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Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory Of The Web

David Weinberger (Goodreads Author)

3.88 · Rating details · 277 ratings · 27 reviews

The Web has not been hyped enough. That's the startling thesis of this one-of-a-kind book that's sure to become a classic work of social commentary. Just as Marshall McLuhan forever altered our view of broadcast media, Weinberger shows that the new medium of the Web is not only altering social institutions such as business and government but, more important, is transformin The Web has not been hyped enough. That's the startling thesis of this one-of-a-kind book that's sure to become a classic work of social commentary. Just as Marshall McLuhan forever altered our view of broadcast media, Weinberger shows that the new medium of the Web is not only altering social institutions such as business and government but, more important, is transforming bedrock concepts of our culture such as space, time, the public, and even reality itself. Weinberger introduces us to denizens of this new world, among them Zannah, whose online diary turns self-revelation into play; Tim Bray, whose map of the Web reveals what's at the heart of the new Web space; and Danny Yee and Claudiu Popa, part of the new breed of Web experts we trust despite their lack of qualifications. Through stories of life on the Web, an insightful take on some familiar (and some unfamiliar) Web sites, and a wicked sense of humor, Weinberger puts the Web into the social and intellectual context we need to begin assessing its true impact on our lives. The irony, according to Weinberger, is that this new technology is more in tune with our authentic selves than is the modern world. Funny, provocative, and ultimately hopeful, Small Pieces Loosely Joined makes us look at the Web -- and at life -- in a new light. From Small Pieces Loosely Joined: The Web has sent a jolt through our culture, zapping our economy, our ideas about the sharing of creative works, and possibly even institutions such as religion and government. Why? How do we explain the lightning charge of the Web? If it has fallen short of our initial hopes and fears about its transformational powers, why did it excite those hopes and fears in the first place? Why did this technology hit our culture like a bolt from Zeus? Suppose -- just suppose -- that the Web is a new world we're just beginning to inhabit . . . If the Web is changing bedrock concepts such as space, matter, time, perfection, public, knowledge, and morality -- each a chapter of this book -- no wonder we're so damn confused. That's as it should be. The Web is enabling us to rediscover what we've always known about being human: we are connected creatures in a connected world about which we care passionately . . . If this is true, then for all of the over-heated, exaggerated, manic-depressive coverage of the Web, we'd have to conclude that the Web in fact has not been hyped enough. ...more

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Paperback, 240 pages

Published May 8th 2003 by Basic Books (first published 2002)

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May 02, 2020 Richard Seltzer rated it really liked it

Are you feeling burnt-out, frustrated, tired of everything having to do with the Internet? Then for you, Small Pieces Loosely Joined could be like a revival meeting, giving you a taste of the old-time religion.

If there were a church of the Internet, this would be one of its sacred books, celebrating the Web as a social place, rather than technology. As David Weinberger puts it, "The Web is a social place that we humans constructed voluntarily out of a passion to show how the world looks to us." ...more

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Jun 16, 2013 Mikal rated it liked it

This book is a useful philosophical narrative for the web. To develop a web based application, to use the web for purposes of organization or to use the tools of the present day web is to build, organize, or navigate the world David Weinberger describes.

Small pieces is a useful treatise that loses itself from time to time. David's work is a cultural examination of the web- based on how it is similar or dissimilar to the lebenswelt (life-world). It's this examination that serves to be the glass c This book is a useful philosophical narrative for the web. To develop a web based application, to use the web for purposes of organization or to use the tools of the present day web is to build, organize, or navigate the world David Weinberger describes.

Small pieces is a useful treatise that loses itself from time to time. David's work is a cultural examination of the web- based on how it is similar or dissimilar to the lebenswelt (life-world). It's this examination that serves to be the glass ceiling of the essay. In order to define the web, the author inadvertently takes on the responsibility of defining the world.

Mr. Weinberger takes this on by examining the web through seven components: space, time, perfection, togetherness, knowledge, matter, and hope. These components while interrelated seem arbitrary, and I'm not sure why the author didn't build on other philosophical frameworks of the lebenswelt (a term the author doesn't use but is clearly referencing).

Excluding this significant drawback, the themes are loosely joined (but definitely not small pieces). And sadly the author takes up the challenge of building an argument by disproving other arguments. That's a serious challenge, because to disprove an argument assumes its a logical argument and not a paradox. So much of each section is spent disproving paradoxes as if they are logical arguments for example: the real world is experienced on a chronometric timescale leads to the perspective that the web world is not. We know that both statements are not entirely true. However that does not mean both are false.

Small pieces is best enjoyed in companion reading the book "where the action is" by Paul Dourish. Though he doesn't use this language the premise is that the web is a 'ready to hand' medium (we interact with it as an extension of our lebenswelt, losing sight of the bits and pixels that intermediate the interaction).

And with the exception of the time and matter section Mr. Weinberger makes his points. Particularly the points about perfection resonate in the voice of the modern corporation. The emphasis on placemaking too has a core value in examining how the products we develop foster a sense of place and that factors that contribute to it. The section on knowledge portends the crowdsourcing movement and the value of metadata. And finally the section on matter is really a corollary to the section on space; highlighting that each place gains from meaning and meaning gains from context. At the books conclusion, the premise and title "small pieces loosely joined" are all but lost in favor of a premise that the web world is the world as humans intend it.

To get the most of this book, the ideas must be first taken at face value and only debated in reflection. To do otherwise would be to lose sight of where the book leads you because the driver took a "wrong first turn". ...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Michael Burnam-Fink rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2013, history

Think about the internet in 2002. No Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, 4chan, Reddit or mobile anything. eBay was huge, as was Yahoo, Wikipedia was just a year old, the hottest meme was 'All Your Base Are Belong to Us' and the DotCom Bust had dropped napalm on a host of bad ideas. Weinberger takes us back that time, when he tries to explain how the web works.

Part of it, which might be exotic to surfers circa 2002, is common knowledge to pretty much anybody who isn't dead today; the blend of anonymity ...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Martin rated it it was ok

Shelves: martin

I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would. I am a big fan of his previous book, Everything Is Miscellaneous, but this book was far more philosophical and abstract than I was expecting.

The author looks at how the Internet changes some of our long held abstract concepts such as time, space, matter and togetherness. It was interesting, just not as relevant as i had hoped. I'm still looking forward to reading Weinberger's most recent book, Too Big to Know. ...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Hana Carpenter rated it it was ok

Shelves: net-and-tech

A time capsule of technologist optimism. This book is a poignant read; so many of the author's ambitions for the future of the Internet failed to come true. If you want to see what potential this medium held when it was young and the world was bright, this book is useful. I wouldn't take it much more seriously than that, though. ...more

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Sep 19, 2008 Erin rated it it was ok

I had to put this one down. I like these sorts of books to be either really current or really technical and academic, but this was neither. The style of writing was kind of entertaining, but there just wasn't anything new or groundbreaking that I haven't read or considered before. ...more

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Oct 09, 2007 Jenaya rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: gave-up

Hopelessly dated. Useless to me, even for a Writing 121 class.

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Sep 26, 2020 Charles rated it it was ok

“Unlike the real world, the world of programs is perfectly knowable, perfectly predictable, and perfectly controllable.” -page 79.

The author of this quote has either never spent time working on real programs, or is so radically oversimplifying to make his point that the point itself is irrelevant. This quote highlights one of the two main problems I had with this book.

The first is in the intent of this book, or what it aims to achieve. The book is pitched as a philosophical inquiry of what the w ...more

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Jun 03, 2019 Pat Villaceran rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book was created years ago, but it's evidently more relevant now. With social media and the culture of busy thumbs, Small Pieces tackles the innovation behind what we now call as everyday "needs."

...more

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Oct 31, 2017 David Snook rated it really liked it

Really deep, and surprisingly relevant even in 2017, considering the pace of technology.

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Jul 10, 2014 Jeremy rated it really liked it

Shelves: technology

Only on the web does a book 12 years old feel like ancient history. In many respects, Weinberger was prescient, identifying trends that have become more and more powerful (e.g., one passage could be seen as predicting the rise of Wikipedia, and another the advent of the currently omnipresent "Like" button). Even more often, he provides insights that are still deep and thought-provoking.

Weinberger is a philosopher by training, and this book is strongest when Weinberger focuses on philosophy. For ...more

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Sep 11, 2007 Jarrodtrainque rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

David Weinberger's Small Pieces Loosely Joined does not merely celebrate the World Wide Web; it attempts to make a case that the institution has completely remodeled many of the world's self-perceptions. The book does so entertainingly, if not convincingly, and is a lively collection of epigrammatic phrases (the Web is "'place-ial' but not spatial";"on the Web everyone will be famous to 15 people"), as well as illustrations of these changes. There are intriguing assertions: that the Web is "brok ...more

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Jan 18, 2012 Katie/Doing Dewey rated it liked it

Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory Of The Web was as philosophical as it sounds. The view of the web presented here is very abstract, focusing on the way the web has (according to the author) caused people to re-define fundamental concepts such as space, time and togetherness. I found a lot of the evidence he offered in support of these views self-evident although I'm still not sure I agree with his assertion that we view time differently because of the internet. I do, however, agree ...more

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Jan 03, 2016 Roger K. rated it really liked it

Books about the internet typically don't age well. It is impressive how relevant this book still is, even more than a decade after it was written. It shares many themes with The Netocrats and will appeal to anyone that has read that excellent work.

Weinberger builds on the Cluetrain Manifesto to explore how the internet and Web have redefined space, time, and ourselves. My main takeaway was that the main appeal of the internet and Web are that they are a place where we can be more ourselves - cre ...more

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Oct 25, 2009 Jen rated it liked it

Entertaining and informative read on the implications of the Internet- how it is/will change the world, society, the way people think. Very interesting, this book made me re-think the way I view the Internet, realize some of its possibilities (e-books), hate it both a little less and a little more. Basically, it opened my eyes about something I take for granted and made me realize the huge, fundamental changes in society that the Internet has made possible. Fascinating stuff, written lightly and ...more

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Jun 06, 2007 Joshua Bloom rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: anyone

Shelves: reference

A great high level look at what the Web means now and what it could mean in the future. Mr. Weinberger brings lots of great analysis to the social and societal reasons for the explosion and popularity of the Web.

Though there are references to and discussions of technology, this is not a technical book. This book is focused on the emotional and personal reasons that so many people are using the Web.

Read it. Don't wait. ...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Darius rated it it was amazing

10 years ago, this book kinda blew my mind. So tonight I was looking for another book to read and pulled this down from the shelf to read again. I'll also be farming some quotes for my Secret Project, while I'm at it. ...more

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Sep 06, 2008 Kelly rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-for-library-school, read-in-2008, non-fiction

Almost too touchy-feely for me to handle at times. Good ideas, though many are repeated in "Everything is Miscellaneous" on a more granular level. Still good - Weinberger's a great writer who weaves good analogies and good story-telling into a bigger picture. ...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Dlangendorf rated it it was amazing

One of my early favorites on the web. Thought provoking. An author and web observer not too full of himself as many are.

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Sep 21, 2011 MEGAN C rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library, non-fiction

Not bad. I like the way the chapters were set up. Good conversational tone, too.

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Aug 10, 2007 Lauren rated it it was amazing

Shelves: professional

This is THE BEST BOOK I'VE READ in at least five years. If you're interested in information, media, the internet, &/or culture. This one is for you. ...more

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