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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.
If the sum of knowledge is available in a smart mob, then this knowledge is also available to any hostile individual that taps into the mob network. The information's quality is only as good as its most trustworthy member.
This is shit. Utter shit. Not just the web log link, but the law - think about it. Imagine 1 person joining Slashdot. According to this law, he will make more difference to the value of the site than any person before him. This also applies to nodes in a network, clearly.
Anyone who isn't an idiot can see that rather than exponential, it is more accurately logarithmic, or at the very most sigmoidal. Anyone who disagrees with me, think about it. The claim is that the bigger a network is, the greater the impact of a single new node is. That's what an exponential function means.
Dumb. Dumb, wrong and idiotic.
How is "value of network" defined in all those laws? Surely can't be monetary or even necessarily related to productivity. Perhaps cultural, but how do you compute an "exponential growth in a cultural value"?
The law of excluded middle : Either I'm foo or I'm foobar
I happen to be reading this book right now and I find much of the information it presents very interesting. Some of the more interesting and exciting topics include wearable computing, and always on Inet connections, and what the meshing of those two ideas could mean. Check out this link here for info on one such program, the MIThril wearable computing project. Some very cool stuff coming out of MIT.
The reason Santa is so jolly is that he knows where all the bad girls live.
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
Living in Europe it is clear that GSMs have already changed our lives and societies. It's not quite clear how, but with 70% of the population (pensioners to babies) having mobile phones and using them heavily, the dynamics of social contact have definitely changed.
I'd agree that we are on the verge of a revolution similar to that in 1992-95 with the PC and Internet. Never before have so many people had such easy access to communications. And since human society is essentially about communications, this makes for extremely interesting times.
But I think many sociologists make the mistake of thinking that technology can change us in some way. It changes the way we behave, but it just reinforces the way we are. People stick with family and friends above all, and do not just form mobs because it's possible. If anything, totally flexible mobile communications will reinforce existing social structures (like family) that are constantly under attack from modern urban life, rather than creating new social forms.
In Belgium, the SMS short-message service is extremely heavily used but mainly for saying 'honey, I'm almost home', playing trivial games, chatting with sex lines (actually robots or operators) and voting in TV contests. Smart mobs? Not really.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
It's just a fucking computer network! It's not gonna change society, there are no new paradigms.
It's just a fucking wireless with pictures! It's not gonna change society, there are no new paradigms.
It's just a fucking way to transmit voice over the telegraph! It's not gonna change society, there are no new paradigms.
It's just a fucking round piece of rock! It's not gonna change society, there are no new paradigms.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
...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
A quick Google give us this http://www.reed.com/Papers/GFN/reedslaw.html article. He defines value as
Using his definition of "value", it is possible to defend his position. Additional nodes on a network can increase the overall connectivity value of the network.That does not necessarily make the network more valuable in an informational, social or monetary sense to any individual inside or outside of the group.
The book has a companion website, wherein Howard continues his active research into Smart Mobs and the integration of technology into daily life. Smart Mobs
I've gotten to page 53 of the book, which is dense, yet so information rich that I carry it with me everywhere, so I can try to squeeze out a few extra paragraphs on subway platforms and in elevators.
It's an excellent exploration of where mobile technology may lead.
A little over two years ago, the near-total penetration of mobile phones allowed a mob consisting of a small number of truckers and farmers to bring the UK almost to a standstill - they were able to coordinate blockades of oil refineries and depots all over the country, and organise go-slow convoys on the major motorways. If each group of protestors had needed to have access to a landline phone to communicate, things would have been far more difficult.
I gather rival football hooligans have actually been known to contact each other by mobile before the match to arrange fights. Mad.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
We should bear in mind whenever we are tempted to think that the next big thing - be it the telegraph, the telephone, intercontinental air travel, the internet, or whatever paradigm-buster de jure the media machine jams into our attention - will make us smarter/more compassionate/more productive/etc. that we are basically still cavemen. We may have wireless wearable computers, but we will as a whole use them the same way we used wooden clubs - to get women, food, and power.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Of course, if you actually read The Virtual Community (which has been on the Web since 1994), you will see that I did write a history of the first mailing groups on ARPAnet, the Usenet, BBSs, and all of the many virtual communities that preceded the WELL. The WELL was a good story, and you really can't get a publisher to put out a history of computer mediated communication without a good story. Certainly there are things to criticize about the book, but I would recommend critics to read the book first.
You can read my own summaries of the book and the chapters within it easily enough, and an ongoing blog about Smart Mobs if you don't like the review. You can also read other reviews and articles about the book
Has the author acknowledged Larry Niven??
Regards David
You only gave this book a 92% rating? What a hypocrite. Your review made it sound like a solid 93%.
I didn't say they were wise mobs.
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.