Hola Todos!

There is no question that Jeff Jarvis’ book “What Would Google Do?” is one of my Top 5 book recommendations in the last five years. As you know, Jarvis is the captain of one of the most popular blogs focusing on the Internet and media – Buzzmachine.com. In addition, the former journalist (e.g., among past journalist positions – he was the creator and founding editor of Entertainment Weekly) is a faculty member at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism in NYC. His new book is called “Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live” A video and the Amazon info describing the book can be found here.

To be honest, I have not seen a copy of the book yet so I’m only going on this reputation and the review but the review and the topic sure seem like it would be something I would like to check out.  From what I read in the review, it seems Jarvis wanted explore how sharing on the Internet (e.g., Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, etc.,) can impact your one’s life and society.  We talked in class about the lack of true privacy we no longer have because of the Internet; we now live more and more in the public space (e.g., we share photos, videos, purchases, knowledge, friendships, locations, and lives.)

First, Jarvis does a condensed history lesion on disruptive innovations such as the camera and the printing press.  In addition, Jarvis interviews some heavy weights in the industry: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Eric Schmidt, and Twitter’s Evan Williams among others. There’s even an interesting thought calling the Internet “The Eight Continent.” In closing, “Jarvis explores the promising ways in which the internet and publicness allow us to collaborate, think, ways—how we manufacture and market, buy and sell, organize and govern, teach and learn.” I’m sure there will be a number of reviews in the popular press given his popularity so keep a look out in the next 2 to 3 weeks.

Best

Dr. Dan-o