Rating: 
Summary: Short Stories...Loosely Connected
Review: "Small Pieces Loosely Joined" is one of the books that I was really excited to read. Great subject. Great author. And sure enough, within each chapter, I has some really thoughtful moments. But on balance--and maybe this was intentional--the overall connection just seemed missing (as if the chapters were loosely joined...). As a set of short stories, the chapters are provacative. Overall though it left me wanting a bit more. A good book for a slow afternoon...and hey, there's really nothing wrong with that.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't tell me anything I didn't already know
Review: A confusing little book - from all the hype you'd think there was some earth-shattering discovery enclosed therein.But this was just a collection of little essays about the web, the contents of which would be so plainly obvious to every 12 year-old I know. Yet for an over-40 who'd never used the Web, they wouldn't understand it either. So who is the target audience? It doesn't even merit being considered as "WWW Futures 101". Very disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: An inside out view of why the web works
Review: David Weinberger's recent work illustrates a unique persepective of what is driving the web's popularity. You may have thought the meteoric growth was being driven by the technologically elite, or kids doing instant messaging, or perhaps e-commerce. But according to the author, its really being driven by our need to be ourselves and the unique setting that the web provides for exhibiting our real (or assumed) personalities. This refreshing view makes logical sense and may hold the key to how business (and society) can leverage its awesome power going forward.
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Summary: The Web's first Cosmologist
Review: If John Perry Barlow is the Internet's prophet and Sherry Turkle is its anthropologist, by writing "Small Pieces, Loosely Joined," David Weinberger has become its first cosmologist, its Stephen Hawking. In this slender, very readable and sometimes laugh-out-loud book, Weinberger examines the meaning, impact and use of the Internet with great insight and wisdom. He left me understanding how profoundly important the Internet is and how deeply it is affecting our society. It's not just another technological advance...it changes everything. I realize that some people just don't get it, won't get it and can't get it, despite the crystal clarity of Weinberger's prose. But some people never get it. Even Alexander Graham Bell was initially convinced the phone would be best used for transmitting music over long distances and I believe there was a fellow by the name of Watson who predicted the US would never need more than five computers. If Weinberger had been around then and writing books about telephoine and computers, they might have better understood the potential of their creations. If you want to understand what the Internet means for us today and what it might mean tomorrow, I can think of no better basis than "Small Pieces Loosely Joined." His ideas will resonate in your mind long after you've finished the book.
Rating:
Summary: If ya gotta ask, you'll never know...
Review: In reading David Weinberger's "Small Pieces Loosely Joined", his thesis of how the Web works and impacts our lives, I couldn't help but recall Louis Armstrong's legendary response to the question "What is jazz". "Man, if ya gotta ask," he supposedly replied, "you'll never know." "Small Pieces" tries to ask just that question: What is the Web? Not to say that Weinberger doesn't know (he does), but in trying to formulate an answer with "Small Pieces", he offers few new insights. There's nothing in this book that will hit the reader like a ton of bricks, especially if he or she has any degree of Web experience. Indeed, while well-written and informative, the bulk of the content is a rehash of earlier Internet thinkers like Clifford Stoll, Nicholas Negroponte, Eric Raymond, Howard Rhiengold and even Jeremy Rifkin. Old-school netizens will be particularly disappointed, especially since the tone of the book comes disturbingly close to the technlogy-will-change-everything breathelessness of the dotcom days. "Small Pieces", however, has its merits -- particularly in Weinberger's writing style. In that vein, "Small Pieces" makes a good beach book... and it's also good for those new to the Web (or at least those who are critically thinking about it for the first time). But if you really want to learn what the Web's all about, get surfing and build your own website. Like learning how to ride a bike, the only way to learn the Web is by hopping on the seat and risking a few skinned knees.
Rating:
Summary: If ya gotta ask, you'll never know...
Review: In reading David Weinberger's "Small Pieces Loosely Joined", his thesis of how the Web works and impacts our lives, I couldn't help but recall Louis Armstrong's legendary response to the question "What is jazz". "Man, if ya gotta ask," he supposedly replied, "you'll never know." "Small Pieces" tries to ask just that question: What is the Web? Not to say that Weinberger doesn't know (he does), but in trying to formulate an answer with "Small Pieces", he offers few new insights. There's nothing in this book that will hit the reader like a ton of bricks, especially if he or she has any degree of Web experience. Indeed, while well-written and informative, the bulk of the content is a rehash of earlier Internet thinkers like Clifford Stoll, Nicholas Negroponte, Eric Raymond, Howard Rhiengold and even Jeremy Rifkin. Old-school netizens will be particularly disappointed, especially since the tone of the book comes disturbingly close to the technlogy-will-change-everything breathelessness of the dotcom days. "Small Pieces", however, has its merits -- particularly in Weinberger's writing style. In that vein, "Small Pieces" makes a good beach book... and it's also good for those new to the Web (or at least those who are critically thinking about it for the first time). But if you really want to learn what the Web's all about, get surfing and build your own website. Like learning how to ride a bike, the only way to learn the Web is by hopping on the seat and risking a few skinned knees.
Rating:
Summary: Philosophy of the 'Net
Review: More a look at society as bounded by the Web than a look at the Web itself, as someone described this book. That's true, for it seems to offer more insights about modern humanity and the weird situation we've created for ourselves than about the Internet itself. Topics include knowledge, time, matter - the stuff of philosophy, and not of a book about the Net. Everyone who uses the internet should read this book. Anyone interested in modernity should read it as well, even if she doesn't have a computer.
Rating:
Summary: Significant Thoughts Loosely Joined
Review: Significant technologies affect the environments within which they operate. Environments shape, warp & re-define the technologies that operate within them. But until "Small Pieces Loosely Joined", there hasn't been a single worthwhile analysis of what these effects are and what they mean.
This *may* be the first significant book written about the major changes the Internet is (and will be) causing among the important minority of people who constitute The Wired World. It's not a business book (though aspiring entrepreneurs would learn some valuable lessons from it), nor is it a "how to" guide. The work is philosophical, sociological, but fun accessible to any reader that has interacted with other people or companies on the web or in a newsgroup. Weinberger's language tends to be simple, and sometimes colorful (e.g., "Knowledge started out fat and chewy", before launching into descriptions of opinions on knowledge from the Bible and Heraclitus).
I don't agree with the author on all his conclusions. And I'm not sure that readers who are widely-read on the social effects of computer networking will not know already many of his explanations.
But there's more valuable, insightful thinking in the first chapter of this book than in any other half-dozen Internet books you could name. If you're interested in how the Internet is changing our institutions and our way of relating to each other, and in what directions this might lead in the future should consider this lively and fun book.
Rating:
Summary: A survey of Internet language & experience
Review: Small Pieces Loosely Joined is a survey of Internet language, experience, and relationships between reality and Web sites makes for intriguing discussions of media and it's influence on human achievement. Weinberger argues the web is more than a worldwide link: it is also a public forum with world contributors and offers the potential for lives to be lived in another realm.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful look at what the web has taught us
Review: The reason that I chose to read this in the first place was that I was seeing it listed in sidebar after weblog sidebar, so it seemed like the "in" book to be reading right now. I quickly discovered that there is good reason for all the buzz. This book will probably be solely remembered for its spin on the Warhol quote that "on the Internet, everyone will be famous to 15 people" (loose paraphrase), and that's a shame, because it's so much more than that. Weinberger asserts that the advent of the Web has forced us to take a hard look at our assumptions about things like space, time, relationships, and what really matters to us. The Web, rather than something that is inherently good or bad, is a fairly accurate reflection of who we are as a society. Weinberger's style is both enlightening and disarming. I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about where we've come since the Web's introduction, and (perhaps) where we're going.
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