Ebook The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

This The Master Switch: The Rise And Fall Of Information Empires tends to be what you are required now. It will certainly obtain to get rid of the existence of fascinating subject to review. Even many people feel that this is not appropriate for them to review, as a good viewers, you can consider various other reasons. This book is great to read. It will not need to compel you making depictive topic of guides. Nonetheless, inspirations and also rate of interest that are given kind this publication can be achieved to everyone.

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

Ebook The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

Is The Master Switch: The Rise And Fall Of Information Empires publication your favourite reading? Is fictions? Exactly how's about record? Or is the best seller unique your selection to fulfil your spare time? Or even the politic or spiritual books are you looking for now? Right here we go we provide The Master Switch: The Rise And Fall Of Information Empires book collections that you need. Lots of varieties of publications from lots of industries are given. From fictions to science as well as religious can be browsed as well as learnt right here. You may not worry not to locate your referred book to review. This The Master Switch: The Rise And Fall Of Information Empires is one of them.

Recognizing several publications might not prove you to be a far better person. Yet knowing and checking out publications will make you feel much better. Schedule at the device to reach successful is wise words that are said by some individuals. Do you believe it? Possibly, only couple of people who like the words as well as believe in those words. Nevertheless, you should believe it since publication could bring you much better point as expected as the purposes of reading and also publications. As the The Master Switch: The Rise And Fall Of Information Empires that we offer, this is not kind of nonsense book that will certainly influence nothing.

The Master Switch: The Rise And Fall Of Information Empires as one of the referred books that we will certainly supply in this web site has actually been examined to be one legitimate resource. Also this topic is common, the method how writer makes it is very attractive. It could bring in the people that have not understandings of reading to start analysis. It will certainly make someone fond of this publication to check out. As well as it will certainly show somebody to earn far better choice.

Currently, reading this magnificent The Master Switch: The Rise And Fall Of Information Empires will certainly be much easier unless you obtain download the soft documents right here. Just right here! By clicking the connect to download and install The Master Switch: The Rise And Fall Of Information Empires, you can begin to obtain guide for your own. Be the very first owner of this soft file book The Master Switch: The Rise And Fall Of Information Empires Make distinction for the others and also obtain the initial to step forward for The Master Switch: The Rise And Fall Of Information Empires Present moment!

Review

“Brilliant.” —Forbes“Thought-provoking. . . . An intellectually ambitious history of modern communications.” —The New York Times Book Review“Fascinating, balanced, and rigorous—a tour de force.” —The New York Review of Books “Entertaining. . . . There’s a sharp insight and a surprising fact on nearly every page of Wu’s masterful survey.” —The Boston Globe“Unexpectedly fascinating. . . . A substantial and well-written account of the five major communications industries that have shaped the world as we know it: telephony, radio, movies, television and the Internet. . . . The economy and common sense of The Master Switch . . . makes it valuable to the non-wonk wondering how we got where we are today, and where we might be headed next.” —Salon “Engaging. . . . Wu presents a powerful case. . . . His scholarly command of the past century of communications innovation is prodigious.” —The Plain Dealer “My pick for economics book of the year.” —Ezra Klein, The Washington Post “An explosive history that makes it clear how the information business became what it is today. Important reading.” —Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and Free, and editor of Wired magazine “A brilliant explanation and history. . . . As fascinating, wide-ranging, and, ultimately, inspiring book about communications policy and the information industries as you could hope to find. . . . Wu is that rare animal, an accomplished scholar who can write about complex ideas in ways that are accessible to all. And the ideas he’s covering are as important as any in our ideological marketplace today.” —Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing “Groundbreaking. . . . Offers powerful lessons from the past for the future of the Internet.” —Nature  “Original, insightful. . . . Wu provides a compelling reminder of the monopolist instincts of communications and media companies.” —The Washington Monthly “Masterful. . . . Eminently readable. . . . A superstar in the telecommunications world . . . Wu has a way of presenting complex and important concepts in a clear and understandable way.” —Art Brodsky, The Huffington Post “Wu is the rare writer capable of exhuming history and also interpreting current affairs. In this profound and important book, he excels at both.” —New Scientist “Wu’s work is a must read for those who want to know about the future of the Internet. The Master Switch is brilliant, with a distinctive voice that comes through on every page.” —Josh Silverman, CEO, Skype “As a history lesson for anyone interested in how innovations move from inventors’ garages and laboratories to our living rooms, The Master Switch is a good read, but it is its relevance to the evolution of the Internet that makes it an important book.” —Times Higher Education Supplement “Trenchant and provocative. . . . In vivid and often depressing detail, Wu describes how the true inventors and innovators of information technology have been destroyed by their self-aggrandizing counterparts in the executive offices.” —Toronto Star “A free and open Internet is not a given. Indeed, corporate interests are working feverishly to seize control of it. Drawing on history, Wu shows how this could easily happen and why we are at risk of losing the freedom we now take for granted. A must-read for all Americans who want to remain the ones deciding what they can read, watch, and listen to.” —Arianna Huffington “An ambitious history of the communications industries in the 20th century. . . . [Full of] great stories, and Wu tells them expertly.” —The Guardian (London) “The Master Switch is a provocative thesis on where the Internet has come from and where it is headed. It will interest technology enthusiasts and all who value a vibrant media market.” —The Futurist “Wu’s engaging narrative and remarkable historical detail make this a compelling and galvanizing cry for sanity . . . in the information age.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Read more

About the Author

Tim Wu is an author, policy advocate and professor at Columbia University, currently serving as Senior Advisor to the United States Federal Trade Commission.  In 2006, he was recognized as one of fifty leaders in science and technology by Scientific American magazine, and in the following year, 01238 magazine listed him as one of Harvard’s one hundred most influential graduates. He writes for Slate, where he won the Lowell Thomas gold medal for travel journalism, and he has contributed to The New Yorker, Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Forbes.

Read more

See all Editorial Reviews

Product details

Paperback: 384 pages

Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (November 29, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0307390993

ISBN-13: 978-0307390998

Product Dimensions:

5.1 x 0.8 x 8 inches

Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.5 out of 5 stars

167 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#52,672 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

I had really looked forward to this given all the positives, and associations with all-time classics like Postman's "Technopoly". Unfortunately I was mostly underwhelmed, and left disappointed. The central theme is the interplay between centralized models (in the extreme a vertically integrated monopoly), versus decentralized, free market competition....with the former as one might imagine being the bad guy. (Oddly however for most of the book, the author seems unsure if centralized monopoly or decentralized competition is best for media and communications industries (including content), often citing exceptions to positives and negatives of both.)The first 2/3rds or so of the book are somewhat torturous while building to the last section. The writing is dry, delivering a not very insightful summary of the US media and telco industry. It's central expose' simply stated is that large enterprises co-opt with the government to keep out new disruptive entrants that pose a threat to the existing power structure. Is that really surprising? Is it seriously any great revelation that upstart new entrants argue for competition when taking on a monopoly, and a monopoly argues for better service and public interest to protect itself? Is it shocking that when a new entrant fully succeeds in uprooting the monopoly, it starts acting like one and tries to defend itself by making the same argument of the monopolistic​ firm it replaced? As the ages old saying in politics goes, 'where you stand is a function of where you sit". Is it really insightful to point out that larger, better capitalized firms use the legal system to starve and delay weaker rivals? More specifically, does the author really think Steven Ross Warner Brothers conglomerate (which he started putting together in the 70's), was the business world's first attempt to lower the risk profile of volatile lines of business by combining them with more stable ones?It doesn't start getting good until the 3rd to last chapter "A Surprising Wreck", where he puts in context the failed time Warner - AOL merger. Hindsight being 20/20, I probably should have just started reading here. The next chapter "Father and Son" is probably the best, with quality insight on the philosophical differences between Apple co-founders Wozniak (open system) vs Jobs (closed, vertically integrated), and how they define and inform the Book's central theme. His contrasting of Apple and Google is also decent.But alas the momentum established by the two preceding chapters is quickly extinguished by closing one where the author conveys his policy prescription for guarding against the dangers of private sector concentration/monopoly in the information age. It contained so many leaps of faith, and unimplementable recommendations it was of little value. At the end day what the author may have failed to appreciate are 3 important things about the US system:- The courts over time generally do a respectable job of breaking up monopolies;- Innovation and the freer market, tend to root out inefficient biz models;- Closed and open systems (i.e. Apple and Google) can co-exist, and it becomes more a matter of consumer choice.But all that criticism aside, Wu does leave one with the impression that states (often acting in concert with large concentrated private entities) will attempt to wrestle control of promising and disruptive information technologies...and for those who didn't get that already, the book thus serves a highly useful purpose.

Wide eyed and wiser for the read. The "Cycle" of decentralized and centralized information industry history sounds like it could be dry. But this book blew my mind. I had no idea the early days of radio looked much like our internet today. A multitude of hobbyists (bloggers) and businesses used it in a freewheeling way, until megalomaniacs in govnt and big biz rounded it up into NBC and CBS and made it illegal to broadcast if you weren't them. Same for film and TV.This book tells the story of the consolidation of new inventions that impact our world in the hands of a few people who have their finger on a master switch of sorts.Master Switch argues that the internet age is not so different from the age of the telegraph (they were working on a way to get "texting" machines into every home before radio hit!) or radio, or Hollywood, or Television, or cable TV.The story is the same. A new disruptive technology comes along, and people with big lawyers and big world changing monopolist visions usurp it from small operators and inventors. Patent stealing, inventor scamming, government policy manipulation, and big law are used as levers to hoist new technology onto monopolist mounds of media conglomeration.As a result we get stifling, repression of cool new inventions. Television, invented in 1929, doesn't see the light of day until 1939 and is totally usurped by the radio kingpins by 1949. AT&T invents the magnetic drive, answering machine, optical cable (breakthroughs we associate with the past 30 years) in 1930! But because these would cannibalize their core business, we had to wait until the breakup of MaBell in the 70's and 80's to see hard drives, high-speed internet, and answering machines...50 years after they were invented. It all just sat in Bell Labs R&D. They were a monopoly. And that is the story of the book. It squeezed-to-death what vestiges of naivete I had for the internet age freedoms we apparently enjoy today. I now understand Net neutrality. and the "cycle" of consolidation that is in play right now.I now understand AT&T's evil plans against Google. And Googles evil plans against AT&T.One owns the wires and can flip the master switch in collusion with the govn't. One owns the mind share of the citizenry and can manipulate perception with it's master switch much the way TV has influence culture before cable. AT&T owns the wires of the internet, Google owns our intentions via search. Will they decentralize? Will they become bigger monopolies?Great book to read to get your head around whether or not the internet will go the way of all information industries before it.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in history, technology, or net neutrality. Since I fall into all three categories, for me, this book read like a gripping, page-turning novel. This 100+ year journey through multiple information industries was quite educational and entertaining, though a clear bias against corporate self-regulation or government sponsored monopolies can be found on nearly every page. Still, I felt the author's position was compellingly built. To take on over a century of history in less than 400 pages is very ambitious, but I was impressed by the level of detail the book went into for the various subjects covered. I do not claim to be an expert on the material, so I cannot comment on the level of misinformation, but the plentiful sources and footnotes adds to the book's credibility. I did find myself on rare occasion saying, "Hmm... I don't think that's quite right."The only thing I was disappointed by was the relatively brief exploration of modern issues, including net neutrality. I cannot call this a criticism as the book is not marketed as a primer for net neutrality, but I was hoping for a little more content relating to the recent history of the Internet and the important issues to be solved for the future. Even though I tend to side with the author's position, I would agree that a more equal treatment of the other sides of this debate would have strengthened the argument. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent reading through "The Master Switch" and would enthusiastically encourage everyone to give it a look.

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires PDF
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires EPub
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires Doc
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires iBooks
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires rtf
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires Mobipocket
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires Kindle

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires PDF

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires PDF

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires PDF

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires PDF