Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From Tokyo to Helsinki, Manhattan to Manila, Howard Rheingold takes us on a journey around the world for a preview of the next techno-cultural shift-a shift he predicts will be as dramatic as the widespread adoption of the PC in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s. The coming wave, says Rheingold, is the result of super-efficient mobile communications-cellular phones, personal digital assistants, and wireless-paging and Internet-access devices that will allow us to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime.From the amusing ("Lovegetty" devices in Japan that light up when a person with the right date-potential characteristics appears in the vicinity) to the extraordinary (the overthrow of a repressive regime in the Philippines by political activists who mobilized by forwarding text messages via cell phones), Rheingold gives examples of the fundamentally new ways in which people are already engaging in group or collective action. He also considers the dark side of this phenomenon, such as the coordination of terrorist cells, threats to privacy, and the ability to incite violent behavior.Applying insights from sociology, artificial intelligence, engineering, and anthropology, Rheingold offers a penetrating perspective on the brave new convergence of pop culture, cutting-edge technology, and social activism. At the same time, he reminds us that, as with other technological revolutions, the real impact of mobile communications will come not from the technology itself but from how people use it, resist it, adapt to it, and ultimately use it to transform themselves, their communities, and their institutions.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Rheingold coined the term smart mobs to describe groups of people able to act in concert by using mobile media and wireless computer networks to organize collective actions, even without knowing one another. People in smart mobs collaborate in ways never before possible because they each carry super-efficient mobile devices that have both communication and computing capabilities. They can thus act together in new ways and in situations where collective action was not possible before. Rheingold provides examples of how smart mobs already are engaging in such collective action. From harmless matchmaking in Japan, to overthrowing the Philippine government, to the events of September 11, he presents convincing arguments that the long-term effects of mobile telecommunications will precipitate the next social tsunami. The dark side of this phenomenon includes the ability to coordinate terrorist cells, threats to privacy, and the capability to incite violent mob behavior. To Rheingold, this third wave in telecommunications will permanently change our social structure and advance communications in more dramatic ways than the PC and Internet revolutions we have seen. Essential reading for an informed audience.-Joe J. Accardi, Harper Coll. Lib., Palatine, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

The title of this book is a mild pun. People are using smart "mobs" (rhymes with "robes") to become smart "mobs" (rhymes with "robs"), meaning, sophisticated mobile Internet access is allowing people who don't know each other to act in concert. In this timely if at times overenthusiastic survey of wireless communication devices, Rheingold (The Virtual Community) conveys how cell phones, pagers and PDAs are shaping modern culture. He interviewed dozens of people around the world who work and play with these technologies to see how this revolution is manifesting, and his findings are stirring. The concept has caught on among young Japanese, where cliques of teenagers hang out together all day, despite being in different places, by sending and receiving hundreds of iconic text transmissions on their iMode telephones. And demonstrators in Seattle and Manila relied on wireless telephones to coordinate their actions and evade barricades. In major cities, Rheingold says, techno-hipsters can congregate in "WiFi" areas that interact with their wireless devices to let them participate in a virtual social scene. In one amusing example, he tells of upscale prostitutes who can enter their services and prices into their mobile phones, allowing customers to discreetly determine if anyone nearby is selling what they want to buy (a Japanese company, Lovegety, has already adapted this idea to dating). This study of the potential of mobile, always on, fast Internet access nicely serves as a travelogue to the future, showing the possibilities and dangers of communications innovation. Agents, John Brockman and Katinka Matson. (Nov.) Forecast: This is by far the best recent book on this topic, both in terms of writing quality and information, and enthusiasts will love it. Early press in the New York Times and the Washington Post will help raise awareness, as will upcoming reviews and interviews in Fast Company, Business 2.0 and NPR's Tech Nation. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Ever the techno-enthusiast, Rheingold paints an evocative picture of future social interactions facilitated by wireless communication technologies. The possibility of peer-to-peer communications for self-organizing systems and social change is lauded, as Rheingold skips lightly across scholarship in a variety of fields. He sees the current phase of grassroots technological innovation as ensuring the continuation of today's organized anarchy and its decentralized potential of wireless networks for improving the quality of life in the future. Several issues deserve more in-depth consideration: while global telecommunications are available at low costs, the full complexity of wireless communications is far too expensive for many. Second, the capture of the legal environment by commercial media and government surveillance activities is mentioned but optimistically sidestepped as the "wealth-generating machine" of global commerce unfolds. Definitely for general audiences and those scholars interested in a synopsis of available research on the interactions of information technology and wireless communications in social life. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General and lower-division undergraduate collections and faculty. J. L. Croissant University of Arizona

Booklist Review

Mobile, wireless, Net-connected devices are now being hawked by the computer and telecom industries, prompting technology author Rheingold to take stock of the incipient revolution. Glimpsing the future in vignettes of wireless users in Helsinki and Tokyo, Rheingold primarily explores the sociology that might characterize a world of "ad-hocracy," in which people cluster temporarily around information of mutual interest. Rheingold describes how consumerism might change when pedestrians, as their mobiles detect stores and restaurants, patch into electronic gossip about an establishment. The location-detection feature of these devices will inevitably breach privacy, which informs Rheingold's somewhat skeptical stance toward this brave new world, and contrasts with the enthusiasm of certain computer scientists he interviews, such as Microsoft's promoter of a wireless urban space pervasively connected to the Internet. The cyber-savvy and socially aware will be interested and undoubtedly concerned by Rheingold's informed report. --Gilbert Taylor