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Audio CD Description If you've ever had the sneaking (and perhaps depressing) suspicion that the Internet is radically changing the world as you know it, buck up. No wait, buckle up--it is. While some people celebrate this and others bemoan it, Michael Lewis has been busy investigating the reasons for this rapid change. Employing the sarcastic wit and keen recognition of social shifts that readers of Liar's Poker and The New New Thing will recognize, Lewis takes us on a quick spin through today and speculates on what it might mean for tomorrow. Central to Lewis's observations is the idea that the Internet hasn't really caused anything; rather it fills a type of social hole, the most obvious of which is a need to alter relations between "insiders" and "outsiders." In Next, Lewis shows how the Internet is the ideal model for sociologists who believe that our "selves are merely the masks we wear in response to the social situations in which we find ourselves." It is the place where a New Jersey boy barely into his teens flouts the investment system, making big enough bucks to get the SEC breathing down his neck for stock market fraud. Where Markus, a bored adolescent stuck in a dusty desert town and too young to even drive, becomes the most-requested legal expert on Askme.com, doling out advice on everything from how to plead to murder charges to how much an Illinois resident can profit from illegal gains before being charged with fraud ($5,001 was the figure Markus supplied to this particular cost-benefit query). Where a left-leaning kid of 14 in a depressed town outside Manchester is too poor to take up a partial scholarship to a school for gifted children, but who spends all hours (all cheap call-time hours, at least) engaged in "digital socialism," trying to develop a successor to Gnutella, the notorious file-sharing program that had spawned the new field of peer-to-peer computing. Lewis burrows deeply into each of these stories and others, examining social phenomena that the Internet has contributed to: the redistribution of prestige and authority and the reversal of the social order; the erosive effect on the money culture (both in the democratization of capital and in the effect of gambling losing its "status as a sin"); the decreased value we place on formal training (or as he puts it "casual thought went well with casual dress"); and the increased need for knowledge exchange. Lewis's observations are piercingly sharp. He can be very funny in portraying ordinary people's behavior, but remains thorough and insightful in his examination of the social consequences. He notes that Jonathan Lebed, the teenage online investor, had "glimpsed the essential truth of the market--that even people who called themselves professionals were often incapable of independent thought and that most people, though obsessed with money, had little ability to make decisions about it." While Lewis's commentary gets a little more dense and theoretical toward the end, Next is an entertaining, thought-provoking look at life in an Internet-driven world. --S. Ketchum

Customer Reviews Insightful, well-written analysis I've read several bestsellers on the implications of the internet, but found this one a notch above the rest. Whilst others are often totally skewed by commercial and technological aspects, this one went a lot deeper and touched on the Meta changes underlying society. But far from being a grand, generalist thesis, Lewis grounds his observations in real flesh-and-blood stories that are highly readable. His experience as a professional writer shines through on every page. The only reason I didn't give this five stars was that I feel Lewis missed some fundamental factors in his analysis of the three teenagers whose stories constitute the bulk of the book. I agree with him that children are more likely to leverage new technology because they can adopt and create new personas quicker than adults who carry along years of baggage. But there is, perhaps, an explanation much closer to home. The reason kids can rebel against the "insiders" and push the limits with such dedication and passion is because they are not paying off mortgages and education for their own kids. Marcus Arnold, (the teenage prodigy legal expert) claimed, with total naivety, that he was handicapped against practising lawyers because he had 6 hours of school every day. Hogwash! The lawyers were handicapped because every hour of their day had to show some revenue return to cover their costs of living. And when the "outsiders" bemoan the former outsiders who capitulate and sellout their technological ventures to the highest bidding "insiders", it is invariably because they are no longer been funded by Dad, and need to start footing their own bills. Notwithstanding - this is an excellent book. Scintillating Without beating about the bush, let me state that this is one of the best non-fiction books I have read on the effects of the Internet on our society. The book starts with the account of Jonathan Lebed, a 14 year old boy from New Jersey. Jonathan last year made half a million dollars in 6 months, using nothing but his savvy and the Internet. Using accounts and AOL and E-Trade, Jonathan and had bought stock, then using multiple fictitious names posted hundreds of messages on Yahoo Finance message boards recommending the stock to others. As a result, the stock would go up and Jonathan would make a nice profit on the sale. The book also looks into how another teenager, Marcus Arnold, registered himself as a law expert at Askme.com and soon reached the number one place in popularity. Lewis explores TV feedback technologies like the ones developed by Tivo (stock ticker: TIVO) and Sonicblue (stock ticker: SBLU), and how these technologies could affect us all in the near future. Lewis has a lot of information at his disposal and he disseminates it in a fascinating way. He has a lively style of writing and a great turn of phrase. For instance: "The old hotshot capitalist was so narrow-minded you could use his brain to slice salami." It cracked me up. A great read. Highly informative, highly interesting, highly recommended. http://ahmedakhan.journalspace.com Collection of interesting tech events - no significant trend The author attempts to paint some trends from haphazard internet-related happenings. His intent seems to be to say -- The internet changes _everything_, becomes a social leveller. Youngsters are making big changes not just in inventing new things, but also new processes, new paradigms, and oldies feel endangered and rightfully so. He uses stories like a kiddie making big stock gains and being investigated by SEC, another being a freelance lawyer and making it big fast, yet another writing programs to napsterize everything. He indicates "flattening" of normally hierarchically defined relationships in society and corporations, and has this concept of "insiders" being unseated by "outsiders" due to the ease with which radical new ideas can be imagined, developed and brought to market, thanks to the internet. There is some truth to his observations, but the few examples he quotes may not be sufficient to determine a wider trend. It is of course true that the internet gives "access" and "freedom" renewed relevance. I like to think of it as "digital democratization" of society.