|
| Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations | 
 enlarge | Author: Clay Shirky
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $2.70
You Save: $23.25 (90%)
New (52) Used (21) from $2.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 1739
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.4
ISBN: 1594201536
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.4833
EAN: 9781594201530
ASIN: 1594201536
Publication Date: February 28, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New, Excellent Condition, may Contain Remainder Mark , Immediate Shipping, Email Notification, Professional Service, MILLIONS Served, SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Eye-opening and entertaining July 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
What is behind the explosion of Internet-based social networking in all its forms, from shared book reviews on Amazon, to e-mail, listservs, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter? And more important: what does this new wave of truly participatory media bode for the future?
Clay Shirky takes on these big questions in "Here Comes Everybody," and the result is an engaging, eye-opening book that draws upon social change theory, economics, and psychology. Shirky contends that the Internet, cell phones and other two-way communications technologies have lowered the barriers to group formation, such that people are organizing to great effect in ways that would have been impossible just a few years ago. This is taking place in all sorts of ways: social groups, political action groups, photo sharing, news and information sharing, lifestyle support groups, the list goes on and on.
Shirky believes that the power of these new tools at our disposal will be harnessed collectively in a positive direction. He acknowledges that many individuals seek to disrupt cooperative efforts (look at spammers, or "trolls" on mailing lists, for instance). Tools that are overrun by those seeking to disrupt them, though, were flawed in some way, and will fall away in favor of tools such as Wikipedia that correct for such vandalism.
What of corporate and governmental entities trying to screen/censor Internet content? Shirky believes that such efforts are doomed to failure: due to the nature of the technology itself, people will find a way around those attempted impositions. So far, world events bear out his perspective.
Shirky doesn't deal much with inequities in access to these communications tools. But that may be peripheral to his point: after all, not everyone had access to a printing press, yet its relatively widespread availability led to great change all over the world. And anyway, Shirky isn't crazy enough to say that the new ease of organizing will eradicate inequality throughout the world.
"Here Comes Everybody" is an important counterpoint to those who think that social networking is just a popularity contest for kids, or who bemoan the "narcissism" of people who put their information into MySpace. There's a whole lot more going on there, and people of all generations are beginning to figure that out.
Marketers: essential reading before embarking on social media of any kind July 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've read almost all the books on how social media is changing business and I can say that "Here Comes Everybody" is the very best. Don't even think of blogs, communities or social networks as part of your marketing strategy until you read this book. Why? It explains clearly -- yet oh so thoroughly -- why people want to connect and contribute(or not)to communities and groups.
It also puts the tools discussion into the proper context: First establish the group's promise, and then select the tool to support the promise. In my experience too many companies are investing in the tools and then trying to figuring out how to create business communities with those tools.
Clay also provides some fascinating insights into what makes a community coalesce: you don't need huge numbers of highly-active people for a community to be effective. Because today's tools remove barriers to participation a small number of highly-involved people can do most of the heavy lifting and "people who care a little can participate a little, while being effective in the aggregate."
Bonus points -- the book is well written, rich in illustrative stories, and well organized.
 Social Implications of Internet and Glorifying "Loose Collaboration" July 17, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody is a great primer to understand the modern internet phenomenon. He calls internet "the biggest revolution in human expression", and that it used to be that "Little things happen for love and big things happen for money", but now the thresholds for collaboration and expression are minimal so both things can happen.
The first five chapters is a great introduction to the evolution of media and organizing groups. Even if for my part little was new, it was a great read. The mid part of the book is a long and boring repetitions. The book end with discussing social dilemmas and open source software, which and there were great pages. I just wish Shirky could have trimmed the book 100 pages in the middle.
Since I am in the software world my biggest interest was the discussion around open source software (OSS). Shirky is a great believer in OSS, and states that "In the open source world, trying something is often cheaper than than making formal decisions about whether to try it". OSS means, according to Shirky, that massive amounts of people will try and develop things and many will fail, but thanks to the volume new discoveries are made. He gives the analogy of the arid desert where companies stick to the first oasis they find, but in the world of OSS the whole desert is explored, and therefore new values are found and created.
I think Shirky misses two important things: first, that just because it is accessible (and maybe free) people will not work with it, there needs to be an incentive. Some people work out of anger towards a giant (used to be Microsoft) and some because they want to show off or learn, but miracles need some coordinating party in my eyes (look at Ubuntu, GTK, and Webkit, big successes of open source).
Secondly innovation is not only comprised of technology. Working with innovation processes I would say that simplified there are three parts: Market Fit, Consumer Experience, and Technical Feasibility, where open source is great at the last one, but usually bad at the first two.
To summarize: a great primer about how Internet changed media and human communication, but I think it glorifies "loose collaboration".
 Greatt, well written story March 28, 2008
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
The writer creates some really eye-opening views into dynamics of groups, both in and outside of the Internet
Hey Clay, WAZZZZZAAA? April 29, 2008
1 out of 8 found this review helpful
Hey Clay, WAZZZZZZZZAAA?
I loved the book. Many thanks to Vanessa, Scott and Janet for the work they do. And now for my contribution-- and my only post on Amazon (Farzad a la Mode)
I thought your book was thought provoking all the way to the end. You respected the reader enough not to do what so many authors do today, which is to keep repeating the same thing over and over again in simple words.
I also keep seeing things that echo with the lessons of your book. Did you see the NYT article about the case of the stolen Skyline GT? Another nice example of how if there's love (in this case for a car) then online community action can be intense. www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/automobiles/13STEAL.html
BTW- you scared me with your Deaniac analysis- I sure hope that's not the case w my man Obama- but he's trading at 80c http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_DConv08.cfm so I'm still feeling good. (The newspaper headlines after PA should have read: "no new information in Clinton win- markets unmoved").
Throughout the book I kept scribbling stuff down, and thinking- I should send this section on web 2.0 tools for human rights to Saman, or the section on "implicit promise" to Jamie (Heywood), or the piece on loose networks to Les. Unfortunately, it's too much of a drag to scan and email. We need a better tool for this.
How's this for an idea? If while I was reading your book, how about if I could add some marginalia (like my random thoughts above), and other readers could see it too, and rank it. That way, I could choose to read not only your brilliant thoughts, but also the most highly regarded comments from all your readers. Kind of like the Talmud with commentary all around the original text (http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/TalmudPage.htm). Or alternatively, maybe I could only turn on my friends' comments, so reading a book would be social like watching a movie with a bunch of friends and kibitzing is.
Anyway, looking forward to talking to you soon- unless of course, you're too famous to get back to me. Cue "Stan" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_(song)
Farzad
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
