By Howard Rheingold, Published 2002. ISBN 0-7382-0608-3
Very good book with lots of content, short notes provided here:
Smart mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don't know each other, made possible by carrying devices that possess both communication and computation capabilities.
The driving force behind mobile, context-sensitive, Internet-connected devices are:
The mobile phone is evolving into a remote control for your life. 'Presence' has become uncoupled from physical places. People are using text messaging to co-ordinate their actions and share experiences in real-time. Internet cafes don't work because they aren't designed to be social places.
Challenging the tragedy of the commons - when sharing a limited resource, the temptation is to behave selfishly. Commitment to cooperate is as important as the temptation to free-ride - the threat of punishment can constrain but doesn't inspire.
In a network dominated by linear growth, "Content is King" - a small number of sources compete for audience based on value of the content. When Metcalfe's law dominates, transactions become central.
At its height, Napster had 70 million users trading 2.7 billion files per month. The database value was increased by adding more songs, and that was a natural by-product of each person using the tool for his/her benefit. No altruistic sharing motives were needed.
P2P technologies and social contracts are converging with clouds of mobile devices and mesh networks of sensors and computers that are becoming embedded in the environment. It is the marriage of bits and atoms (see also: The Social Life of Information)
"Broadcasting will place issues on the national agenda and define core values; bloggers will reframe those issues for different publics and ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard." - Professor Henry Jenkins, MIT
Are universal reputation systems possible? We need to look to experimental economics, in particular game theory:
Reputation is the secret ingredient in successful cooperation
Un-tethering the web from wires colonises the world with computation.
Wireless LANs are not a free lunch but they can be a very inexpensive one, compared to the billions in start-up debt that 3G service providers are saddled with.
Intelligence is not restricted to individual brains, it also appears in groups.
"Once a group has become coupled in oscillation, we can treat the group as a single entity" - William Benson, cognitive scientist
When computer scientists first dreamed up AI, they never thought about it in terms of computer-equipped humans as a new kind of social intelligence.
The convergence of smart mob technologies is inevitable. The way we choose to use these technologies and the way governments (and commercial entities) will allow us to use them is very much in question. Beneficial uses of technology will not automatically emerge just because people hope they will.