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, Friedman, 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.