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I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted
by
Nick Bilton (Goodreads Author)
Are we driving off a digital cliff and heading for disaster, unable to focus, maintain concentration, or form the human bonds that make life worth living? Are media and business doomed and about to be replaced by amateur hour?
The world, as Nick Bilton—with tongue-in-cheek—shows, has been going to hell for a long, long time, and what we are experiencing is the twenty-first-...more
The world, as Nick Bilton—with tongue-in-cheek—shows, has been going to hell for a long, long time, and what we are experiencing is the twenty-first-...more
Hardcover, 304 pages
Published
September 14th 2010
by Crown Business
(first published 2010)
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My initial review of this title in December 2010 was unkind and perhaps even unfair to the author. Since that time I have spent a great deal more time becoming involved with online media and social networking, and I'm not completely sure he isn't right in some major ways. Now, in April 2011, the below more closely reflects my current thinking.
Years ago I read a book by Jeff Gomez called Print is Dead. Gomez electrified me by writing something we know but may have never articulated: (to paraphra...more
Years ago I read a book by Jeff Gomez called Print is Dead. Gomez electrified me by writing something we know but may have never articulated: (to paraphra...more
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It's the apocalypse! No. Not really. As anyone with some knowledge of history knows, significant technological change leads to fear and loathing. So we aren't alone in trying to figure out how it works, or will work.
I like that Bilton doesn't take the subject matter too seriously. Social media gurus spend enough time doing that. Though he does fall prey to some business-speak now and again which detracts from his mostly accessible writing style.
He covers the porn industry as leading-edge innovat...more
I like that Bilton doesn't take the subject matter too seriously. Social media gurus spend enough time doing that. Though he does fall prey to some business-speak now and again which detracts from his mostly accessible writing style.
He covers the porn industry as leading-edge innovat...more
Just finished this book while traveling. Nick does a great job of outlining how our world has changed around us, and how we're struggling to take it all in. We know that society is changing we see it in the use of cell phones, the popularity of the Internet and around social-network sites.
What we're going to continue to see on the Web is more and more social-networking sites coming together to create communities. Whether it's a community at school, a community of students, or a community where y...more
What we're going to continue to see on the Web is more and more social-networking sites coming together to create communities. Whether it's a community at school, a community of students, or a community where y...more
Memo to corporate — if you read just one paragraph in this book, make it this one:
"It’s not enough to sit idly by, ignoring and quieting the employee inside your company who doesn’t buy CDs anymore, or canceled her cable television, or started playing video games instead of reading a book, or stopped buying the print edition of the newspaper. These people are trying to tell you about the future and how it works. It’s up to you to listen."
"It’s not enough to sit idly by, ignoring and quieting the employee inside your company who doesn’t buy CDs anymore, or canceled her cable television, or started playing video games instead of reading a book, or stopped buying the print edition of the newspaper. These people are trying to tell you about the future and how it works. It’s up to you to listen."
Possibly better if read as a soapbox rant, or fiction rather than non-fiction. The author tries to make a case about some things and cites a lot of research, but, while he’s honest enough to list the counter-points, he hand-waves almost all of them as not applicable or wrong (without any support for that position), and touts the points from the studies that he does agree with--again, often without offering any more than his opinion that it’s correct.��Granted, he does collect a lot of studies ab...more
I usually loathe books like these, but this one was pretty decent. As in all tales of changing paradigms, I’d rather that my superiors had read this than me. For all the back cover's smugness about incorporating new technologies, I thought the QR code implementation didn’t go far enough in enhancing the reading experience. On the other hand, Bilton speaks very clearly to the need for content providers to:
1. Make it easy-as-pie for customers to obtain content in whatever form they want it. (In ot...more
1. Make it easy-as-pie for customers to obtain content in whatever form they want it. (In ot...more
Nice read...I highly recommend for anyone thinking technology is ruining our society/culture...
Are we driving off a digital cliff and heading for disaster, unable to focus, maintain concentration, or form the human bonds that make life worth living? Are media and business doomed and about to be replaced by amateur hour?
The world, as Nick Bilton—with tongue-in-cheek—shows, has been going to hell for a long, long time, and what we are experiencing is the twenty-first-century version of the fear th...more
Are we driving off a digital cliff and heading for disaster, unable to focus, maintain concentration, or form the human bonds that make life worth living? Are media and business doomed and about to be replaced by amateur hour?
The world, as Nick Bilton—with tongue-in-cheek—shows, has been going to hell for a long, long time, and what we are experiencing is the twenty-first-century version of the fear th...more
Bilton is the lead blogger for the technology blog Bits at the New York Timesas well as a researcher in their media lab, so he has a unique position to look at the evolution of media and technology. What he tries to do over the course of this book is look at how emerging technologies whether on the Internet or mobile communications are changing the way in which people use information and interact with each other. To that end he interviews many different people from fellow journalists to technolo...more
I think this book would be a good one for your older relative who doesn't understand everything going on in the online world. It covers how old businesses are going over the cliff, and new business models will need to be created. If you are like me, and have been parked in front of a computer screen with an internet connection every day for the last 15 years, you probably won't find a whole lot here you didn't already know. So it is not a bad book, but nothing terribly revolutionary here. Yes, w...more
This was a great read on the topical subject of technology, social networks, and the way in which they increasingly coming a big part of our lives. For most of us, we can think back to just two years ago and how our relationships with our mobile devices has changed and get a glimpse of what's ahead, if not here already.
The author is very well-informed and involved as a digital native himself working for The New York Times. He keeps most everything on an upbeat note, mindfully taking into accoun...more
The author is very well-informed and involved as a digital native himself working for The New York Times. He keeps most everything on an upbeat note, mindfully taking into accoun...more
OK, I am trying really hard to embrace the ever-quickening pace of technological advances without feeling left behind. This book makes a good case in placing the internet age within the continuum of other historical world-changing shifts in communications (such as the printing press, television) with a message that our lives and brains will adapt to the new technologies. BUT, he also quotes the poet Yeats "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." and end...more
This book challenged me to rethink my rules about the use of cellphones and ipods during class. I am trying to be less legalistic. So far most students are fine. As in most of life, the few who are not able to handle the freedom will ruin it for the rest of us. I would say no more than a dozen students are unable to monitor their own use of the devices. That leaves 138 who are able to focus on classwork with only minimal electronic device usage.
Nick Bilton makes a nice case for the awesomeness...more
Nick Bilton makes a nice case for the awesomeness...more
Some of the book wasn't new, it was stuff that most people who have used the internet know.
Other bits were new and obviously well researched and worth reading.
Not a lot of predictions for the future, as hey nobody knows what that will bring but still it is a pretty good stake in the ground about what the online world is changing in society.
I was pleased to see that the New York Times has such a talented writer really up on technology and the bigger picture, who really knows his stuff. I was depr...more
Other bits were new and obviously well researched and worth reading.
Not a lot of predictions for the future, as hey nobody knows what that will bring but still it is a pretty good stake in the ground about what the online world is changing in society.
I was pleased to see that the New York Times has such a talented writer really up on technology and the bigger picture, who really knows his stuff. I was depr...more
It reads as long NY Times article and even though there is lots of interesting research mentioned it does not say anything really surprising. But what is great about the book is its optimism and openness to the new. Basically it says that our world is changing and even though this transition might be bumpy there is no need to worry. We have been there before and change is good. It turned me in to a techno-optimist, at least now in a days after reading it. I would definitely recommend it. And it...more
For those who follow and are engaged in the rapidly changing, computer-mediated world of information, much of Bilton's breezy, yet informative work will be old news. I picked up a few interesting nuggets to ponder here and there, but there was little new there for me. Nevertheless, for anyone suffering future shock/confusion/aggravation with the changes wrought through the web, smartphones, social networks, etc., Bilton's book is perfect. He takes the reader by the hand and gently guides him/her...more
The author, a technology reporter for the New York Times, shows the ways in which media have changed due to technology and how in turn this change shapes consumers’ expectations of how media are consumed. He argues against the Luddite claims that short-form, rapid-fire media “bytes” are destroying our brains (though he allows that our brains are changing due to how we use technology). He also argues that despite the radical nature of recent change, and the ability to acquire vast amounts of spec...more
Maybe I read too many books like this, but this one didn't bring anything new to the table.
Ch. 1 - Porn has always adapted to new technologies.
Ch. 2 - The printing press, radio, and tv also changed the culture.
ch. 3, 4 - digital natives dont consume news and entertainment like we do.
ch. 5, 7 - is mulititasking bad or just different?
ch. 6 - social networking
Ch. 8 - yep. it's changed alright.
If any of this seems new, this one is probably for you. If not, you could have probably written this book y...more
Ch. 1 - Porn has always adapted to new technologies.
Ch. 2 - The printing press, radio, and tv also changed the culture.
ch. 3, 4 - digital natives dont consume news and entertainment like we do.
ch. 5, 7 - is mulititasking bad or just different?
ch. 6 - social networking
Ch. 8 - yep. it's changed alright.
If any of this seems new, this one is probably for you. If not, you could have probably written this book y...more
I think I would have liked this book better if it offered me new information, but I am of his generation, already speaking his language. His book is persuasive to a generation older than me, with my iPhone streaming a personalized Reader feed full of news. But if I handed this book to someone who was a little older than me and prone to Luddite-ness, I think it would definitely have value.
I liked his letter to the media dinosaurs at the end. Because he's right, things will never look backward, o...more
I liked his letter to the media dinosaurs at the end. Because he's right, things will never look backward, o...more
It is repetitive, and not as good as a book like it written by Malcolm Gladwell or Stephen Johnson would have written. (Bilton is clearly writing in the Gladwellian mode.) But what he's talking about is important. I'm using this book in an honors course about multi-modal writing, and how to learn in a world where technology is in flux. This constitutes my first book in the 52 in 52 project I am undertaking for the new year.
This book is really about publishing, media and content. The title is a bit grand for the book's actual content. The greatest value is for the publishing and media industries and how their future is forever changed by technology and the "new" (social) media that people are embracing and consuming. Especially enjoyed Bilton's views on stories as "experiences" and how the media needs to cultivate relationships with audiences.
I did enjoy this book. It was comfortable, covering a bunch of concepts I'd been thinking about. That said, it wasn't necessarily earth-shattering for me. I felt like there was nothing absolutely new here, but rather an overview for members of the publishing industry, or elder people who weren't spending a ton of time online and maybe weren't aware of how people were getting news online these days.
I now feel very knowledgeable about technology use in the porn industry. No, really! I also got some great arguments for calming the panic about how "paper is dead, and we're all moving to eReaders." And that the interwebs is not the death of us all, despite what I hear all the time. Definitely worth the read, but maybe not at the beach like I did.
Jan 17, 2011
Patrick
added it
Two main points that stick with me.
Your friend, contacts in a social network that act as "anchors" filters in sea of information. They choose what you see, guard against information overload.
Content is changing. Storytelling remains. Content itself doesn't have the same value Important to design experience around content. Personalization is important.
Your friend, contacts in a social network that act as "anchors" filters in sea of information. They choose what you see, guard against information overload.
Content is changing. Storytelling remains. Content itself doesn't have the same value Important to design experience around content. Personalization is important.
Contained some interesting historical accounts of the development of technologies, but overall it was unenlightening. As a New York Times writer/reporter, Bilton prophesied that digital versions will trump the printed paper. This has been a no-brainer even prior to 2010. I think he wrote it as an I-told-you-so for his life after the Times.
Nick Bilton is a technology writer for the New York Times. In this book, he talks about how technology and the Internet are changing media and our entire world rapidly. He puts a positive spin on the demise of "traditional" ways of doing things, and opened my mind to a lot of possibilities I hadn't thought of for our future digital world. He also included some interesting stuff about how our news is becoming personalized and curated in new and individual ways. A fascinating read.
Bilton doesn't offer any completely new insights about the evolution of media, but he is an excellent writer and a very cogent explicator of the current trends affecting the New York Times and any other business that is struggling with how to adapt their business model to the new world being created by Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, etc. And of course, I read it on my Kindle.
I loved the title and the street cred of the author. I bought it gobbled it up and asked -- what didn't i already know. a bit stilted of a review but I bought the book and the app -- thinking this was all good. now, I can't recall much of the ground-breaking nature. it's timely but appears to be correct but creepily outdated by now.
Meh. Not much new here for anyone who spends time with "digital natives" on a daily basis and keeps up with basic tech news. However, Bilton does present some interesting case studies, and if you're unfamiliar with technology trends you might well find it enlightening. For a more detailed review, check my whatsheread.blogspot.com on Dec. 22, 2010.
Nick brings some great examples and anecdotes to this book, and the idea of anchor communities -- that the news you consume is no longer determined so much by an editor as by your community of trusted friends and associates -- is a truly important concept that is really the key idea of the book.
I did find some of the other chapters, for example the section on texting abbreviations and language, to be somewhat remedial. I would have liked him to explore the concept of anchor communities more -- h...more
I did find some of the other chapters, for example the section on texting abbreviations and language, to be somewhat remedial. I would have liked him to explore the concept of anchor communities more -- h...more
Good and interesting analysis of how new technology affects the human as individual and humans as a society. Raises a number of questions that have yet to be answered (foremost for me - what forms will professional storytelling take and who will pay for it?) Some intriguing hints at potentials for technology that may yet show up in future scifi stories...
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