The Master Switch
The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
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Narrated by:
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Marc Vietor
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By:
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Tim Wu
About this listen
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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Here for the first time, in rich human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly - or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity, there was a span of hardly more than 25 years.
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Beware limitations of the reader
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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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- Rissa
- 04-27-13
Informative Story!
I never knew (but honestly not surprised) by all the events discussed in the book. This book takes you beyond the history books into what really happened as our culture entered the information age.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-11-15
This was one of the best books ever.
Thought it would be boring and the cover is sort of ugly. But if you want scholarly insight into why people think their telecom/cable service is such a hot mess and if you wanna peek into all the power plays behind the scenes in the telecom/tech world you gotta listen to this book.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-30-19
Continue Growing.
Very well done now anyone we need to get together with many writers or historians & place those findings from history with many people on topics from any period of time in every book.
Evolution where one goes we all go.
Overcome , resistance & victory.
Peace , love & joy.
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- Steve
- 10-03-11
Must listen for anyone in technology or media
Where does The Master Switch rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Master Switch is a modern history book about the rise and fall of information and the technology (and people) that facilitated it. As a technologist I find it to be a required listen for anyone interested in technology and media with the hope that there are many lessons to learn.
What did you like best about this story?
How Tim Wu takes the listener on a tour of the history of information technology and the communication empires that it spawned such as telephone, radio, television and now those that evolved from the internet and mobile spaces.
Which character – as performed by Marc Vietor – was your favorite?
The depiction of Edison and David Sarnoff were quite interesting. However, it wasn't specifically due to Marc's narration.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
The book is too dense to listen in one sitting. I found that I would listen to passages and then reflect on them later. There were a few chapters that I listened to more than once.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Gary
- 05-27-12
Good history, good current state
Compelling history of information companies and what the current state looks like and what will happen in the future based on history. He covers the history so well I'll never listen to a another history on this topic again.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Frank
- 07-14-16
Fantastic book, very well presented
Highly recommend for people with an interest in media history and the convergence of media, information, technology and the Internet. Much of the history covered isn't the boilerplate facts and figures many recite, but rather a detailed look at why things evolved the way they did, which many likely don't know. I learned more than I expected, which is great. And it raises issues about the the future of the Internet that need more awareness. I expected this book to possibly go off the rails getting hung up in net neutrality dogma, but it was anything but that. Tim Wu does a great job of not only being pragmatic but doing it in such a way where you realize just how much push and pull has happened to get us where we are now and what's at stake moving forward.
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- chetyarbrough.blog
- 03-13-16
INTERNET
“The Master Switch” will flip some listeners off and some on.
Tim Wu writes about man’s drive to acquire a master switch that controls how the public receives information. The first section of the book sets a table for understanding 21st century communication technology. Wu doggedly recounts a history of the communication industry. It may turn some listeners off but stick with it, Wu has something to say.
Ignorance of communication technology is everywhere. Consumers are more interested in what they can get than what they can change. Consumers have no interest in understanding the ones and zeros of programming. The general public would rather let someone else make product decisions and vote with their pocketbook when they are dissatisfied. The public does understand technology and could care less. “Show me the product and what it can do” and “Show me the money” are mankind’s arbiters of who gets the “Master Switch”.
Wu opens one’s mind but fails to come up with a plan that will change the internet’s trajectory.
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- Neil
- 10-24-11
Very interesting history, biased conclusions
I've never heard of Tim Wu before reading this, but he really knows his stuff as far as media/technology history goes. The best parts of this book were examining this history of prior "cutting edge" media (Telephony, Radio, Television) through the eyes of what we'd now call the "Open Source" vs. "Closed System" dynamic. Fascinating and informative. I found I couldn't put it down.
HOWEVER -- the last hour turns into a very biased analysis of what's going on today.
I take his larger point -- that the Internet's open-ended structure which we tend to think of as permanent is not, in fact, unassailable. I think it's a well-supported point and he makes some interesting conjectures as to how that structure could change.
But I feel he makes a serious error in his analysis.
Specifically, he reduces "fate of the communications future" to a simple dynamic: Apple vs Google, with his preference clearly falling on Team Google. I think this a fairly short-sighted, narrow interpretation. Unlike the Bell of RCA companies of yesteryear, *neither* company owns anything that could not be replaced through a process of consumer demand. (Neither owns the "wires") Apple is not the "too big to fail" monopoly that Bell was -- it just plays nicely with the companies that are. So while these two companies clearly have different ideologies vis-a-vis the internet, BOTH could be undone by a vertically integrated powerhouse!
Further, as another reviewer points out, it assumes an American dominance of the communications future. And, like it or not, the Internet has wrested that ability from any one nation. Let's assume that "Comcast-NBC-Verizon-Apple-Intel-Universal" (Hypothetical Conglomerate) were to make the internet "controlled" in the USA. This would be such an economic disadvantage the the US, that new pioneer firms would pop up in more free information markets. This will always serve as a disincentive towards central control.
My griping aside -- I can heartily recommend this book. Take some of the analyses with a grain of salt and make up your own mind -- but don't skip this book simply because it draws some dodgy conclusions. You'll learn a lot and it will make you think.
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- Dennis
- 02-14-12
Opened my eyes
If you could sum up The Master Switch in three words, what would they be?
Abuse, abject stupidity.
What did you like best about this story?
Brilliant description of how technology and the human mind combine to bring human kind leaping into the future. A history of brilliance, blind stupidity and government control. The history line is brilliant and I am grateful for the book.
Which character – as performed by Marc Vietor – was your favorite?
Alexander Bell
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Phone call to my lover.
Any additional comments?
This is the kind of book that will change the minds and hearts of thinking freedom loving people. If we know who the enemy is, there is a chance to win.
Eastman Kodak declared bankruptcy last week and this week announced they will no long manufacturer digital cameras.
The story of hard work and success, blind ambition, blind stupid ambition, failure to see
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- Paul
- 01-28-11
Awesome!
Really dug this. Really makes you scared about cult companies like Apple. Read this if you're at all interested in technology, entertainment, communications, or just the future.
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