Our society has gone through a weird, unremarked transition: we've gone from regarding the Net as something exotic to something that we take for granted as a utilitarian necessity, like mains electricity or running water. In the process we've been remarkably incurious about its meaning, significance or cultural implications. Most people have no idea how the network works, nor any conception of its architecture; and few can explain why it has been - and continues to be - so uniquely disruptive in social, economic and cultural contexts. In other words, our society has become dependent on a utility that it doesn't really understand. John Naughton has distilled the noisy chatter surrounding the internet's relentless evolution into nine clear-sighted and accessible areas of understanding. In doing so he affords everyone the requisite knowledge to make better use of the technologies and networks around us, and see lucidly into their future implications. Along the way FROM GUTENBERG TO ZUCKERBERG covers areas as diverse as the science of complexity, the economics of abundance, the appeal of disruption and the problematic nature of intellectual property. FROM GUTENBERG TO ZUCKERBERG gives you all the basic, conceptual equipment you need to understand the Internet phenomenon.

About the Author

John Naughton is Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He is also the Observer's 'Networker' columnist and a prominent blogger at memex.naughtons.org. His last book was A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Why this book? Take the long view. The web is not the Net. For the Net, disruption is a feature, not a bug. Think ecology, not just economics. Complexity is the new reality. The network is now the computer. The Web is evolving. Copyrights and 'copywrongs': or why our Intellectual Property regime no longer makes sense. Orwell vs Huxley: the bookends of our networked future? Epilogue. Appendix. Acknowledgements. Glossary. Notes. Index.

Reviews

'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.