A History of the Internet and the Digital Future
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'Both an enormously useful work and a great read. Read it and understand what has made the Internet different.' --Professor Tim Wu, Columbia Law School
'Thanks to the proliferation of cloud services, ubiquitous, low-cost bandwidth, and new devices like smartphones and the iPad, there are fewer obstacles to innovation than ever before. In the next decade, the 'office' need not be much more than an Internet connection. Johnny Ryan takes us through the history of the Internet to demonstrate how it has changed everything. But that's not all; he also identifies what's to come in the future. We are in a new era of transformation that has been powered by the Internet. Understanding the trends driving this revolution is pivotal to success. Consider this book your road map to getting there.' --Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of salesforce.com
'Johnny Ryan has admirably captured the sweep of the Internet's development from its earliest days, showing us how its profound impact is in part an accident of history, a phenomenon whose most interesting and liberating aspects could fade without reinforcement of its core values.' --Professor Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and Kennedy School; Professor of Computer Science, Harvard SEAS; Author of The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It
'Thanks to the proliferation of cloud services, ubiquitous, low-cost bandwidth, and new devices like smartphones and the iPad, there are fewer obstacles to innovation than ever before. In the next decade, the 'office' need not be much more than an Internet connection. Johnny Ryan takes us through the history of the Internet to demonstrate how it has changed everything. But that's not all; he also identifies what's to come in the future. We are in a new era of transformation that has been powered by the Internet. Understanding the trends driving this revolution is pivotal to success. Consider this book your road map to getting there.' --Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of salesforce.com
'Johnny Ryan has admirably captured the sweep of the Internet's development from its earliest days, showing us how its profound impact is in part an accident of history, a phenomenon whose most interesting and liberating aspects could fade without reinforcement of its core values.' --Professor Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and Kennedy School; Professor of Computer Science, Harvard SEAS; Author of The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It
Product Description
A great adjustment in human affairs is underway. Political, commercial and cultural life is changing from the centralized, hierarchical and standardized structures of the industrial age to something radically different: the economy of the emerging digital era. A History of the Internet and the Digital Future tells the story of the development of the Internet from the 1950s to the present, and examines how the balance of power has shifted between the individual and the state in the areas of censorship, copyright infringement, intellectual freedom and terrorism and warfare. Johnny Ryan explains how the Internet has revolutionized political campaigns; how the development of the World Wide Web enfranchised a new online population of assertive, niche consumers; and how the dot-com bust taught smarter firms to capitalize on the power of digital artisans. In the coming years platforms such as the iPhone and Android rise or fall depending on their treading the line between proprietary control and open innovation. The trends of the past may hold out hope for the record and newspaper industry. From the government-controlled systems of the Cold War to today's move towards cloud computing, user-driven content and the new global commons, this book reveals the trends that are shaping the businesses, politics and media of the digital future.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Johnny Ryan has managed to gather the respect of millions in this new book A HISTORY OF THE INTERNET AND THE DIGITAL FUTURE: the near mystical aspects of the discovery that has changed our lives in countless ways over the past decades is in this book explained with a humanist approach to the history, the mystery, the benefits, the emergence of an entirely new manner of communication, and some solid speculations about where this technology to beat all technologies may take us. The beauty of this book is just how accessible it is. Ryan writes in a near conversational manner about technical matters that to many of us are floating around in the ether that is being somehow transmitted to most of our fingertips and screens. And at the same time that he addresses issues and shares facts in language easily digested, he simultaneously offers information to the more advanced computer geeks, making his book as democratic a transfer of information as any book written on the subject.
In what may seem a redundant means of upgrading our knowledge of where we all are in the digital age, Ryan elects to open his book with a very detailed history of the birth of the computers, taking us back sixty years to the 1950s discovery of the possibilities of transmitting information and storing it on machines. His journey explains the military's use and polish of the computer, through the concept of dissemination of information over the Internet, to the age of personal use of the computer and all forms of digital transfer of information. This is far too brief a way of describing how Ryan explains the derivation of each term applied to this topic (these definitions alone are worth the investment in this book!), and the process of changing the huge machines into hand-held wildly popular individually owned modes of communication.
But where Johnny Ryan really shines is his ability to inform us as to the strengths and weaknesses of this new generation of information transfer. He deftly discusses the individual versus government interchange access, how this instantaneous form of depersonalized communication isolates us from each other, but opens us to the curious eye of hackers and government eavesdropping, the perils of too freely spreading our thoughts and needs and desires and even gossip that can lead to dangerous results, and at the same time instead of raging about the evils of the computer so popular with other writers, he offers the possibilities of the Internet and www communication that to this reader at least seems like an invitation to global understanding of all cultures, all peoples.
The book ends with an indispensable glossary of terms used in the book but also used on the Internet - many times to the total ignorance of those of us who take advantage of this brave new world. And should the reader need further elucidation to advance from the solid platform of information provided by Ryan, there is a bibliography for research and further investigation. But for the millions of people who now use the internet and computers this book offers gentle but quite competent background and information about how we got here, what we are doing and what we are capable of doing, and when to be cautious. Highly Recommended for everyone. Grady Harp, November 10
In what may seem a redundant means of upgrading our knowledge of where we all are in the digital age, Ryan elects to open his book with a very detailed history of the birth of the computers, taking us back sixty years to the 1950s discovery of the possibilities of transmitting information and storing it on machines. His journey explains the military's use and polish of the computer, through the concept of dissemination of information over the Internet, to the age of personal use of the computer and all forms of digital transfer of information. This is far too brief a way of describing how Ryan explains the derivation of each term applied to this topic (these definitions alone are worth the investment in this book!), and the process of changing the huge machines into hand-held wildly popular individually owned modes of communication.
But where Johnny Ryan really shines is his ability to inform us as to the strengths and weaknesses of this new generation of information transfer. He deftly discusses the individual versus government interchange access, how this instantaneous form of depersonalized communication isolates us from each other, but opens us to the curious eye of hackers and government eavesdropping, the perils of too freely spreading our thoughts and needs and desires and even gossip that can lead to dangerous results, and at the same time instead of raging about the evils of the computer so popular with other writers, he offers the possibilities of the Internet and www communication that to this reader at least seems like an invitation to global understanding of all cultures, all peoples.
The book ends with an indispensable glossary of terms used in the book but also used on the Internet - many times to the total ignorance of those of us who take advantage of this brave new world. And should the reader need further elucidation to advance from the solid platform of information provided by Ryan, there is a bibliography for research and further investigation. But for the millions of people who now use the internet and computers this book offers gentle but quite competent background and information about how we got here, what we are doing and what we are capable of doing, and when to be cautious. Highly Recommended for everyone. Grady Harp, November 10
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Toward the end of Johnny Ryan's "A History of the Internet" he relates an account of a terrorism trial in 2007. The defendents have been charged with inciting terrorism using internet chatrooms, video and forums. At one point in the proceedings the presiding judge pauses the trial to say, "The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a website is". This book is for him and for those of us who, like him, have found engaging with complex and fast changing digital world a daunting experience. Where do you start? How do you get get a handle on it? What is needed is what David Garland, in his book "The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society" called a "history of the present". What events preceded this to bring us here?
From the antecedents of the internet, through the emergence of the world wide web and rise of social networking to present day issues of net neutrality, Google in China and the work of hacktivists Johnny Ryan shows a firm grasp of his material and understands the need to keep the subject accessible, the glossary was really useful.
The digital world tends to attract writers who either evangelise or demonise the web. Ryan does neither. Finally concluding that the freedoms we currently enjoy from the internet are neither fixed or certain, Johnny Ryan has given us an excellent guide to the immediate past with some timely warnings for the future.
From the antecedents of the internet, through the emergence of the world wide web and rise of social networking to present day issues of net neutrality, Google in China and the work of hacktivists Johnny Ryan shows a firm grasp of his material and understands the need to keep the subject accessible, the glossary was really useful.
The digital world tends to attract writers who either evangelise or demonise the web. Ryan does neither. Finally concluding that the freedoms we currently enjoy from the internet are neither fixed or certain, Johnny Ryan has given us an excellent guide to the immediate past with some timely warnings for the future.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
We live in such an exciting age and yet we seem to take the Internet for granted. We visit sites like YouTube, Google, MySpace, Wikipedia, WordPress, Netflix, iTunes, Twitter and Facebook on what seems like a daily basis. But what made these sites possible? This book presents the history of the Internet in great detail. Johnny Ryan did an incredible amount of research! He also answers the following questions:
Who sent the first email?
What was the first book sold on amazon.com?
What did Al Gore really say about the Internet?
When did spam officially appear online?
I personally found this book to be absolutely fascinating. Not only will you know a lot more about the history of computers you will understand exactly what it took to reach the stage at which we all became able to go online. There are also some tasty tidbits about amazon.
If I had to pick one book about the Internet, this would be it!
~The Rebecca Review
Who sent the first email?
What was the first book sold on amazon.com?
What did Al Gore really say about the Internet?
When did spam officially appear online?
I personally found this book to be absolutely fascinating. Not only will you know a lot more about the history of computers you will understand exactly what it took to reach the stage at which we all became able to go online. There are also some tasty tidbits about amazon.
If I had to pick one book about the Internet, this would be it!
~The Rebecca Review
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
At Last! A Comprehensive and Comprehensible Book About THE INTERNET!
Johnny Ryan has managed to gather the respect of millions in this new book A HISTORY OF THE INTERNET AND THE DIGITAL FUTURE: the near mystical aspects of the discovery that has... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Grady Harp
Absolutely Fascinating
We live in such an exciting age and yet we seem to take the Internet for granted. We visit sites like YouTube, Google, MySpace, Wikipedia, WordPress, Netflix, iTunes, Twitter and... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Rebecca Johnson
An Inspiring Piece of Work
I really enjoyed this book. It satisfied all the requirements I have for a good read. It is extremely well researched but not dull. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Silicon Sally
AN INDISPENSABLE BOOK
An indispensable read for anyone, scholar, expert or beginner, about one of the most important events in human history. Read more
Published 16 months ago by pieroM
Great read
This is a really easy to read and excellent history book and like every good history book it shows how the past might shape the future. Read more
Published 18 months ago by richardpike
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