Here comes everybody

Just finished reading Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, which was recommended by Alea. Reading it took me back to the Cluetrain Manifesto, and the late 90s. Here comes is about the irreversible effect of social software on human organisation. Shirky points out the web 2.0 social tools enable the formation of communities that couldn’t exist before the rise of blogs, Facebook and ubiquitous mobile comms. Organisation costs money. Social software on the internet has dramatically lowered those costs for all sorts of possible groups, including single mums, Howard Dean supporters, and friends of owners of stolen PDAs.

Those groups can share (Flickr), collaborate (Open Source developers) and act in concert (flash mobs). To bring groups together, there must be a plausible promise, a comms tool, and a bargain. The book is highly readable, and illustrated with lots of anecdotage. I suspect some of the ideas might be applicable to electronic trading…