When Clay Shirky was a young boy he thought that the main technologies for the 21st century would be the atomic energy and the spaceships to travel throughout the milky way.

Fast forward to when he is a grown up in the late 20th century, he discovers that the main technologies are the transistors and the abortion pill. The first has allowed the advent of many electronic devices, the second has entitled women to control birth.

Both are used at individual level (companies and citizen respectively) and are not controlled by the state. As Shirky puts it : they changed the world because no one was in control of how the technology was used.

In the early 21st century he’s discovered a third main technology for this era : social networks. These have allowed for groups to gather in the cheapest and easiest way ever, with spectacular results on the society as a whole. This is what this great book is all about.

Clay Shirky does a fantastic job connecting real life stories, sociologists researches, his own experience of social tools and patterns of usage to propose a global theory based around solid ideas, main ones being extracted hereafter … Continue reading “Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky” →