One of only two women included in Vanity Fair's October "new establishment" roundup of the top 50 information age leaders and best known as writer/editor of the 15-year-old computer insiders' newsletter, Release 1.0, Dyson seems well credentialed to explain the importance, current and future, of net culture to the average citizen. Indeed, she delivers a readable analysis of such issues as the impact of the net on our education system, the ups and downs of privacy in digital environments, and the best strategies for governing amorphous international communities. The problem is that, though written in an engaging style, this is a serious study of many complex issues, and Dyson doesn't always resolve them easily. (Librarians may be disappointed at the short shrift they are given in the chapters on "Intellectual Property" and "Content Control.") Netizens will be fascinated, and those of us professionally affected by the net should read this book, but it will have trouble achieving the international best seller status that some expected.?Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"In Release 2.0, Esther Dyson continues to play a major role in pointing the way to the future where human communication is no longer bound by time, space, and form. What a marvelously thoughtful observer she is."
--Jim Barksdale, Netscape
"Release 2.0 is a cyber tour-de-force! It is rich, provocative, prophetic, and important. It is packed with 10 essays, 18 forecasts, 29 well-honed opinions, and 32 tough, key questions. Plus 51 insights, 70 new web services, and 8 over-the-horizon scenarios for 2004. Policy makers, pundits, and thoughtful citizens, take note: You'll read Release 2.0 at least twice, and refer to it again and again."
--John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
"Release 2.0 is must reading for people who want to understand the Internet's development and potential. Esther Dyson explains--in words that both laypeople and 'techies' will find illuminating--how the Net is a tool to improve our workplaces, schools, and government. Her analysis of Internet governance, content, and privacy is cutting edge and merits a wide readership."
--Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley
From the Publisher
"In
Release 2.0, Esther Dyson continues to play a major role in pointing the way to the future where human communication is no longer bound by time, space, and form. What a marvelously thoughtful observer she is."
--Jim Barksdale, Netscape
"Release 2.0 is a cyber tour-de-force! It is rich, provocative, prophetic, and important. It is packed with 10 essays, 18 forecasts, 29 well-honed opinions, and 32 tough, key questions. Plus 51 insights, 70 new web services, and 8 over-the-horizon scenarios for 2004. Policy makers, pundits, and thoughtful citizens, take note: You'll read Release 2.0 at least twice, and refer to it again and again."
--John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
"Release 2.0 is must reading for people who want to understand the Internet's development and potential. Esther Dyson explains--in words that both laypeople and 'techies' will find illuminating--how the Net is a tool to improve our workplaces, schools, and government. Her analysis of Internet governance, content, and privacy is cutting edge and merits a wide readership."
--Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley
From the Inside Flap
sther Dyson's provocative and visionary new book, <i>Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age.</i> In this eagerly anticipated book, Dyson--an entrepreneur, high-tech industry analyst, government adviser, and the "most powerful woman in the Net-erati," according to the <i>New York Times Magazine</i>--presents a fascinating exploration of our new digital society. She offers a detailed view of the rapidly expanding digital environment and provides a framework that will allow all of us to think intelligently about its effect on every aspect of our private and public lives.<br><br>Written with an insider's knowledge and a ready wit, and filled with anecdotes about the movers and shakers behind both products and policy, <i>Release 2.0</i> provides readers with a full understanding of the new world of cyberspace and shows how it is transforming the way we work and live. With a perspective at once authoritative and totally accessib
About the Author
Long regarded as one of the most powerful thinkers in the computing industry, Esther Dyson is president and owner of EDventure Holdings, a company focused on emerging information technology worldwide. EDventure Holdings publishes Release 1.0, a respected monthly newsletter, and sponsors the annual PC Forum for the high-tech industry's leading players. Named one of the fifty most influential people in the New Establishment by Vanity Fair, Dyson is in constant demand as a public speaker and has written articles for the New York Times, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Wired, and the Washington Post. She lives in New York City.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Net offers us a chance to take charge of our own lives and to redefine our role as citizens of local communities and of a global society. It also hands us the responsibility to govern ourselves, to think for ourselves, to educate our children, to do business honestly, and to work with fellow citizens to design rules we want to live by. I won't presume to tell you precisely what all those rules should be. Some are local; some are global. Indeed, the Net is not a single home: Rather, it's an environment where thousands of small homes and communities can form and define themselves.
My goal in this book is to pass on a little of my sense of the richness and potential of the Net. I want to take away the mystery and the technical mumbo jumbo, so that you can see the Net for what it is: a place where people meet, talk, do business, find out things, form committees, and pass on rumors. . . . some of the capabilities are different from the so-called real world: Anyone can go online and publish something that can be read anywhere in the world; a child can write to a president; a Hungarian merchant can find a Chinese customer. Above all, the Net is home for people.
Our common task is to do a better job with the Net than we have done so far in the physical world. The Net has some unique advantages: It takes away many of the logistical difficulties of space and time; information flows faster; markets are more efficient. The question is: How can we use these features to design a world that is more open, more accessible to everyone, and just a nicer place to live in?
What could be, what should be
Much of what I'm writing about is just starting to happen. Some of it is inevitable; some of it is not. Some of it could become true. But we need to do more than close our eyes and wish. To make it seem real, I've written a lot about what it will feel like to live on the Net and the kinds of communities we'll build: some real examples, and some only possible. The scenarios I describe are both predictions -- if we do things right -- and goals. (I've taken care to point out which is which.)
I'm describing how it could be if we do pay attention to the underlying rules: Freedom of choice, freedom of speech, honesty, and disclosure. Markets will do a lot of the design if we let them, but we need a foundation of both traditional, or terrestrial, and Net-based rules to make the markets work properly. We also need habits of honesty and generosity.
I addition, we need the good guys - you - to be active in designing this new world. No system in the world is so well-designed that it can't grow stale, rigid, or corrupted by those who benefit most from it. The only guarantee of continued freedom is the presence of the pesky people who keep asking those in power to account for their actions. By its very nature, the system can't do that for itself. It's up to you. The Net offers us a chance to take charge of our own lives and to redefine our role as citizens of local communities and of a global society. It also hands us the responsibility to govern ourselves, to think for ourselves, to educate our children, to do business honestly, and to work with fellow citizens to design rules we want to live by. I won't presume to tell you precisely what all those rules should be. Some are local; some are global. Indeed, the Net is not a single home: Rather, it's an environment where thousands of small homes and communities can form and define themselves.
My goal in this book is to pass on a little of my sense of the richness and potential of the Net. I want to take away the mystery and the technical mumbo jumbo, so that you can see the Net for what it is: a place where people meet, talk, do business, find out things, form committees, and pass on rumors. . . . some of the capabilities are different from the so-called real world: Anyone can go online and publish something that can be read anywhere in the world; a child can write to a president; a Hungarian merchant can find a Chinese customer. Above all, the Net is home for people.
Our common task is to do a better job with the Net than we have done so far in the physical world. The Net has some unique advantages: It takes away many of the logistical difficulties of space and time; information flows faster; markets are more efficient. The question is: How can we use these features to design a world that is more open, more accessible to everyone, and just a nicer place to live in?
What could be, what should be
Much of what I'm writing about is just starting to happen. Some of it is inevitable; some of it is not. Some of it could become true. But we need to do more than close our eyes and wish. To make it seem real, I've written a lot about what it will feel like to live on the Net and the kinds of communities we'll build: some real examples, and some only possible. The scenarios I describe are both predictions -- if we do things right -- and goals. (I've taken care to point out which is which.)
I'm describing how it could be if we do pay attention to the underlying rules: Freedom of choice, freedom of speech, honesty, and disclosure. Markets will do a lot of the design if we let them, but we need a foundation of both traditional, or terrestrial, and Net-based rules to make the markets work properly. We also need habits of honesty and generosity.
I addition, we need the good guys - you - to be active in designing this new world. No system in the world is so well-designed that it can't grow stale, rigid, or corrupted by those who benefit most from it. The only guarantee of continued freedom is the presence of the pesky people who keep asking those in power to account for their actions. By its very nature, the system can't do that for itself. It's up to you.
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