The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It | 
| Author: Jonathan Zittrain
Publisher: Yale University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
Buy New: $17.75
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 2825
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 5.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 0300124872
Dewey Decimal Number: 004.6780112
EAN: 9780300124873
ASIN: 0300124872
Publication Date: April 14, 2008
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Condition: Great condition, just arrived from publisher
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Product Description
This extraordinary book explains the engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity—and reveals that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation—and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control. IPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and TiVos represent the first wave of Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in remarkable but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on the occupants at all times, and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. New Web 2.0 platforms like Google mash-ups and Facebook are rightly touted—but their applications can be similarly monitored and eliminated from a central source. As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet—its “generativity,” or innovative character—is at risk. The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation, Zittrain argues, lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, this book shows how to develop new technologies and social structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively, participate in solutions, and become true “netizens.”
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 A boring book July 6, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is not a bad book, contains lots of information - but oh, so well known. I tried to keep on reading but to no avail.
A major stake in the ground on the policy implications of the net June 30, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It is a major work of business, legal and policy research that will be less accessible to most people, but important to those looking to understand the future direction of today's ecommerce world. Zittrain is both a technologist and a lawyer and he appears to be writing this book more to influence policy and thinking rather than proposing a specific solution.
This is fine, in my opinion, as Zittrain provides two important frameworks that define new ways of thinking about the net and its impact: the notion of generative technology and the idea that the value of that technology is moving from the network to the endpoints. The book describes these ideas and develops them into a range of policy and technical decisions facing business, political and judicial leaders.
In the Future of the Internet, Jonathan Zittrain provides a detailed analysis of the development of the Internet, the nature of networks, and the evolution of technology. This book concentrates on the central elements of what Zittrain calls "generative" solutions. A generative solution is one that provides a basis for innovation, new products and new sources of value through experimentation and individual innovation (ala Cheesbourgh's open innovation). Zittrain sees the Internet and the PC as generative technologies, which the clearly are. However he sees generative technologies go through a pattern where the openness and high levels of trust that made them generative and attracted new solutions soon fall prey to fraud, abuse and outright criminal activities.
Zittrain argues that this is what the Internet is going through now as SPAM, Malware, Phishing and other forms of cyber crime and mischief are eroding the value of the Internet as a generative platform. The book makes this argument in a very logical way with good examples. This takes up the first part of the book and is perhaps the best part.
Zittrain's idea is that as these generative technologies become compromised, the value potential moves from the network that connects devices to the devices themselves. Here is where he introduces the notion of appliance devices that are purpose build, not readily programmable at the functional level and give the consumer more protection and the provider more control. The notion that the value is moving away from the network is very intriguing; particularly interesting give the recent warm reception of appliances such as the iPhone, Wii, Tivo and others.
Overall this book is not for the faint of heart, nor for the casual reader of business and technology books. The text is well written, loaded with examples and details that will make for good cocktail party stories, but it is more of a policy book and a scholarly work than a business text.
CIOs should read the first half of the book with great interest as it lays out a new way of thinking about the network.
Corporate development officers at technology companies should read the whole book as it describes a possible legal, regulatory and economic framework for the future of technology.
Business leaders should read the first part of the book to understand the true nature and exposure they have in the current generative Internet era.
 Internet June 17, 2008
2 out of 15 found this review helpful
I had great expectations for this book. I wa somewhat disapointed. At least for me his writing style was difficulut. And he really could have made his points with 50% fewer pages.
 Simply Outstanding May 16, 2008
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Kudos to Jonathan Zittrain for producing a book accessible to both a lay audience as well as his technorati crowd. His blending of history, early digital anecdote, and his strong analysis make this an academic book that transcends the blogosphere and onto both main street and wall street. A remarkable accomplishment.
Compelling and thought-provoking May 14, 2008
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
Someone once said, "The plural of anecdote is data." Zittrain's new book is a delightful illustration of this principle, engaging the reader with fascinating observations and stories, then weaving them together to present a powerful narrative. Whether or not you share his vision for the future, you'll gain a new appreciation for how the online world that we take for granted today could easily have been--and still threatens to become--a strikingly different place.
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