Smart Mobs The Next Social Revolution Deals on Howard Rheingold

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution

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Editorial Reviews

Smart Mobs takes us on a journey around the world for a preview of the next techno-cultural shift. The coming wave, says Rheingold, is the result of super-efficient mobile communications-cellular phones, wireless-paging, and Internet-access devices-that will allow us to connect with anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Rheingold offers a penetrating perspective on the new convergence of pop culture, cutting-edge technology, and social activism. He also reminds us that the real impact of mobile communications will come not from the technology itself but from how people use it, resist it, and adapt to it.

Customer Reviews

interesting but outdated

Reviewed by Eugene, 2009-01-18

Well, there isn't much to add to the subject. The book is quite engaging and thought provoking. Yet, it was good for when it was written. Most of the analysis the author puts forth is already commonplace in our current apprehension of technology. To cut the long story short, I got bored after the first few chapters.

Prescient

Reviewed by Quantum, 2008-12-01

When this book was published, I was in 8th grade and 100mb zip drives were the hottest technology to enter my school. This book was written Facebook was invented, before wikipedia became important, and while 'wireless internet' was still a geek fantasy. Upon seeing the publication date, I wondered how much weight this book could hold considering the rapid recent advances.

So after reading the wonderfully concise book of 210 pages I was amazed to find that Rheingold had seemed to have taken the best elements from Neuromancer, The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, and computing history to make a manifesto for the social implications of internet and mobile technology. Proof of this book's prescience and relevance exist in the fact that I am publishing this review to an open forum, without monetary gain on multiple online social networks. Proof of this book's prescience is that YOU are reading this review. All of these things were theories or isolated subcultures when he wrote his book, now they are the reality.

This book provides an excellent theoretical basis for the rise of social networks and why they are becoming powerful. From the tragedy of the commons to game theory Rheingold ties in many fields without becoming too basic or general. The only flaws that I found in the book seem unavoidable. The chapter on 802.11b seems moot because, well, it happened. Many of his ideas on ubiquitous computing sound like a list of soundbites from graduate CS students at my university. But despite these flaws, and despite its age, this book is still better than some of its modern companions at explaining how technology is changing our society.

Turgid

Reviewed by Cecil Bothwell, 2008-08-29

Rheingold is very bright and full of profound insight. He is abysmal at communicating those ideas. This book is so heavily referenced that reading it is a torment and a slog.

He is certainly right. Wireless, wearable computers will create a world very different than the one we have known. Privacy is disappearing. Anyone-to-anyone communication is already changing our world view and according to the research he cites ad nauseum, young folks growing up in this Webbed world are changing fastest of all.

Rheingold would have immensely profited from the expertise of a thoughtful editor.

incohesive writing

Reviewed by Arthur E., 2006-01-20

This book suffers from incohesive writing and lacks a clear framework that covers the theme of smart mobs. The sequence of chapters does not provide a progressive build-up of a framework of any sort. Even more, the sequence inside each chapter does not carry the reader towards any defined theme. On one section the author describes teenagers in Finland sending text messages, then he jumps to his meeting with a company executive, then jumps to describing the mobile phone standards in Europe, etc.

The only common thread among sections in chapters and among the chapters is the smart mobs theme, obviously, but the author does not break down clearly this central theme into its parts. This makes for a very confusing and bothersome reading.

A whirlwind tour through the world next year.

Reviewed by D. Stuart, 2005-10-09

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.