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Review
'A fantastic read and a marvel of economy. This is the kind of primer you want to slide under your boss's door' Cory Doctorow, Observer.
'An accessible guide to the internet, which covers the nine need-to-know ideas about its cultural significance. Naughton draws on more than two decades of study to explain how the internet works and the challenges and opportunities it will offer to future generations' The Times.
'As Naughton points out, most internet users are far more ignorant than they realise. His book is as useful to them as to neophytes' Mail on Sunday.
'From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg comes at a point when much of the traffic associated with desktop computers is migrating to mobile devices and cloud computing is a new thing. It helps those of us stuck in the old paradigm (or no paradigm at all) to catch up on what it all means' Glasgow Herald.
'An accessible guide to the internet, which covers the nine need-to-know ideas about its cultural significance. Naughton draws on more than two decades of study to explain how the internet works and the challenges and opportunities it will offer to future generations' The Times.
'As Naughton points out, most internet users are far more ignorant than they realise. His book is as useful to them as to neophytes' Mail on Sunday.
'From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg comes at a point when much of the traffic associated with desktop computers is migrating to mobile devices and cloud computing is a new thing. It helps those of us stuck in the old paradigm (or no paradigm at all) to catch up on what it all means' Glasgow Herald.
Review
'A fantastic read and a marvel of economy. This is the kind of primer you want to slide under your boss's door' Cory Doctorow, Observer. 'An accessible guide to the internet, which covers the nine need-to-know ideas about its cultural significance. Naughton draws on more than two decades of study to explain how the internet works and the challenges and opportunities it will offer to future generations' The Times. 'As Naughton points out, most internet users are far more ignorant than they realise. His book is as useful to them as to neophytes' Mail on Sunday. 'From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg comes at a point when much of the traffic associated with desktop computers is migrating to mobile devices and cloud computing is a new thing. It helps those of us stuck in the old paradigm (or no paradigm at all) to catch up on what it all means' Glasgow Herald.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Internet is now the background to most of our lives - for some it is central - but how much do
we really understand about how it works and what it's doing to us? This book by John Naughton is a great place to start. It gives you the history, enough of the technology and most importantly, a very good way past the myths and into the real significance of the Internet.
Naughton is in a good place to do this. He is part geek, part academic, part journalist, part enthusiast. The result is a book with comfortable authority. He doesn't let his knowledge get in the way of your understanding.
I am supposed to be a new media expert, but really I'm just a journalist interested in its effects. For me, the Internet is not just central to our lives, but environmental. However, I don't really know much about how it works. So From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg was very useful. What is the difference between the Internet and the Web? How can a digital system have a virus? How can I get information from a cloud? All these and more of the technical questions are answered. But Naughton goes further than simply providing a kind of Haynes Manual for the Internet.
From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg explores the concepts that make the Internet such an interesting and probably unique media force for social, political and economic change. He reminds us that the Internet is constantly evolving both as a structure as well as its content. He tells us to remember that disruption is the norm not the exception for the Internet. He asks us to think of the Internet as an ecology - a kind of living system, not a machine.
But it gets even more interesting and a little more contentious when he looks at the future. At this point Naughton changes persona somewhat from the affable guide to the Internet tapping away in his Cambridge study. Now we have John Naughton the Internet activist who believes that copyright is an outmoded restriction on the freedom that makes the Net such as creative force: "we're facing a situation where large numbers of our fellow citizens are effectively being criminalised by unenforceable laws".
In the final chapter Naughton takes us on a tour of the future of the Internet with competing utopian and nightmare visions. Through Orwell, Huxley and then Steve Jobs we journey through the battlefield for the Open Internet. Naughton cites the excellent Timonthy Wu and Evegeny Morozov to warn us of how corporations as well as authoritarian governments might want to use the Internet to control and exploit us. But in the end this feels more like a sober celebration of the Internet than a diagnosis of decay.
This is a clear, readable, unpatronising, well structured book where the appendix and glossary are actually very useful. I would recommend it to anyone seeking to understand the Internet in the round. Perhaps you already know about programming, or web design or blogging. Perhaps you do online marketing, journalism or campaigning. Or perhaps the Internet is just where you go for friendship, amusement or shopping. In any case, you will know at least part of this story, but Naughton's book gives you the whole picture.
Charlie Beckett
London School of Economics
we really understand about how it works and what it's doing to us? This book by John Naughton is a great place to start. It gives you the history, enough of the technology and most importantly, a very good way past the myths and into the real significance of the Internet.
Naughton is in a good place to do this. He is part geek, part academic, part journalist, part enthusiast. The result is a book with comfortable authority. He doesn't let his knowledge get in the way of your understanding.
I am supposed to be a new media expert, but really I'm just a journalist interested in its effects. For me, the Internet is not just central to our lives, but environmental. However, I don't really know much about how it works. So From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg was very useful. What is the difference between the Internet and the Web? How can a digital system have a virus? How can I get information from a cloud? All these and more of the technical questions are answered. But Naughton goes further than simply providing a kind of Haynes Manual for the Internet.
From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg explores the concepts that make the Internet such an interesting and probably unique media force for social, political and economic change. He reminds us that the Internet is constantly evolving both as a structure as well as its content. He tells us to remember that disruption is the norm not the exception for the Internet. He asks us to think of the Internet as an ecology - a kind of living system, not a machine.
But it gets even more interesting and a little more contentious when he looks at the future. At this point Naughton changes persona somewhat from the affable guide to the Internet tapping away in his Cambridge study. Now we have John Naughton the Internet activist who believes that copyright is an outmoded restriction on the freedom that makes the Net such as creative force: "we're facing a situation where large numbers of our fellow citizens are effectively being criminalised by unenforceable laws".
In the final chapter Naughton takes us on a tour of the future of the Internet with competing utopian and nightmare visions. Through Orwell, Huxley and then Steve Jobs we journey through the battlefield for the Open Internet. Naughton cites the excellent Timonthy Wu and Evegeny Morozov to warn us of how corporations as well as authoritarian governments might want to use the Internet to control and exploit us. But in the end this feels more like a sober celebration of the Internet than a diagnosis of decay.
This is a clear, readable, unpatronising, well structured book where the appendix and glossary are actually very useful. I would recommend it to anyone seeking to understand the Internet in the round. Perhaps you already know about programming, or web design or blogging. Perhaps you do online marketing, journalism or campaigning. Or perhaps the Internet is just where you go for friendship, amusement or shopping. In any case, you will know at least part of this story, but Naughton's book gives you the whole picture.
Charlie Beckett
London School of Economics
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Very readable and not too technical. But essential if you want a snapshot of where we're at with the internet now, what we need to be aware of and with hints as to where we might go. Fascinating with some very surprising facts and figures. Read it! Or maybe read JN's 1999 book first.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read a draft of this (truth in advertising, I know the author and he asked me to take a look) and I like the pitch a lot. I remember a dinner party in 1984 (yes, that year) when I was a bit tipsy and I told everyone there that their world was gonna change and the Internet was going to do it - they all looked at me as if I was barking mad. One of those people at the party went on to manage a TV company that has a big online presence, another ended up at a major posh english newspaper editing material which is mostly seen online, rather than in print (old joke, What's black and white and "red" all over). Another releases videos and music via myspace (well, she used to - its probably spotify or some other channel by now).
So this is about how and why.
Its a timely reminder of the relative impact of affordable mass produced print, and the effects of virtually free distribution of information to 2/5 of the world's population. Indeed, anything sufficiently viral in the interweb (old Ab Fab joke) will then be recycled by traditional media anyhow, so you'll probably get to 4/5 of the world's population with something genuinely interesting (e.g. a combined solution to climate change and recession:).
The author is a great writer and communicator, and the book reads very easily. Even for some old git like me whose been working on the technology (and its use) since, um, 32 years ago, this is a good read. For the intended audience (the woman upstairs on the clapham bendy bus?), this is excellent.
I think the culmination of the work, the hopes and fears for what the Internet may bring, is a great cultural contribution and alone makes the book worth buying.
So this is about how and why.
Its a timely reminder of the relative impact of affordable mass produced print, and the effects of virtually free distribution of information to 2/5 of the world's population. Indeed, anything sufficiently viral in the interweb (old Ab Fab joke) will then be recycled by traditional media anyhow, so you'll probably get to 4/5 of the world's population with something genuinely interesting (e.g. a combined solution to climate change and recession:).
The author is a great writer and communicator, and the book reads very easily. Even for some old git like me whose been working on the technology (and its use) since, um, 32 years ago, this is a good read. For the intended audience (the woman upstairs on the clapham bendy bus?), this is excellent.
I think the culmination of the work, the hopes and fears for what the Internet may bring, is a great cultural contribution and alone makes the book worth buying.
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