Slashdot Mirror
Smart Mobs
The central thesis of Smart Mobs is that wireless communication technologies offer a new way for folks to combine their knowledge and energy. As Howard says in the book's introduction:
"If the transition period we are entering in the first decade of the twenty-first century resembles the advent of PCs and the Internet, the new technology regime will turn out to be an entirely new medium, not simply a means of receiving stock quotes or email on the train or surfing the Web while walking down the street. Mobile Internet, when it really arrives, will not be just a way to do old things while moving. It will be a way to do things that couldn't be done before." (p. xiv)
I've done my share of pie in the sky predicting based on what other people have written, so I appreciate it when a writer takes the time to find out what's happening on the ground with regard to the new technologies they're writing about. As it turns out, Howard spent quite a bit of time in Europe, Scandinavia, Japan, and Redmond (with Microsoft's resident online sociologist) finding out how people behave in countries with more advanced wireless communication grids and standards that let people send text messages to any wireless-equipped device (not just to users on the same network as in the US). Those stories, and the personalities driving them, are all chronicled in Smart Mobs.
As engaging as Howard is as a writer, I couldn't give his work such a high rating if I didn't feel his book was something a literate but not necessarily technically sophisticated reader could pick up and, having read it, understand the forces at work. Fortunately, it's all there. I'd imagine that most all of the folks who buy Smart Mobs will know about Moore's Law, which states that the number of computing elements that could be fit in a given space would double every eighteen months. There are other forces at work, though, and Howard lists the three other "laws" that apply to wireless networking in a social context:
- Sarnoff's Law, which states that the value of a broadcast network is proportionate to the number of viewers.
- Metcalfe's Law, which states that the value of a network where each node can reach every other node grows with the square of the number of nodes.
- Reed's Law, which states that, for a network where members of the network can form groups within the network, the value of that network will grow exponentially. That is, the value of the network is equal to the number of nodes raised to the power of the number of nodes, instead of just the square of the number of nodes.
Web logs ("blogs"), eBay, and other online communities are examples of how users have made the Internet a network that conforms to Reed's Law.
So what's not to like about a new wireless Internet where the users are free to roam and create their own groups, spread their information, and share resources? From the point of view of the communication operators (a.k.a. the phone companies), they see little good coming out of creating a medium where they give up their powerful position as information gatekeepers. And, of course, there are vested financial interests on the part of the companies that have leased the rights to different parts of the radio frequency spectrum, even though there are technologies that can avoid interference and make sure all devices can "play nice."
On the political side, wireless technologies have had tremendous impacts, speeding the downfall of a government in the Philippines and being used to coordinate action during the World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle. I wouldn't be too surprised if there are plans in place to black out on civilian wireless networks on an emergency basis in case of similar activity in the U.S..
We're taking the first baby steps toward a new wireless network, but there's a lot to be determined, both technologically and in terms of the freedoms we'll enjoy in using the network. Smart Mobs is a wonderful introduction to the issues at hand, and Howard Rheingold makes a powerful argument for an open network we can use to our best advantage.
Curtis D. Frye is the editor and chief reviewer of Technology and Society Book Reviews. He is also the author of three online courses and ten books , including Privacy-Enhanced Business from Quorum Books. You can purchase Smart Mobs from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I definitely agree that there's something going on with Smart Mobs, networks, etc. Communications are advancing at an amazing rate (despite plenty of stupidities), and I'm sure they'll only get more interlinked and complex.
However I do wonder just how much we can predict. As these systems get more complex and include more factors, what can we actually say and predict about them beyond some basics and metaphors?
I recall Vernor Vinge's idea of Singularity, the creation of greater-than human intelligence. Maybe we're witnessing a hint of that as people connect to machines and each others like neurons in the brain. However, the irony is that we may not be smart enough to know if something like that is happening.
This sounds like a great book and an interesting phenomena, and I plan to buy it. But I wonder how much we can say about this phenomena.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
The so-called network or weblog effects would seem to be nothing but committees expanded to the size of the on-line population. Which would also tend to imply that the quality of decisions reached by such methods would be mediocre at best.
sPh
...I think i'm going to puke.
Look, i'm only going to say this once.
THE WELL WAS NEITHER UNIQUE, NOR THE FIRST TRUE "ONLINE COMMUNITY". They were no more "visionaries" than the people who frequented countless other large BBS'es that were common in the late 70's and early 80's. Its just that these people tend to be a little more vocal and persistant in their whining for some reason, somehow feeling that they deserve to be repeatedly acknowledged for their vastly overhyped, overrated, earth-shattering contribution to society. And even if they actually HAD been the golly-gee pioneers they want desparately to be acknowledged as, guess what --- there were still communities before them. So get over it. Im sure they're nice people and all, but, sorry gang....there wasn't anything unique, profound, or ground-breaking about The Well. Period.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Fact is, The Well was full of writers and journalists and media-gurus-to-be.
From this POV, it was probably the first community recognized as such by the official culture establishment.
-- Let's go Viridian.
With weblogs, it's different: out of all the weblog publishers, each user selects his own subset from which he pulls information. If /. had transitive trust ratings, each user setting his own trust level for other users, then Reed's Law would apply.
The Well was neither the first, nor the last, online community. However, it was one of the first (if not the first) ones that included people from outside the little "computer culture" weenies, of which you obviously are a part.
Not many of the communities survived, and this combined with the sheer number of "important" people from the literary, advertising, legal and other non-geek professions made (and makes) it unique.
Good is a silly word to use, it is objective. I think we should look at this as possibilities and how the juggernaut of tech will change the landscape. It doesn't matter wheter smart mobs are good or bad, just as it doesn't matter wheter or not cloning is bad: they both exist and can be described and utilized
It seems that in your eagerness to display your knowledge you failed to read the actual review you are commenting on. Yes, Hiltz wrote a classic work in the field I wrote about ten years ago in a book that isn't the subject of this revie.? I doubt that Starr Roxanne Hiltz wrote about the social implications of mobile communications and pervasive computing!
Indeed Hiltz's book, and the work of her partner, Murray Turoff, is important, and of course I cited it in The Virtual Community. But again, that isn't the book under review here.
1. Given the historical behavior of mobs (generic term), I'm not so keen on upgrading them. More or less unavoidable, I guess, but anyone who's unpopular (or very popular) will have to hide much of the time - anyone who sees you can "call for backup" to anyone else who doesn't (or does) like you... and 300 people are known to do crazy things that 3 people would never try.
2. There are a lot of good things about this as well. If there are enough social impediments to people "mobbing" too much, then the good things (emergency communications, realtime local news, local problem-solving) could become a real boon for a lot of people, with the added benefit of solving simple, local problems (from traffic jams to minor flooding, etc) without 43 layers of bureaucrats. Think of realtime volunteer community work, or for that matter realtime local volunteer entertainment.
3. Some kind of "reputation system" would be cool for that kind of thing. i.e. "John Thomas," a totally unknown person says a bomb went off in the capitol, so you ignore it because the source isn't reliable. "Joe Cool," a well-known and reliable source, says there's an accident on highway 50 blocking traffic so you take the next exit.
4. So, bad, good, indifferent. Don't know how it will turn out. Will probably have one, may never turn it on.
Its been noted before that Larry Niven's "flash crowd" concept is personified in the Slashdot Effect.
The WELL might not be as important or unique as it once was, and it may be true that it gets more press than it deserves, and it is true that at times it may be insular and navel-gazingly self-contratulatory, but to dismissively lump it in as one more BBS is completely unfair and even deeply ignorant.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation was organized and founded at the WELL. The annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy conferences were started and are still ran at the WELL. Wired Magazine was partially organized on the WELL. The infamous and frauduluent cyberporn Time cover story that made passage of the CDA a foregone conclusion was systematically demolished and exposed and opposition organized at the WELL. And these are just the most salient examples.
Be careful about rants like that. They tend to reflect poorly on the poster, due to a need to resort to vulgar language, rather than being able to articulate clear arguments.
Some Debate:
Point 1: Having thought about it, I'm not all that excited about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, or the Law of Gravity. But I don't have much choice in the matter. I could rant and rage against how unjust the second law of thermodynamics is and call the whole law 'shit', but that isn't going to do any thing about the fact that energy will always flow from localized to diffused states. Reed's law is similar. I can't say that I exactly have a warm and fuzzy feeling about it, but I cannot deny its existance and truth.
Similarly, if you think about it, you will agree that the value of Slashdot increases with every new member (which is what the law states). The law does not state that a new member will make more difference to the value of the site than any prior person, as you suggest that it does. What it does state, is that a new member will provide a potential link to each other registered member of Slashdot, thereby increasing the factorial graph representation of N users by N+1.
Point 2: Clearly, if you've taken a college level calculus course, a group theory course, or a quantum theory course, you will know that logarithm is expressible in terms of multiplication, just as division is expressible in terms of multiplication, and subtraction in terms of addition. Logarithm and exponents are essentially the same thing. Now, I have thought about this topic, I have studied information theory and network theory, and have worked as a network engineer. The law is valid. The claim is not that "the bigger a network is, the greater the impact of a single new node is". You are confusing "big and great" with "numerous and potential". The more accurate claim is that the more numerous the network is, the more potential a single new node has to interact with other nodes.
Point 3: I hate to break it to you, but the fact of the matter is that not only is the law valid, it progresses at a rate faster than exponential. That is, Reed's Law is factorial, and is based on graph theory combinatorics. You appear to be trying to understand Reed's Law according to linear dynamics, which is why it doesn't make sense to you. Its a nonlinear function and requires modular mathematics, such as eigenfunctions and eigenvalues to properly calculate for a problem such as Slashdot. When you approach the problem of Slashdot with Reed's Law, eigenfunctions, and factorial combinatorics, it works out rather simply.
Case 4: This claim is similar to the prevailing 'wisdom' that a single vote doesn't matter in a large crowd. This unfortunate concept is, in large part, due to the popularity of statistics. As my old professor use to say in statistics class, 'Averages are for average people.' Moreover, every vote does count in an election, and every node does increase, factorially, in potential links to other nodes in a group. If one is able to keep track of factorially increasing links, then the whole problem can be tracked without resorting to using statistics.