Everybody

Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky, 2008 (read 2009)

The guy who more or less set me on the breadcrumb trail with his blog post Ontology Is Overrated, has his first published book for general audiences. The Wall Street Journal says "Clay Shirky explores the ramifications of a world in which people can find each other and collaborate with increasing ease."

What turned me on was Shirky's pointing out how digital connections have transformed us from consumers-only into consumer-producers, people who, for example, can move effortlessly from downloading a digital song to uploading a musical creation. Or almost effortlessly, but in any case without the need to get past cumbersome gatekeepers like record companies.

Shirky gives a 42-minute talk on his book on YouTube, erudite but easy to follow.

Everybody cites network theory and a number of books I hope to get to in this blog including Duncan Watts' Six Degrees. There are multiple references to wikis in general and Wikipedia specifically. Excellent discussion of the rise of Linux versus Windows and Perl versus C++, the collaborative volunteer model versus the gatekept expert model, defying the experts who said it could never work.