The Best Technology Writing 2009 [Paperback]

Steven Johnson (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300154100 | ISBN-13: 978-0300154108 | Publication Date: October 6, 2009

“The ubiquity of the digital lifestyle has forced us to write and think about technology in a different way.”—Steven Johnson   

 

In his Introduction to this beautifully curated collection of essays, Steven Johnson heralds the arrival of a new generation of technology writing.  Whether it is Nicholas Carr worrying that Google is making us stupid, Dana Goodyear chronicling the rise of the cellphone novel, Andrew Sullivan explaining the rewards of blogging, Dalton Conley lamenting the sprawling nature of work in the information age, or Clay Shirky marveling at the “cognitive surplus” unleashed by the decline of the TV sitcom, this new generation does not waste time speculating about the future.  Its attitude seems to be: Who needs the future? The present is plenty interesting on its own.   

 

Packed with sparkling essays culled from print and online publications, The Best Technology Writing 2009 announces a fresh brand of technology journalism, deeply immersed in the fascinating complexity of digital life.

The Best Technology Writing 2009 includes essays written by:
Julian Dibbell
Dana Goodyear
Farhad Manjoo
David Talbot
Andrew Sullivan
Robin McKie
Dalton Conley
Nicholas Carr
The Onion
danah boyd
Joshua Davis
Clive Thompson
Elizabeth Kolbert
Dan Hill
Sharon Weinberger
Kevin Kelly
Luke O'Brien
Adam Stermbergh

and Clay Shirky

(20091208)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A fascinating collection… these essays will certainly resonate with you for quite some time, encouraging you to discover some gems hidden in the crevices of the Internet”—Edward Valauskas, First Monday
 
 
 
 

(Edward Valauskas First Monday 20091212)

"This is a fantastic series"—Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

 

 

(Cory Doctorow BoingBoing 20091031)

"Kim Stanley Robinson said recently that we''re all living in a science-fiction novel.  The essays is this excellent collection, edited by author Steven Johnson, explore how technology is shaping our lives."—The Guardian

(The Guardian )

"Chock full of great characters, ideas and passions."—Amanda Gefter, New Scientist

(Amanda Gefter New Scientist )

About the Author

Steven Johnson is the author of six books, including the recent bestsellers The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, and Everything Bad Is Good for You. He writes for the New York Times Magazine, Wired, the Guardian, Discover, and other publications, and has made numerous appearances on Charlie Rose, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report. He lives in Brooklyn.

 

 

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (October 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300154100
• ISBN-13: 978-0300154108
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #899,293 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

danah boyd is a researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society. She recently completed her PhD in the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley.

Dr. boyd's dissertation project Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics analyzes on how American youth use networked publics for sociable purposes. She examined the role that social network sites like MySpace and Facebook play in everyday teen interactions and social relations. She was interested in how mediated environments alter the structural conditions in which teens operate, forcing them to manage complex dynamics like interacting before invisible audiences, managing context collisions, and negotiating the convergence of public and private life. This work was funded by the MacArthur Foundation as part of a broader grant on digital youth and informal learning. The findings of the broader team are documented in a co-authored book: Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media.

At the Berkman Center, danah co-directed the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to work with companies and non-profits to identify potential technical solutions for keeping children safe online. This Task Force was formed by the U.S. Attorneys General and MySpace and is being organized by the Berkman Center. Currently, danah is co-directing the Youth Media and Policy Working Group, funded by MacArthur.

Dr. boyd is also an associate fellow at Tilberg Institute for Law, Technology and Society. She was a Commissioner on the Knight Commission on Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.

Dr. boyd received a bachelor's degree in computer science from Brown University and a master's degree in sociable media from MIT Media Lab. She has worked as an ethnographer and social media researcher for various corporations, including Intel, Tribe.net, Google, and Yahoo! She also created and managed a large online community for V-Day, a non-profit organization working to end violence against women and girls worldwide. She has advised numerous other companies, sits on corporate, education, and non-profit advisory boards, and regularly speaks at a wide variety of conferences and events.

danah maintains a blog on social media called Apophenia - http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/ and regularly posts to Twitter through @zephoria

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Only Marginally Related to Technology, January 26, 2011

By 

Dr. Bojan Tunguz (Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best Technology Writing 2009 (Paperback)

I am a theoretical physicist with an insatiable taste for all things technological. My home is filled with all sorts of gadgets, I am subscribed to several technology magazines, checking up on several tech websites and blogs is part of my morning routine, and I regularly write reviews of technology books and gadgets on Amazon and a couple other websites. I am also a bookworm and love reading and writing. With all this in mind a book that purports to be a collection of the best technology writing would seem like an ideal reading material for me. Unfortunately, this turned out not to be the case and this collection of essays is one of the more disappointing books that I've had the displeasure of reading in recent months. It turns out that most of the articles (with a few notable exceptions) in this collection deal with technology as a background for some other social, political, or artistic development. Rhapsodizing at length about blogging (which, by the way, is already considered passé) is no different than talking about sitcoms in the early days of television. An article about a "green" Danish island is actually very explicit about this point. The writer clearly says: "And that is the real lesson from Samso. What has happened here is a social not a technological revolution." Apparently, the editor of this collection didn't get that lesson. The collection overall seems much more concerned with making the "technology" writing palatable to the general technophobic audience than it is trying to appeal to people who are actually interested in technology. If that really is the case, then I think that the editor is underestimating the technological sophistication of today's general reading public.

To be fair, there are a few essays in this collection that I found genuinely interesting and informative. I particularly liked "Secret Geek A-Team Hacks Back, Defends Worldwide Web." It is a shocking revelation about a serious flow of in the web's architecture and how a major worldwide disaster had been barely averted. This is a real example of what good technology writing ought to be like - it presents an interesting technology that is not familiar to the general public and does so in an informative and engaging manner.

One of the articles in this collection was taken from The Onion, the satirical newspaper that takes an amusing spin on current news and trends. Unfortunately, even here the editor of this collection gets things wrong. The said Onion article was taken from The Onion Presents The Finest Reporting On Literature, Media, And Other Dying Art Forms and not from The Onion Presents Americas Finest Tech News, a much more appropriate source. You know you have completely missed your topic when The Onion has a more informative and accurate take on it.