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The Master Switch
- The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
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Publisher's summary
A secret history of the industrial wars behind the rise and fall of the 20th century's great information empires - Hollywood, the broadcast networks, and AT&T - asking one big question: Could history repeat itself, with one giant entity taking control of American information?
Most consider the Internet Age to be a moment of unprecedented freedom in communications and culture. But as Tim Wu shows, each major new medium, from telephone to cable, arrived on a similar wave of idealistic optimism only to become, eventually, the object of industrial consolidation profoundly affecting how Americans communicate. Every once-free and open technology was in time centralized and closed, a huge corporate power taking control of the master switch. Today, as a similar struggle looms over the Internet, increasingly the pipeline of all other media, the stakes have never been higher. To be decided: who gets heard, and what kind of country we live in. Part industrial exposé, part meditation on the nature of freedom of expression, part battle cry to save the Internet's best features, The Master Switch brings to light a crucial drama rife with indelible characters and stories, heretofore played out over decades in the shadows of our national life.
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When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, what will they say was the most crucial development in the first few years of the twenty-first century? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations?
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If you like cliches...
- By Jonathan Shultz on 09-08-07
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The Filter Bubble
- What the Internet Is Hiding from You
- By: Eli Pariser
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.
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Now in the top 3 best books I've ever read
- By Brian Esserlieu on 05-26-11
By: Eli Pariser
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Program or Be Programmed
- Ten Commands for a Digital Age
- By: Douglas Rushkoff
- Narrated by: Douglas Rushkoff
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In 10 chapters, composed of 10 "commands", Rushkoff provides cyber enthusiasts and technophobes alike with the guidelines to navigate the digital new universe. In this spirited, accessible poetics of new media, Rushkoff picks up where Marshall McLuhan left off, helping listeners to recognize programming as the new literacy of the digital age - and as a template through which to see beyond social conventions and power structures that have vexed us for centuries.
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Good book, but with some crazy ranting
- By Bjarne on 02-05-15
By: Douglas Rushkoff
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Becoming Facebook
- The 10 Challenges That Defined the Company That's Disrupting the World
- By: Mike Hoefflinger
- Narrated by: Nicholas Techosky
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Facebook's founding is legend: In a Harvard dorm, wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg invented a new way to connect with friends...and the rest is history. But for the people who actually molded this great idea into a game-changing $300 billion company, the experience was far more tumultuous and uncertain than we might expect. Mike Hoefflinger was one of those Facebook insiders.
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mainly a tribute to the success of FB
- By Anonymous User on 10-07-18
By: Mike Hoefflinger
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The End of Power
- From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be
- By: Moises Naim
- Narrated by: Matt Kugler
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In The End of Power, award-winning columnist and former Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím illuminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor. Drawing on provocative, original research and a lifetime of experience in global affairs, Naím explains how the end of power is reconfiguring our world.
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Another Power book
- By Anonymous User on 04-12-24
By: Moises Naim
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The Starfish and the Spider
- The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
- By: Ori Brafman, Rod Beckstrom
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: "spiders", which have a rigid hierarchy, and "starfish", which rely on the power of peer relationships.
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Centralized and decentralized models
- By Chan Meng on 12-07-07
By: Ori Brafman, and others
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Service Games
- The Rise and Fall of SEGA: Enhanced Edition
- By: Sam Pettus
- Narrated by: Tom Racine
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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New Edition! More content, images, and corrected text and facts. Monochrome edition. Starting with its humble beginnings in the 1950s and ending with its swan-song, the Dreamcast, in the early 2000s, this is the complete history of Sega as a console maker. Before home computers and video game consoles, before the Internet and social networking, and before motion controls and smartphones, there was Sega.
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The Story of the Fall of Sega
- By Austin on 01-05-15
By: Sam Pettus
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Trekonomics
- The Economics of Star Trek
- By: Manu Saadia
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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What would the world look like if everybody had everything they wanted or needed? Trekonomics, the premier book in financial journalist Felix Salmon's imprint PiperText, approaches scarcity economics by coming at it backward - through thinking about a universe where scarcity does not exist. Delving deep into the details and intricacies of 24th-century society, Trekonomics explores post-scarcity and whether we, as humans, are equipped for it.
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An Amusing & Practical Analysis of Fictional Ideas
- By Lost In The Wash on 09-19-16
By: Manu Saadia
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The Square and the Tower
- Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Elliot Hill
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Most history is hierarchical: it's about emperors, presidents, prime ministers, and field marshals. It's about states, armies, and corporations. It's about orders from on high. Even history "from below" is often about trade unions and workers' parties. But what if that's simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the informal, less well documented social networks that are the true sources of power and drivers of change?
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Not his best by a long chalk: Read Steven Pinker.
- By David on 02-05-18
By: Niall Ferguson
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Electronic Dreams
- How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer
- By: Tom Lean
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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In Electronic Dreams, Tom Lean tells the story of how computers invaded British homes for the first time, as people set aside their worries of electronic brains and Big Brother and embraced the wonder technology of the 1980s. This book charts the history of the rise and fall of the home computer, the family of futuristic and quirky machines that took computing from the realm of science and science fiction to being a user-friendly domestic technology.
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Awesome outline of electronic history
- By Johnny on 09-28-17
By: Tom Lean
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The Network
- The Battle for the Airwaves and the Birth of the Communications Age
- By: Scott Woolley
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the origin story of the airwaves - the foundational technology of the communications age - as told through the 40-year friendship of an entrepreneurial industrialist and a brilliant inventor. David Sarnoff, the head of RCA and equal parts Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, and William Randolph Hearst, was the greatest supporter of his friend, Edwin Armstrong, developer of the first amplifier, the modern radio transmitter, and FM radio.
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The Classic Struggle
- By Jean on 06-01-16
By: Scott Woolley
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Great history, but could poor narration
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In The Outsiders, you'll learn the traits and methods striking for their consistency and relentless rationality that helped these unique leaders achieve such exceptional performance. Humble, unassuming, and often frugal, these "outsiders" shunned Wall Street and the press, and shied away from the hottest new management trends. Instead, they shared specific traits that put them and the companies they led on winning trajectories: a laser-sharp focus on per share value as opposed to earnings or sales growth; an exceptional talent for allocating capital and human resources; and the belief that cash flow, not reported earnings, determines a company's long-term value.
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Great summary of the 8 CEOs, lessons to learn from
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The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
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Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.
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Few forests, but lots of trees
- By Steve Pagano on 10-05-15
By: Francis Fukuyama
What listeners say about The Master Switch
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- James
- 12-20-14
Compelling!
Great book! Would recommend it to anyone who's interested in learning about the history of information exchange in the US.
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Overall
- Roy
- 11-12-10
Great Read
Tim Wu, a scholar of technology, innovation and cyberspace has produced a very informative book which is timely in many ways. He relates in detail how communication technology has been guided by the profit motive and political actions during the last century and the current era. I have heard some of these stories before, but not in this context. If you are interested in or concerned about the direction that electronic media is taking in the US, this is the book for you. It is not light reading, but well worth the time spent. I found the first few chapters a little tedious largely because they were not covering what I was I thought were my interests. After a while, however, I realized what Wu was saying and by the last third of the book he had "my earlobes in his hands." I would, however, recommend that you listen to the Audible recording of Wu's earlier book, "Who Controls the Internet?", first for background. This book will fill in the details and more. Well written and accessible. Marc Vietor's narration is excellent.
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33 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Kindle Customer
- 01-31-11
Something to think about
This book gave me a lot to think about. It give a look into monopolies and how they are formed. How the government can play a role into breaking them up or let them continue business as usual.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Praetor
- 01-09-12
Comprehensive history of the communications market
This book presents a comprehensive history and analysis of the modern US communications market, from the invention of the telephone, to the internet today. Over and over a monopoly is born, new technology rises and attempts to overthrow it, but often fails, but the monopoly eventually collapses, letting the new kids take over. The role of government in sustaining these monopolies and quashing competition is particularly illuminating, especially considering the free-market ethos so central to US thinking. It's all very interesting, and I feel I learned a lot from it.
Two caveats, though: the narration is merely adequate, and sometimes feels wooden and forced. It didn't seriously bother me, but a better performance would have helped. Second, and this is important to remember, Wu discuss the US market, almost to the exclusion of the rest of the world. When foreign lands do appear, it's usually only because they relate directly to the US market at that point (like a source of imported films in the early 20th century). That's not too bad, as the US was definitely the source of developments in the communications market, but just be aware of this limitation.
All in all, I enjoyed it, and can recommend it if you want to learn more about this field.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Devin J Lavigne
- 05-05-12
Interesting, Fascinating and Well Read
I seriously loved this book. Everything about it - the history and insight into media was fascinating and the narrator was perfect.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Scott Carmichael
- 07-28-14
Way too long, and wasn't really what I was wanting
Would you try another book from Tim Wu and/or Marc Vietor?
Probably not, as he seemed to turn a straightforward analysis of monopolies and innovation into a super long history of everything from the film Heaven's Gate to education switchboard operators had in the early 1900s. Ughh.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
Cut each chapter's content by 50-75%. The entire book should have been about 7 hrs. max.
What do you think the narrator could have done better?
Yeah, because his monotone voice seemed to drag the overly detailed histories to seem even longer than they were written. To be fair, there isn't much anyone could do with the material.
Could you see The Master Switch being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
No way - unless some company wants to fund a 22 part series with each part being 2-3 hrs., I don't see this info translating to TV at all. Information overload.
Any additional comments?
This is a good example of a book with an interesting premise purposely made longer for the sake of pleasing a publisher and/or writer's ego. I didn't need to know the detail of every word mentioned, nor was 95% of it even relevant to the topics being discussed. Instead of focusing on modern day things the vast majority of the book is stuck in the late 1800s/early 1900s and only the last few chapters deal with the internet. Microsoft is omitted almost entirely, while glowing praise for Apple and Google gushes from the author far too much. The final chapter is one giant opinion and rambles on from one "point" to another with no clear end in sight. It's not a 2-star book, but it came close. I regret listening to it.
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- Bryan Marinez
- 09-09-17
Intriguing
Great read. sincerely makes you think about how we have grown technologically. Great for history and tech geeks.
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- Tim Martin
- 07-30-20
Recurring monopolist aspirations
Reads like a mafia war! The turf battle for commercial domination of the information/ tech verticals: the operating systems, the delivery mechanisms and of course, the content. Wu's historical (and fascinating) case-studies remind us that the wheel keeps turning and nothing is new. Wu's writing is not weighed down - he is approachable and cleverly succinct. A bit like listening to an extended lecture from your favourite university Professor.
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- Wade T. Brooks
- 06-25-12
An Excellent Read
Very interesting historical account of information monopolies including telecom, the movie studios, FM radio, TV and the internet. How oligarchies and the government have historically stifled competition and fought for control, often playing dirty pool.
Lone inventors of game changing technologies are profiled.
The last section of book focuses on the internet and how it may have created a different dynamic/cycle.
Missing is the role of VC's and investors in this new model and how they help the inventors and small companies from getting crushed by the oligarchies. A major oversight in my opinion.
Excellent read.
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- Tim
- 01-28-11
Geek Read
I needed a good tech read and this title what my interest called for. Tim Wu went beyond at doing his homework for this book. The Master Switch needs to be an requirement for any communication class. The book force us to look on an open network. Great read!!! I was hook.
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13 people found this helpful