There’s a revolution going on, as ever-accelerating developments in digital information technologies change nearly every aspect of how we live, work, play, do business, and engage in politics. Share and share alike—the numbers say it all as billions of people worldwide flock to online media and use social networks to discover and spread news and information.

In the process, ever-growing networks of “ordinary people” are using these powerful new tools to trim the influence long held by Big Business, Big Government, and Big Media. No longer just passive recipients, participants in social networks now regularly make and break news while organizing civic and political actions that bypass censors, outpace traditional media, attract massive audiences, and influence the rise and fall of brands, industries, politicians, and even governments.

In my forthcoming look at how social media are transforming our world, Friends, Followers and the Future: How Social Media Are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands, and Killing Traditional Media, I explain the trends and explore what tech visionaries, media makers, political advisers, and businesspeople are saying about the meteoric rise of the various social networks of friends and followers, and what they bode for our future.

Here’s what some savvy media and academic observers are already saying about me and Friends, Followers and the Future:

“Rory O’Connor is one of the smartest media guys around. He knows who’s spinning, who’s pandering, and who’s putting money in his own pocket at the expense of logic, reason, and the public good.”—Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair media critic

“This is a timely book about a vital subject: How do we get information and is it reliable? If you want to understand the future of news, its opportunities and its pitfalls, read this book.” — Ken Auletta, author and New Yorker media writer

“This is a book in the know with ideas that we will all need to know as we navigate our personal and collective futures.” — Danny Schechter, News Dissector.com

“This book is a comprehensive, up-to-date, and fair-minded survey of how social media are conveying — and perhaps transforming — what we want to know.” — Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education and author, most recently, of Truth, Beauty and Goodness Reframed

I’m proud that my publisher is Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s famed City Lights of San Francisco!

ISBN-10 0872865568
ISBN-13 9780872865563
Publication Date April 2012
List Price $13.95