecological worldview. His vision for an interconnected world economy where there is hope for everyone to win, is exciting and inspiring. Of course he hasn't figured it all out. No one has. It is not possible to figure it all out when we are in the process of creating the new world. But he understands the natural dynamics of living systems and has his direction. And that is all he, or anyone, needs to begin the journey of a lifetime.
Congratulations to Barry C. Carter for what he has lived, for what he has learned, for his thinking, and for sharing his vision with us. I recommend this book.
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This ties it all together,a guide toward the new economy., July 2, 1999
By David Alderman (dcaark@aol.com) (Murrellls Inlet, South Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews
"Infinite Wealth" should, but won't for obvious reasons, become required reading for all students at the High School and
College levels. Anyone beyond these levels of formal education, who is in search for a deeper and more stable level of personal freedom for themselves and their descendants, should also read this book, sooner rather than later. It would also be a good idea for parents to encourage their children to read this book since most education systems continue to block them from gaining this kind of knowledge. "Infinite Wealth" clearly indentifies the political, social, economic and diverse cultural problems we are presently experiencing around the world and outlines the reasons it is urgent that solutions are implemented. Barry Carter has obviously contributed thousands of hours of thought and conscientious research in preparing to write this brilliant book. He has keenely focused his study on the history of our evolving world economies and the political systems they control, while searching for the potential solutions he has outlined. He provides a clear path, for those who share his concerns or accept his premis, for people to work together toward the creation of a better world. A world which for the first time can provide all people a legitimate chance to have a happy life, with true liberty and justice. Mr. Carter correctly identifies our "Free Market",
"Free Enterprise" systems for what they are and points out why the current systems are not open, much less free, to the masses.
He then goes on to illustrate how and why all of our current problems will only get worse as social knowledge continues to expand, if a new economic system is not divised to open economic freedom and opportunity to the masses around the world.

There is hope and "Infinite Wealth" helps open the door toward future change for all who are willing to walk through that door to help pioneer the greatest transition in the history of human existance.
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Guides you into the mindset you'll need to succeed, August 29, 1999
By Rev. Jason Starr(xstarrmann@aol.com) (San Antonio, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews
There are many reasons to appreciate [and read] this book. Barry comes from a position of having tried and implemented these techniques he describes, and has made them work. He has also tried the techniques being replaced, and has seen them NOT work. In a world of get-rich-quick do-it-yourself theory-of-the-week books, this one stands out as something real and lasting.
Barry describes in a very readable manner a highly possible, positive, and desirable future for productivity and work not only in America, but indeed, throughout the world. The emphasis in this work is what some have talked about, but none has so fully integrated as Barry proposes --- a win/win world. The idea of "mass privatization" is a radical departure from our "industrial revolution" thinking in that it proposes that every person be his/her own boss. Additionally, that every person be justly rewarded for his/her contributions. Clearly laid out, imminently practical, and filled with anecdotal material as well, this book is a must read for everyone wanting to get a leg up on the future of our burgeoning information society.
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A book everyone who cares about the future should read., August 29, 1999
By Robert Reed III (St Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
This book is everything you need to know what the Information Age is really about. Once you read this book, you'll everything that happens in the world today including war, capitalism, communism, gangs, terrorism, and poverty. This book provides a convincing model of how everything correlates to wealth creation. He compares the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age, and then with the coming Information Age. This book describes how to eliminate racism, sexism, poverty, shameless wealth, crime, war, and government itself by seeking economic, and social justice for all 6 billion people on this planet. Carter has done something that no one else would even touch. He dares to say that capitalism and socialism are very similiar. He backs this up with full proof, comparing the likes of IBM to the Soviet Union, and turns out to be exactly correct. Most importantly, he describes a system of true, win/win democracy through synocracy, and describes the problems with our win/lose system of representative democracy. This book is THE book that defines the future as it will be.
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Positive, Powerful, Sweeping = I loved it!, June 18, 1999
By A Customer
In 'Infinite Wealth', Barry Carter has outlined and pinpointed the elements of a Win/Win World. As a whole, he has defined a grand, uplifting vision around which the people of the world can unite. Upon reading I experienced a surge of synthesis and integration that propelled me forward in the development of The Uni-v.e.r.s.e. I highly recommend 'Infinite Wealth' for anyone in business or not, who wishes to grasp the future and succeed in the present.
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August 19, 2008 by chengrob in The Pit Blog
I just finished doing the math. I began computing in 1983 and during that time, I have owned exactly 10 different computers. That means, the average life of one of my PC's is
2.5 years. That certainly is an eye opener. 2.5 years is not that long a time in PC years.
When I purchased each one, my anticipation was a lot more than a couple of years, so why is that?
I have heard it said so many times in casual conversation throughout the decades. "My
PC is old, I need a new one." This logic is flawed. PC's are not like cars that have tires, brake pads, and gears that grind against each other. In fact, in a modern PC, other than the hard drive, no other component consistently fails. Looking on the surface, a new PC should last for decades and certainly a heck of a lot longer than 2.5 years.
So if it isn't the hardware, why do our PC's get slow and perceived as old? Let's take a look. Here are the six key reasons why PC performance deteriorates over time, and what you can do to stop performance degradation.
Web Browsing - You visit a new web site that you have never visited before. For most people, this simple event happens probably 10-20 times per day, if not more. What happens behind the scenes? First off, your browser creates a record that you have visited this web site. You can see this information in your browser history. Next, most likely the web site wrote a few cookies to your hard drive. Lastly, the browser made a mini copy of the web site including all of the images, links, and layout of the page.
Is this a big deal? Not really, the problem happens little by little and over the course of a long time, (let's say 2.5 years), there is a noticeable hit on performance. After 2.5 years, the browser takes a little longer to come up, seems less responsive, and web pages come up a little slower.

The solution is simple. This information needs to be cleared out on a regular basis.
Furthermore, for the paranoid amongst us, this type of information is the foundation of modern computer forensics.
Temporary Files - In addition to the internet cache, lots of temporary files are stored on your disk. Many of these temporary files aren't so temporary. Here's an example.
Whenever you open an attachment in an email, your email program (Outlook,
Thunderbird, etc) stores a copy of the attachment in the temporary directory. In many cases, it isn't so temporary, and these files reside on your hard drive for years. Over a long period of time, it is important to reclaim this space, or your PC will have a lot less disk space, and also appear slower.
Applications - The internet is the source of all solutions. Whatever problem I am trying to solve, I go to the internet. Furthermore, most of the solutions are free or have a free trail. Here's a personal example. For my article on Notepad alternatives, I downloaded about 10 Notepad alternatives, and I finally settled on Notepad2 as my favorite. The problem is that the other 9 which I never use, still reside on my hard drive. Of course the solution is simple, we should all be uninstalling the software we no longer need or desire.
If you have never done this simple exercise in 2 years of use, I would bet your system in not running optimally. Boot times are longer and memory usage is less than optimal.
But there is more. Many uninstallers do not do a complete job of removing the application entirely from the registry. Yes, the application is gone, but these little traces make the all-important registry less than pristine. So after doing the exercise, we recommend doing a simple registry scan to make sure that there are no broken or redundant entries in the registry.
Moreover, many applications install little craplets in your task bar, whether you use the application or not. Over time, if you have many of these craplets, they eat up memory and
CPU cycles degrading system performance.
MalWare - As I wrote about earlier, the face of malware has changed dramatically since the 90's. No longer are there malware that reformat your hard drive. Gone are the I Love
You and Anna Kournikova viruses. Back then, once you contracted the malware, you knew it. It was horrible but at least you knew you had a problem. Today's malware goal is to escape detection, and then surreptitiously use your PC as a bot, ad server, or for other illegal activity. Due to its very nature, today's malware is hard to detect, and slows down your PC.
We at PC Pitstop recommend a thorough, not quick, scan of your PC at least once a year.
Hard drives are so big, and loaded with so many files, that a full scan could take up to half a day, but it's worth it. Really.
Memory - Two of the greatest marketing lines of all time are "Clean, Rinse, Repeat" and
"You can never have too much garlic." Here's another one "Always add more memory."
If you've been using your PC for a few years, and you think it is slow, you could well

need more memory. There are some basic reasons why adding memory is a panacea for
PC performance.
Web browsing. Web 2.0 has changed the face of the web. Web sites are more inviting with more information and superior and intuitive navigation. This comes at the expense of using a lot more memory per page. I believe that this trend will continue.
Data Glop. Each and every email that you receive takes up a tad of memory in your email client. If you keep all of your emails (I do!), then you need more memory each and every year. No matter what, each successive computer should have more memory than the prior one.
Always On. Here's some great news. PC's crash a lot less than 10 years ago. The one side benefit/ramification is that I have my PC connected 24/7. Great, but it changes the way I work. I edit a lot of images throughout the day using Paint.net, and since I never close down the application, quite often all the images that I edited in the last week are all sitting in the application. I really ought to close out the old ones, but it is easier to add more memory.
Fragmentation - Fragmentation Kills. Hopefully, I've drawn a picture of all these nonobvious ways that things are quietly being written to your hard drive. The largest ramification is fragmentation. Once your hard drive becomes fragmented, it is painful.
Minutes become hours, and hours become days. The key is to avoid this situation by following these tips.
1. Do the clean up BEFORE you defragment. As described above, your PC needs a regular clean up, but you are stubbing your own toe, if you defragment BEFORE cleanup.
2. Close all applications before doing a defragmentation. Vista now has automatic defragmentation, which is great to a degree. If you continue to work, or leave applications open during a defragmentation, then those application files will not be defragmented.
Conclusion
There are many more tune up tips to keep your PC running like new, but these are the basics. Theoretically, if your computer can easily upgrade memory, it should be running like a race car well into the next decade.
Tags: defragment , malware , memory , PC
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1.
Darryl Gittins Says:
August 21st, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Can someone explain the following to me? Sure, stored email uses disk space, but memory? How? I don't think my email client is loading every peice of email into
RAM.
"Each and every email that you receive takes up a tad of memory in your email client. If you keep all of your emails (I do!), then you need more memory each and every year."
2.
Darryl Gittins Says:
August 21st, 2008 at 5:23 pm
I think the most likely reason for slowdown, besides malware, might be the hard drive actually getting slower. Many hard drives die a "slow death" where they don't just stop, they just get slower and slower. PCPitstop's scan tests the seek speed of the drive. If the drive is flagged as unusually slow (after you have done all the other things in this article), then you might consider replacing the drive.
3.
Mark Says:
August 21st, 2008 at 7:59 pm
The main reasons PCs get "old" are:
- You get a new version of Windows (*ahem* Vista, I'm looking at you).
- You're a gamer, and it's essential to upgrade for new games.
- CD/DVD burners get faster.
- That old 40 GB hard drive just doesn't cut it with today's high data storage requirements.
I'm not an upgrade fanatic, and even have a five-year-old PC, but it's a fact that computers do get old quickly.
(My first computer was a 48K Sinclair ZX Spectrum in 1983.)
4.
MicHaeL H.
Says:
August 21st, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Yes, you should know another reason why computers get old.
Because of course software gets more demanding too!
It becomes bigger and take up more drive-space, it becomes heavier and use up more memory and speed.
And that counts for even the simplest programs.

So in fact your old computer would have to work better than it started out to be.
Which makes no sense, thus you need a new computer or better parts if possible.
5.
David L. Sayre Says:
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:18 am
Have an 8 year old running 98SE, as a seond computer. Did a clean reinstall without the programs that I don't use (Notons, Outlook Express,etc.) Upgraded harddrive, memory
(only512}, and installed DVDRW about 6 months ago. Still using same CPU. Works just as of 15 people found the following review helpful:
Rheingold 10, Gates 0 , December 29, 2000
By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
Howard Rheingold, former Editor of the Whole Earth Review and one of the pure-gold original thinkers in the Stewart Brand and Kevin Kelly circle, lays down a serious challange to both decisionmakers and software producers that has yet to be fully understood. Originally published in 1985, this book was a "must read" at the highest levels of advanced information processing circles then, but sadly its brilliant and coherent message has yet to take hold--largely because bureaucratic budgets and office politics are major obstacles to implementing new models where the focus is on empowering the employee rather than crunching financial numbers.
This book is a foundation reading for understanding why the software Bill Gates produces (and the Application Program Interfaces he persists in concealing) will never achieve the objectives that Howard and others believe are within our grasp--a desktop toolkit that not only produces multi-media documents without crashing ten times a day, but one that includes modeling & simulation, structured argument analysis, interactive search and retrieval of the deep web as well as commercial online systems, and geospatially-based heterogeneous data set visualization--and more--the desktop toolkit that emerges logically from Howard's vision must include easy clustering and linking of related data across sets, statistical analysis to reveal anomalies and identify trends in data across time, space, and topic, and a range of data conversion, machine language translation, analog video management, and automated data extraction from text and images. How hard can this be? VERY HARD. Why? Because no one is willing to create a railway guage standard in cyberspace that legally mandates the transparency and stability of Application Program Interfaces (API). Rheingold gets it, Gates does not.
What a waste!
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
A solid view of computing , May 18, 2000
By Paulo Rios "Kreatis" (Europe) - See all my reviews
Computing as mind-expanding technology. Such a beautiful perspective is shown throughout this book where some of the greats minds can be found. It will give you an insight and novel views you never thought they could ever exist. It will change your way subtly but deeply.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Learn from History , June 30, 2000
By Vincent O'Sullivan (London, England.) - See all my reviews
Entering the 21st century it's still amazing to find that so many of the pioneers of computing are still alive. Rheingold has interviewed many of them over the years and this book is an interesting and valuble contribution to the genre.
The novel feature of the book is the way in which past interviews are brought up to date and the interviewees give their opinions on the differences between what they predicted and what happened.
The writing is excellent and very accessible. The interviewees come across as very normal people (which indeed they are) but it is very easy to forget they were still amongst the movers and shakers of computing in the late 20th century.
I think this book is a valuble work for those who see technology are more than just a vehicle for making money.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Informed and Thoughtful , July 3, 2000
By Sharon Shaw (Southern Pines, NC USA) - See all my reviews
The Afterword alone is worth the price of the book. Rarely does a thinker with the acumen of Rheingold also exhibit a willingness to re-examine, refine, and, on occasion, reverse positions taken a decade or more ago. Rheingold does in a way that is informative and mind-opening. Aside from the mound of solid information and provocative observations about the Internet in human life, Rheingold's prose is as comfortable and welcoming as those toes tucked into the grass as he composes on his

laptop. A must read.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Really good book , June 4, 2001
By A Customer
Unwittingly maybe, Rheingold provides a really good account and even reference of the history of computing. He writes well and unlike some CS writers marries his subject with the real world. If you are studying the history of computing I really recommend this over
Ceruzzi's book.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Essential reading if you want to understand computing , June 1, 2000
By N. Carroll (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews
This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand computing all the way from the bare metal to the near-future. It ranks with Fred Brooks' "The Mythical Man Month." If you don't know this stuff, you don't really know what's inside the box, and how it got there.
It's also a pretty entertaining read, though I think the author gives a bit too much credit to von Neuman.
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Prophet of Electronic
Power to the People
Everyone seems to miss what I think is the most important the point of
Howard's book. First published in 1993 and now in the expanded edition, the bottom line on this book is that the
Internet has finally made it possible for individuals to own the fruits of their own labor--the power has shifted from the industrial age aggregators of labor, capital, and hard...
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30 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
Not very honest
The virtual community is, in reality, at best a bunch of people disagreeing and regularly indulging in shark-like small group attacks. The WELL, of which
Howard speaks so much, hounded one of its early members - Blair - to his death by suicide, a matter described, but not really examined with much thoroughness. Yes, he touches on flaming, but does not examine a deeper...
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Prophet of Electronic Power to the People , December 29, 2000
By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
Everyone seems to miss what I think is the most important the point of Howard's book.
First published in 1993 and now in the expanded edition, the bottom line on this book is that the Internet has finally made it possible for individuals to own the fruits of their own labor--the power has shifted from the industrial age aggregators of labor, capital, and hard resources to the individual knowledge workers. The virtual community is the social manifestation of this new access to one another, but the real revolution is manifested in

the freedom that cyberspace makes possible--as John Perry Barlow has said, the Internet interprets censorship (including corporate attempts to "own" employee knowledge) as an outage, and *routes around it*. Not only are communities possible, but so also are shortterm aggregations of interest, remote bartering, on the fly hiring of world-class experts at a fraction of their "physical presence price". If Howard's first big book, Tools for
Thought, was the window on what is possible at the desktop, this book is the window on what is possible in cyberspace, transcending physical, legal, cultural, and financial barriers. This is not quite the watershed that The Communist Manifesto was, but in many ways this book foreshadowed all of the netgain, infinite wealth, and other electronic frontier books coming out of the fevered brains around Boston--a guy in Mill Valley wearing hand-painted cowboy boots was there long before those carpetbaggers (smile).
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30 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
Not very honest , January 22, 2002
By A Customer
The virtual community is, in reality, at best a bunch of people disagreeing and regularly indulging in shark-like small group attacks. The WELL, of which Howard speaks so much, hounded one of its early members - Blair - to his death by suicide, a matter described, but not really examined with much thoroughness. Yes, he touches on flaming, but does not examine a deeper pattern of common harrasment, particularly of outliers.
How Howard himself participated in this type of online gang harassment activity, not understanding the man, Blair, and discounting his claims out of hand is a quite interesting story. He touches on this, and gives an account, which would be acceptable in a personal autobiography. But to leave it where he does in a book purporting to be a seminal piece on virtual community is truly remarkably remiss. Since the record is all there, or was, it could have been given serious consideration.
The conflicting interests, and the commonly irresponsible behavior of people online - viciousness, gratuitous, undeserved nastiness, intellectual dishonesty - looking for targets to vent on is not explored as it should be. This is quite common outside of the world of flaming.
This book is a gloss piece, advertising for something that doesn't really exist as he claims. Howard, while a pleasant guy personally, does not show himself a deep thinker, and may not be much of an observer either. Nor is the author ready, willing or able to take on anything that is likely to upset the herd of which he has become something of a starring member. The story of virtual community is not such a very nice one in many ways.
The underside of the story of virtual community is a story of psychological denial, denial about a great deal. It is a story of in-groups and out-groups, and a good deal more,

something which requires an anhtropologists eye, and someone with more nerve.
Go ahead and read this book. But understand that the book itself is evidence of the degree of denial which pervades the "virtual community".
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3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
The internet as a new frontier - but is really new?
, December 18, 1997
By shaw6 (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic
Frontier (Paperback)
Rheingold's work is informed by the Chicago school of communication theory, libertarianism and romantic notions of the wild west.
These thoughts are not new - they've surfaced with each new technology this century.
It's an important book, and entertaingly written. He makes crucial points and the book is a must read for anyone interested in the Internet as a medium.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
A seminal 1992 work with update tacked on , July 3, 2001
By A Customer
Rheingold provides a comprehensive, broad sweeping portrayal of the virtual communities landscape, particularly as it was in the early 1990s. In particular, the book provides a fascinating history of the development of virtual communities from back in the 1960s. The many stories of the development of virtual communities and of life in virtual communities provide a rich account.
The books' style is more journalistic that academic. It reads something like an extended newspaper article, with some fine writing. The book concentrates mostly on a kind of anecdotal and human accounting with a smattering of theory and stuff thrown in.
Howard Rheingold eloquently lays out many of the salient issues and does an excellent job of arguing for the importance of recognizing the growth of online social groups.
Also, he provides an intriguing treatment of cultural issues. The depth and breadth of his experience with the medium is clearly evident.
Generally, book is more historical than theoretical or practical. Howard admits to

wanting to popularize the notion of virtual communities, which he does effectively. But, there is little that would help you set up a virtual community or really understand why they work that way. His basis is more in his experience than in theory or rigorous research.
The original book has been widely commented on, so perhaps just two comments on the
2000 version are in order. First, the book seems a little dated. The new material for this new version seems mostly added in the last two chapters, leaving the preceding 10 tinged with the state of affairs in 1992, which was pre-web and pre- a large bit of corporate development of e-business and virtual communities on the web. Of course, most of the issues are still relevant, but one has to keep the age of the material in mind. Second, the new material, although comprehensive and certainly based on Howard's considerable experience, seems a little rushed. Howard qualifies this by saying it would need another book, but this leaves the book feeling like an older book with a lengthy afterward tacked on later.
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Wrote the book on Virtual Communities , July 18, 2001
By Christopher J. Abraham "Blogger" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic
Frontier (Paperback)
Howard Rheingold is the most important lens through which the entire culture of the
Virtual Community and Virtual Environment dynamics should and can be seen. This book, in any of its print runs or versions, is essential for anyone who wants to understand contact between people who's only connection is online via computers.
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New expanded edition forthcoming , May 11, 2000
By Jeremy Grainger (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic
Frontier (Hardcover)
This is a classic work on the development of online communities immediately before the advent of the World Wide Web. A new expanded edition with a terrific follow up chapter and expanded bibliography is due this fall from The MIT Press. A must read!
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New expanded edition forthcoming , May 11, 2000
By Jeremy Grainger (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic
Frontier (Hardcover)
This is a classic work on the development of online communities immediately before the advent of the World Wide Web. A new expanded edition with a terrific follow up chapter and expanded bibliography is due this fall from The MIT Press. A must read!
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
New expanded edition forthcoming , May 11, 2000
By Jeremy Grainger (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic
Frontier (Hardcover)
This is a classic work on the development of online communities immediately before the advent of the World Wide Web. A new expanded edition with a terrific follow up chapter and expanded bibliography is due this fall from The MIT Press. A must read!
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1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
New expanded edition is forthcoming , May 11, 2000
By Jeremy Grainger (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic
Frontier (Paperback)
This is a classic work on the development of online communities immediately before the advent of the World Wide Web. A new expanded edition with a terrific follow up chapter and expanded bibliography is due this fall from The MIT Press. A must read!
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful: visionary, lucid, entrancing , October 13, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic
Frontier (Paperback)
The ironic thing about Rheingold's "Virtual Community" is that in the communities

forming online aren't so virtual at all -- they are real in every sense of the word. From homesteads to the storefronts (like Amazon!), virtual communities are thriving.
Rheingold weaves a fascinating tale of the development of several of these communitites, vividly describes the research carried out at places like PARC/Xerox
(years ahead of its time), and emotionally involves the reader as he takes you on his journeys of new (virtual) worlds.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
A good resource for writers and academics
This book covers four main areas in regards to online communities: identity, social order and control, community structure and dynamics, and collective action.
11 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
Lost in (cyber)space?
I was introduced to this book because my enlightened sociology prof used it as a text for our discussions of sociology and cyberspace.
Like many other texts on community, this book tends to focus on older technologies, i.e. Usenet, and
MUDs/MOOs. That said, it contains a lot of good analysis done in these areas, and can provide good background...
Some intellectually stimulating articles, like Jodi O'Brien's discussion of gender. It was very stimulating . . .
However, the book was far too focused on issues relating to North America and the West generally. What about the...
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
A good resource for writers and academics , January 20, 2001
By A Customer
This book covers four main areas in regards to online communities: identity, social order and control, community structure and dynamics, and collective action.
Like many other texts on community, this book tends to focus on older technologies, i.e. Usenet, and MUDs/MOOs. That said, it contains a lot of good analysis done in these areas, and can provide good background for writing about online community. Note that the articles tend to be from the perspective of sociology. The strongest articles, in my opinion, were chapter 2, "Identity and deception in the virtual community," chapter 7, "Virtual communities as communities: Net surfers don't ride alone," and chapter 10, "The promise and peril of social action in cyberspace."
If you are interested in building a community or just in the ideas of online communities, this is probably not the best book for you -- it's pretty academic.
Check out Jenny Preece's _Online Communities: Designing Usability,
Supporting Sociability_ as an alternative.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Really good one for researchers , July 11, 2001
By Raquel da Cunha Recuero "rasca" (Pelotas, RS Brazil) - See all my reviews
Very good articles above important aspects of virtual communities like identity, gender, sociability and other stuff written by people that really knows about the subject, famous researchers. If you are a researcher, you'll love it.
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11 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
Lost in (cyber)space?
, March 17, 2000
By Joe (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews
I was introduced to this book because my enlightened sociology prof used it as

a text for our discussions of sociology and cyberspace.
Some intellectually stimulating articles, like Jodi O'Brien's discussion of gender. It was very stimulating . . . However, the book was far too focused on issues relating to North America and the West generally. What about the rest of the world?
Some sections were extremely dull. This is exciting stuff, why must people pervert it into intellectual cheeseburgers?
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
Interesting but to my mind very uneven , November 24, 2002
By John Harpur (Trim, Meath, IRELAND) - See all my reviews
I found this to be a mildly interesting collection of papers but rather uneven in focus and range. Several papers tried to reach theoretical heights while others contented themselves by reporting on specific projects, e.g. Math Forum. The volume is quite 'a house divided' but there are cross currents.
The biggest problem with the book is that it has something for everyone. Hence each chapter has some points of interest but nothing of great insight or profundity is elaborated. For instance the theorising on communities is to my mind absolutely primitive. No mention of Hobbes or Locke here. The whole

question of the political dynamic of a community is simply not addressed, i.e. power structures. This is serious flaw.
The book tends to reflect technocratic stance on community building. At all costs avoid value judgements and the moral dimension. Communities by numbers.
In fact, the communities described in various papers seem to really be fan clubs or hobby clubs which are using the internet to further their purposes. No big deal in many ways. Of course from the authors perspective that would be too simple a reading of the actual value of 'virtual comunities'. The danger is that some readers may simply perceive many of the efforts to elaborate on the digital components of a 'community' as mere psuedo-intellectual twaddle. For example no one speaks of a 'telephonic community' emerging post Alexander
Bell. People were more grounded in those days it seems.
There is much emphasis on Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) throughout the book as a significant leap into a new state of togetherness. Much of this is hard to argue with if it was merely stating the obvious, i.e. kids talking about games in chat rooms, parents discussing their kids math progress, etc.
However, one can't but feel that the thrust of the book in towards overkill. The internet is in many of these instances is simply a souped up penpal system.
It is easy to be critical of a book like this and see it akin to any other book telling us how much sand is in the Sahara. However, the authors clearly believe that the internet can inspire a new communal modality.
I am not sure I would share their enthusiasm having run several lists and online
'club's over the years. What strikes me as glaringly absent, is an analysis of how one motivates users to remain within a group and contribute. How do you motivate people? Crack that and the world will change. A recent issue of the
Communications of the ACM published interesting research from Microsoft showing just how hard it is to get people to come forward socially on the net.
I wouldn't recommend passing over this book. It is worth skimming out of interest just to keep yourself abreast of emergent themes but I would put in the second rank and in preference first buy a good elearning book (by Alessi for instance).
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by Sasha A. Barab (Editor), Rob Kling (Editor), James H. Gray (Editor)
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Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Thought
Provoking
This book is written primarily for academics.
Wenger challenges educational institutions to re-think their basic assumptions about learning (e.g., its social aspects, its relationship to
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22 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
Learning
Organization Pablum
If you are looking for practical, hard hitting insight and knowledge you can use as a practising manager, totally BYPASS this wordy, ivory tower compendium of
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Communities of Practice:
Learning, Meaning, and
Identity by Etienne
Wenger (Paperback -
December 1, 1999)
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practice, and the role of teaching).
I found the book to be very thought provoking, but I would recommend his 2002 book,
"Cultivating
Communities of
Practice," for...
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Published on May 30,
2005 by Michael A.
Beitler
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Published on April 13,
2000 by Ellen R.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Thought Provoking, May 30, 2005
By Michael A. Beitler (Greensboro, NC United
States) - See all my reviews
This book is written primarily for academics.
Wenger challenges educational institutions to rethink their basic assumptions about learning (e.g., its social aspects, its relationship to practice, and the role of teaching).
I found the book to be very thought provoking, but I would recommend his 2002 book, "Cultivating
Communities of Practice," for practitioners.
Michael Beitler
Author of "Strategic Organizational Learning"
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44 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
A thought-provoking inquiry on learning as a social process., August 4, 1998
By John D. Smith (John_Smith@stortek.com)
(Louisville, Colorado) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Communities of Practice:
Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Learning in
Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational
Perspectives) (Hardcover)
A wonderful book that uses communities of practice as the entry-point to think about learning along several rich dimensions (e.g., meaning in relation to participation and artifacts, the relationship between identity and learning).
Definitely worth a slow, reflective reading.
Provides a lot of context for thinking about organizational learning.
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17 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
A foundation book that helps to put KM in perspective, October 19, 2001
By Doug Collins (http://www.gumshoeki.com) -
See all my reviews
You'll struggle to work through "Communities of
Practice." Yet, if you persevere, you'll have gained a sound basis for evaluating and keeping in perspective the relative business value of all the recent advances in knowledge management.
A good companion book to "Communities of
Practice" with respect to how people make meaning is Yankelovich's "The Magic of Dialogue."
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful: excellent conceptual thinking, March 25,
2001
By A Customer
For those grappling with the need to understand and
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Situated Learning:
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Participation (Learning in
Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational
Perspectives) by Jean
Lave (Paperback -
September 27, 1991)
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talk about how people come together and interact beyond the org. chart, this book has a lot to offer.
Theoretically-based, it focuses on a social theory of learning that is broad enough to cover a wide range of human activities, well beyond what we would normally consider to be 'learning'. 'Communities of practice' offers a comprehensive framework for understanding and analysing what people do in the context of their social milieu. The author includes many examples and uses a work-place vignette to illustrate the relevance and power of his ideas. If you are not afraid of theory and abstraction and are open to new concepts, this book may indeed be revolutionary.
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14 of 21 people found the following review helpful: brilliant, July 12, 2001
By Ben Kleinman (New York) - See all my reviews
One cannot be practically effective without being grounded in a philosophy. Philosophy leads to strategy, and strategy leads to a coordinated set of tactics and the opportunity to be proactive. Without it, tactics are reactive.
This book provides an outstanding philosophical guideline for making sense of the workplace and communities of practice. It is easy to divine practical solutions to common workplace issues and problems as you read it. His vignettes show mistakes that businesses make, and how the communities compensate. Preventing those mistakes in your business allows your communities to solve other problems. Additionally, you will understand where, why, and how your communities and how they help you, and because of this recognition, perhaps you can continuously remove the obstacles to their success.
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Beyond Communities of
Practice: Language
Power and Social
Context (Learning in
Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational
Perspectives) by David
Barton (Paperback -
October 3, 2005)
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13 of 19 people found the following review helpful: cOMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE, January
17, 2001
By A Customer
This is a very important resource as the Institute of
Medicine calls for using a socioecological perspective to solve the nation's health care challenges. Wenger has powerful ideas and examples. Educators and health care experts alike will find this very useful.
The writing style is somewhat dense and requires a quiet space to read and reflect. Be patient, skip around as needed, it is worth the effort.
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22 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
Learning Organization Pablum, April 13,
2000
By Ellen R. Underwood (New York) - See all my reviews
If you are looking for practical, hard hitting insight and knowledge you can use as a practising manager, totally BYPASS this wordy, ivory tower compendium of theoretical jargon.
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40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
Describes the Techno-
Powered Popular Revolution
At the very end of the book, the author quotes James Madison as carved into the marble of the
Library of Congress: "...a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." And there it is--Howard Rheingold has documented the next level of the
Internet, in which kids typing 60 words a minute with one thumb,
"swarms"...
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38 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
Very cool technology, very uninspired prose
In Smart Mobs, Howard Rheingold catalogues the technologies that are converging to change the way we live: mobile communications, social networks, distributed processing and pervasive computing. He does a good job of identifying and explaining these and predicting what it will mean when they get together.
This makes for an interesting read, but I'm afraid I still found...
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40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
11, 2002
Describes the Techno-Powered Popular Revolution, November
By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
Smart Mobs: The Next Social
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Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding
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This review is from: Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
(Hardcover)
At the very end of the book, the author quotes James Madison as carved into the marble of the Library of Congress: "...a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." And there it is--Howard Rheingold has documented the next level of the Internet, in which kids typing 60 words a minute with one thumb, "swarms" of people converging on a geospatial node guided only by their cell phones; virtual "CIAs" coming together overnight to put together massive (and accurate) analysis with which to take down a corporate or government position that is fradulent--this is the future and it is bright.
As I go back through the book picking out highlights, a few of the following serve to capture the deep rich story being told by this book-breakthroughs coming from associations of amateurs rather than industry leaders; computer-mediated trust brokers--collective action driven by reputation; detailed minute-by-minute information about behaviors of entire populations (or any segment thereof); texting as kid privacy from adult hearing; the end of the telephone number as relevant information; the marriage of geospatial and lifestyle/preference information to guide on the street behavior; the perennial problem of "free riders" and how groups can constrain them; distributed processing versus centralized corporate lawyering; locations with virtual information; shirt labels with their transportation as well as cleaning history (and videos of the sex partners?)--this is just mind-boggling.
Finally, the author deserves major credit for putting all this technomarvel stuff into a deep sociological and cultural context. He carefully considers the major issues of privacy, control, social responsibility, and group behavior. He ends on very positive notes, but also notes that time is running out--we have to understand where all this is going, and begin to change how we invest and how we design everything from our clothing to our cities to our governments.
This is an affirming book--the people that pay taxes can still look forward to the day when they might take back control of their government and redirect benefits away from special interests and back toward the commonwealth. Smart mobs, indeed.
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38 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
Very cool technology, very uninspired prose, August 30, 2003
By Jerry Brito (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
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The Virtual Community:
Homesteading on the Electronic
Frontier by Howard Rheingold
(Paperback - November 1, 2000)
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This review is from: Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
(Hardcover)
In Smart Mobs, Howard Rheingold catalogues the technologies that are converging to change the way we live: mobile communications, social networks, distributed processing and pervasive computing. He does a good job of identifying and explaining these and predicting what it will mean when they get together. This makes for an interesting read, but I'm afraid I still found the book maddening.
The worst thing is that a whole half the book is in quotes (or worse, block quotes) from other people and their dissertations or promotional materials. This makes the book lack a singular voice and is very disconcerting. Rheingold not only attributes everything to a fault, he also has the bad habit of explaining where he interviewed each person, what they ate, what funny thing the interviewee had in their office. This makes for ponderous, stalling prose that is painful to read.
He also makes the Lessig-inspired mistake of dividing the world into two camps: the government and big media are lumped on one side, and heroic no-property anarchists are placed in the other. He's right to point out that big media's vested interests are a creature of government, but he doesn't get that that really isn't capitalism. A true market is the ultimate form of the mediated cooperation he pines for.
If you are a techno-cultural geek, you have to read this book. But take it with a grain of salt, and brace yourself for plenty of minutiae.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
The future of games, April 2, 2003
By Mark Mills (Glen Rose, TX USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
(Hardcover)
Rheingold writes from the perspective of the enthusiast. He is still trying to keep up with the kids and shares their distain for authority. I wonder if
Howard ever met an anarchist he didn't like.
So, we get to 'run with the pack' for a while. It seems the kids are constructing a society of self-organizing, ad-hoc networks founded on wearable wireless computers, mediated by privacy protection algorithms.
Their networks are always on and location aware. The computer is mutating into a universal remote-control wand and the purpose is having fun.
If it's not fun, the kids don't do it. The kids find their friends via the
The Wealth of Networks: How
Social Production Transforms
Markets and Freedom by Yochai
Benkler (Paperback - October 23,
2007)
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internet, keep in touch via cell phones and turn the city into a game board with GPS. It is all amazing and new.
What does it mean? It means more "wealth, knowledge and civil society". There will be new forms of "sex, commerce, entertainment and conflict." The danger comes from the adult crowd, the 'big brother' bureaucracies that will want to redirect all this creativity into a straightjacket.
It seems the decision we have to make involves our use of the 'commons', or in modern parlance, the 'internet'. Will we allow the 'free riders' to sink the ship? Will we allow the fence builders to steal our playground?
To engage in the debate, Rheingold does a good job of teaching enough chaos theory to make sense of the issues. You might get tired of him invoking the prisoner's dilemma and 'swarm intelligence', but they are interesting ideas. It's a bit thin, but the book is rushing through so many gadgets, inventors and theories that I didn't mind.
Personally, I'm not sure there is anything 'new' to be invented about sex and entertainment. The most important exploration is the discovery of self. 'Sex, commerce, entertainment and conflict' may provide ever changing milestones in that journey, but I doubt our experience of despair and wonder are any different than they were 1000 years ago.
Would a network of wearable computers help Hamlet make up his mind?
Would Hamlet have wanted assistance? Additionally, the reader ought to be aware that the themes elucidated by Rheingold: 1) interconnectedness,
2) compression of time and 3) demassification are commonly used in defense department articles on the 'modern warrior'. It's not all fun and games.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
Smart mobs, really smart book, October 24, 2002
By Alex Soojung-Kim Pang "historian and futurist" (Menlo Park, CA
USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
(Hardcover)
"Smart mobs" sounds like an oxymoron: after all, what's more impulsive or uncontrolled than a mob? It's typical of Howard Rheingold to throw down such a brightly-colored rhetorical gauntlet, and then to describe how smart mobs are emerging in places as diverse as Tokyo, antiglobalization protests, and virtual communities. Forget images of mobs storming the Bastille, or rioters: smart mobs are a new kind of social organization, made possible by real-time, connective technologies-- cell phones, SMS, pagers, and the Web. If old-fashioned mobs were just giant
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assemblies of individuals, communications technologies give them nervous systems, the ability to coordinate their actions, to work together, and respond to changes and challenges. Smart mobs are not automatically good or evil. The crowds that brought down Phillipine president Joseph Estrada responded to calls put out via SMS. Antiglobalization protesters have been avidly embraced network technologies. So has Al Qaeda.
Some readers will doubtless find familiar ideas in "Smart Mobs:" for whatever odd reason, 2002 has been The Year of Books About Self-
Organizing Social Networks, thanks to writers as different at Steven
Johnson ("Emergence") and Mark Taylor ("The Moment of
Complexity"). But Rheingold is scrupulous and generous about acknowleding his influences; besides, the real value of his book lies in his own fieldwork, and his reflections on what the smart mob phenomenon will mean for business, politics, and social life. Even if your copy of Wolfram is dog-eared and the spine is weak from re-reading (and let's face it, whose isn't), it's still worth following Rheingold through
Shibuya, Helsinki, and the Web...
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A whirlwind tour through the world next year., October 9,
2005
By D. Stuart "Researcher at Kudos" (Auckland NZ) - See all my reviews
Howard Rheingold has excellent credentials to write this book through his long involvement at Wired magazine. He blends an effervescent interest in smart new gadgetry (point your phone-cam at some foreign signwriting and have it translated into your own language) with a thirsty desire to understand what it means to our society. To hunt down the story he structures the narrative in a breathtaking first-person style that takes us from Shibuya Station in Tokyo to the wireless capital of the world,
Helsinki, and then back across the Atlantic to Bell Laboratories - and beyond.
Clearly our society has been undergoing massive underlying change since the advent of the internet and mobile phones - but few writers have really grappled with the wider implications. If, as McLuhan said, the
Medium is the Message then wireless technology provides a medium that totally re-engineers the way people can interact with their physical and social environment.

Rheingold calls on dramatic examples of how individuals, wireless and mobile, can outwit the top down forces of the establishment - for example in the World Trade protests at Seattle, and political protests in the Philippines. He uses these as a metaphor for how the top-down 20th
Century style organisations, political, industrial or media are increasingly out of step in the mobile age. Rheingold looks to young urban people - urban tribes if you like - as a bellwether to tomorrow's society.
I loved this book. The writing is sharp, the insights deep and Rheingold's ability to take us into the labs of tomorrow a real treat. I strongly recommend it.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Smart Mobs. Smarter Marketers., September 7, 2004
By J. David Evans (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
(Hardcover)
The cool thing about "Smart Mobs" is that it's really happening. People are behaving in "linked" ways that transcend the obvious demographic definitions of groups we typically think of as "behaving in unison." As technology and the infrastructure arriving with it enable increasingly extemporaneous networks between people, marketers are similarly challenged to reach outside of traditional mass channels. Howard
Rheingold brings us a really nice set of actual examples--combined with his own unique insights--that provide the basis for next-generation communications strategies as what had been cohesive groups fragment into a foam of indivduals united (only) by this moments current interest and the task at hand. For marketers, it's a great read...and a big clue.
Anyway, I liked it.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Distributing the Future, December 14, 2002
By Arnold Kling (Silver Spring, Md USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution

(Hardcover)
Reading this book reminds me of the line attributed to William Gibson:
"The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet."
Rheingold sees elements that will be important in the future, and he tries to forecast what will happen when they become widely distributed. The result is an important book.
Probably the central part of the future will be an explosion in wireless communication. This will lower the cost of Internet access in countries that never developed a solid wired infrastructure. It will enable people to remain constantly aware of one another's presence and location, using instant-messaging-type services. It will make possible what Rheingold calls "sentient things," which are physical objects that sense and response to people, because both the objects and the people are on the universal wireless network.
Rheingold looks past the technology to the social implications of the wireless age. For example, in a world where we have the potential to be bombarded with messages, he believes that the only way to achieve order rather than chaos is through reputation systems. Something like my
Amazon reviewer's rating will matter more and more in the smartmobs world.
There is much here to chew on. Rheingold deserves praise for helping to distribute the future.
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20 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
Learn what life will be like in the 21st century, November 4,
2002
By Mark Frauenfelder (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
(Hardcover)
Howard Rheingold has the gift of being able to tell the future. Not like a gypsy peering into a crystal ball, but like an astute observer with the brilliant ability to integrate and analyze seemingly disparate phenomena into a cohesive look at the world ahead.
Rheingold has been involved with computer technology for enough decades to be able to tell the difference between hype and significant events, and his experience shines through in Smart Mobs. I found gems of insight in every chapter of Smart Mobs, and the book has changed the way I look at the networked world.
As a book reviewer, I tons of business/technology books in the mail.
Most get skimmed and discarded. Smart Mobs is a keeper.

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11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
Remote Control To The World, April 7, 2004
By Rick Barron (San Jose, CA. USA) - See all my reviews
How many of you recall that EF Hutton commercial that started off by saying, "When EF Hutton talks, people listen". The same thought can be applied to Howard Rheingold.
Rheingold is veteran technology watcher and well-publised futurist. He has identified yet another transformative technology. In 'Smart Mobs' he describes in vivid detail how large, geographically dispersed groups connected only by thin threads of communications techology, such as text messaging, e-mail, cell phones, two-way pagers, and web sites, can draw together in the blink of an eye, groups of people together for a collective cause.
From various parts of the world, Rheingold, has gathered stories about engineers and inventors of all sorts, working feverishly to create eversmaller and more powerful devices that contribute to this new paradigm.
In this book,Rheingold points out examples of Smart Mobs such as the swarms of demonstrators who used mobile phones, Web sites, laptops and handheld computers to coordinate their protests against the World
Trade Organization in November of 1999.
Rheingold shows a concern of smart mobs other than describing the weath of new communications technology that is available and coming.
He is also concerned about the social, political, economic, environmental and even genetic consequences of the ever-expanding and more intrusive plethora of multidirectional communications technology.
This book is a must read.
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29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
Design for Community Mini Review, October 28, 2002
By Derek Powazek (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
(Hardcover)
Howard Rheingold has impeccable timing. In the mid 80s, aware that personal computers were changing the way we think, he wrote Tools for

Thought. In the early 90s, he explored how emerging digital networks were changing social groups in The Virtual Community. Twice now he's put words to important social/digital trends, years before they reach critical mass.
So when Rheingold writes a book, it's a good idea to pay attention. His new book, Smart Mobs, takes a hard look at what happens when networked virtual communication goes mobile. And it's a mind-bending read.
Consider for a moment that, for a good many years, personal computers sat in offices and living rooms totally disconnected from each other. It seems quaint now, but I remember that time. And if you can remember the sea change that happened in the world when all those computers (and the people behind them) got connected to the internet, you can get some inkling of the change Rheingold predicts is on its way when that same networked computational power goes mobile.
We're in for another whirlwind of change in technology, and with it, a change in the way communities come together and express themselves.
The book is a captivating exploration of what these new technologies are
(think internet-enabled, location-aware mobile phones and PDAs) and how they're already shaping communities around the world.
Howard's writing is engaging and deep, and the book is an evenhanded exploration of the new technology, both good and bad. If you want a glimpse of the virtual communities of the future, pick up his book and follow the ongoing conversation at smartmobs.com.
(Reprinted from designforcommunity.com with permission.)
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