Free Republic

Rheingold has gotten itself into a first-class brew-ha-ha. The Brooklyn-based brewery with a hankering for an edgy image, wants to welcome Republicans this weekend with a profane new ad campaign that has tempers boiling over. Rheingold planned to launch a series of controversial billboards - one portraying three men sitting on a city stoop, greeting GOP visitors with a one-finger salute above the words "Here's to a great convention." Another shows a female hand spanking an underwear-clad man, while a third has a party-goer sporting a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "Orange Alert." The problem developed when Rheingold tried to...

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...