From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg

Disruptive Innovation in the Age of the Internet

By: John Naughton

Narrated by: Daniel Weyman

John Naughton is The Observer's "Networker" columnist, a prominent blogger, and vice president of Wolfson College, Cambridge. The Times has said of his writing, "[it] 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", and Cory Doctrow raved that "this is the kind of primer you want to slide under your boss' door".

In From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg, Naughton explores the living history of one of the most radically transformational technologies of all time. From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg is a clear-eyed history of one of the most central and yet most taken for granted features of modern life: the Internet. Once a technological novelty and now the very plumbing of the Information Age, the Internet is something we have learned to take largely for granted. So, how exactly has our society become so dependent upon a utility it barely understands? And what does it say about us that this is so?

While explaining in highly engaging language the way the Internet works and how it got to be the way it is, technologist John Naughton has distilled the noisy chatter surrounding the technology's relentless evolution into nine essential areas of understanding. In doing so, he affords listeners deeper insight into the information economy and supplies the requisite knowledge to make better use of the technologies and networks around us, highlighting some of their fascinating and far-reaching implications along the way.

©2015 John Naughton (P)2015 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"A fantastic read and a marvel of economy. This is the kind of primer you want to slide under your boss' door." (Cory Doctorow, New York Times best-selling author and coeditor of Boing Boing)

"[Naughton is] willing to take a stab at the unpredictable.... Naughton warns of two possible outcomes of our networked futures envisioned by the English writers George Orwell and Aldus Huxley - one a prison of our fears under the constant, watchful eye of Big Brother; the other in which our own sense of self gets lost in a sea of our own self-indulgence." (David Siegfried, Booklist)

"An accessible guide to the Internet.... 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)

Intriguing but lacking rigor

He offers a very interesting premise and covers a terrific breadth of material but in doing so sacrifices a bit of the depth and rigor that would make his points a bit more forceful. I wish this book came with whispersync because I feel like its real value is presented by the numerous references made to other notable works and keeping track of references in an audio file alone can be difficult.

distributive technology

The history of the destructive change that the internet has introduced to our society. A complex system of unknowable outcomes but we might get a glimpse of the future.