Nov
5
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard Rheingold – Captured
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Favorite Books, Free Book Summary - Online
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard Rheingold
The famous sociotechnologist (sociologist studying the impact of technology on society), Howard Rheingold digs deep into the implications of technology becoming transparent.
How will our world change when computers become transparent?
Much like the tranformation of culture when the telegraph became the telephone, when the computer moves from desktops and modems to mobile devices and transparent technology, there are huge societal changes imminent. Mobile Internet brings computers and the Internet to the masses because it works into our everyday lives. Rheingold refers often to “wearable computing.”
What are the implications of these changes?
1. Bring information and location together. Imagine running to catch your flight and your contacts project a red carpet to your terminal. No guessing there. Imagine going on a nature hike and your glasses display information about each plant. If the information is not there, imagine contributing it to the web and having your GPS enabled mobile device record your lattitude and longitude with the information.
2. Ubiquitous computing can mean privacy concerns about how information is used. Potential corporate or government control.
3. Democratic power. In the Phillipines, the people, enabled with texting on the mobile phones, amassed a group large enough to oust the president.
What are the different outcomes possible?
1. Way more freedom. The ability of people to circumvent big business and big government and big media and mobilize movements for what they really want, rather than what big brother wants them to want.
2. Way less freedom. Depending on the technological infrastructure and legislation, the changes could imply that we loose our privacy and our freedom.
From a business standpoint, the mobile Internet presents new challenges, but also new opportunities if we choose to embrace it.