Howard Rheingold's Latest Connection The tech guru sees a "new economic system"

Business Week ^ | Updated: 8:00 p.m. ET Aug. 11, 2004

[ckilmer]

Howard Rheingold's Latest Connection The tech guru sees a "new economic system" in the unconscious cooperation embodied by Google links and Amazon lists

Business Week Updated: 8:00 p.m. ET Aug. 11, 2004

Howard Rheingold is on the hunt again. With his last book, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, in 2001, the longtime observer of technology trends made a persuasive case that pervasive mobile communications, combined with always-on Internet connections, will produce new kinds of ad-hoc social groups. Now, he's starting to take the leap beyond smart mobs, trying to weave some threads out of such seemingly disparate developments as Web logs, open-source software development, and Google.

At the same time, Rheingold is worried that established companies could quash such nascent innovations as file-sharing -- and potentially put the U.S. at risk of falling behind the rest of the world. He recently spoke with Robert D. Hof, BusinessWeek's Silicon Valley bureau chief. Here are excerpts from their conversation:

Q: Where do you see the social revolution you've been talking about going next?

[mattdono]

This is an interesting article. I detect some "liberal" undertones to the commentary, but putting that aside, there is a passage about the evolving nature of capitalism.

I read a book called "The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and The Next Episode of Capitalism" by Zubboff and Maxmin. Available at Amazon (which I refuse to provide a link to because of the tinkering they are doing with the Unfit for Command recommendations list) or at your local bookstore. Coincidentally, I think Rheingold is stating similar ideas found in this book.

It is a fairly good book that discusses the evolving nature of capitalism. The authors are a bit wordy and, on occassion, seem a little too impressed with themselves, however, the general points of the book are well made. Given that I am in the technology business, it seems that their description of how things seem to be evolving is pretty accurate.