Here Comes Everybody summary

If we are to create effective groups, we must be able to share and cooperate with one another. Thanks to new methods of communication introduced by the internet, these two central forms of group activity have improved drastically.

Digital platforms that allow sharing now give us the chance to share items in the way we want to on a scale that we have never experienced before.

How exactly do new digital platforms foster effective organization? Now that extensive coordination can happen involving very little cost, we can achieve complex work without a huge institution looking over our shoulders.

Take Wikipedia, for example, which was one of the main catalysts in changing how we organize.

Have you ever considered how many organizational obstacles modern digital platforms help us avoid? New forms of communication have reduced the need for organizations to employ a hierarchy of employees and cost of retaining them.

Traditionally, large businesses or government agencies incur significant costs in both time and energy.

We have seen how new technologies affect the way we organize. But it is important to understand that they only work because they support, rather than replace, our desire to coordinate and socialize.

Before the internet, telecommunications technologies helped us stay in touch with loved ones, but even then we prefered to meet up in person.

Communities and groups no longer need to depend on physical location because every webpage essentially functions as a community; users convene on a website, creating a communal space.

For instance, by allowing users to post comments on web pages and giving them the option to participate in forums or chat rooms, the internet serves as a platform on which users can interact with each other. It is essentially nurturing groups’ basic functions.

Digital platforms like social media sites serve one main function: they make it easy to share information. Activities such as reading the newspaper or tuning into a radio broadcast are no longer our primary information sources.

Newspapers, television and other mass media used to be the main way to inform the public of news, and these types of media have suffered the most from today’s cheaper and faster communication. Social media is replacing old media by turning everyone who posts on the internet into a publisher. After all, if you post on Twitter or Facebook, you’re technically publishing or broadcasting that information.

Have you ever wondered what someone means when they call themselves a “professional” on the internet? It’s unclear since most of us have access to information that was previously exclusive to experts. As a result, we’re seeing a rise in amatuer publishers and a dip in the professional market.

The line between professional and amateur in journalism is particularly blurry.