# Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution *By Howard Rheingold. Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 2002; later reissued under the Basic Books imprint (which is how Wikipedia, Google Books and Internet Archive list it).* > I did not read this book, not even in part. I could not open its text, and I did not use any unauthorized full-text copy. This dossier is built from library catalog records and a published table of contents, the publisher's description, and reviews I opened (Wired's, plus review excerpts quoted in an Encyclopedia.com biography entry and a library blog's Booklist quote). Section 5 is a reconstruction from those sources, not a chapter-by-chapter reading. No source note mentioned the book; I wrote it on request. ## 1. Book facts | | | |---|---| | Title | *Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution* (cover tagline: "Transforming cultures and communities in the age of instant access") | | Author | Howard Rheingold (sole author) | | Publisher | Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, MA, 2002 (hardcover). Basic Books editions are dated 2002 or 2003 depending on the catalog; Internet Archive's record says "Originally published: Cambridge, MA: Perseus Pub., 2002" | | First published | October 2002. Wikipedia gives 15 October 2002; Google Books says Oct 16, 2002; Wired's Oct 9, 2002 piece says "to be released this month". The release day is not settled by my sources | | ISBNs | 0738206083 / 9780738206080 is the Perseus 2002 hardcover's ISBN (National Library of Australia record). 0738208612 / 9780738208619 is the second pair, which Internet Archive attaches to the Basic Books 2003 printing; I did not confirm the binding. WorldCat and Open Library list all four | | Length | xxii + 266 pages in the National Library of Australia catalog and the Internet Archive record, with notes on pp. 217-249 (the bibliographical-references range in the Australian record). Google Books says 288 pages; Wikipedia says 288 pp. as well; the Neural Archive's listing says "226", which looks like a typo | | Other catalog data | Library of Congress class HM846 .R54 2002 and OCLC 50819606 (Wikipedia) | | Language | English | | Audiobook | I found none. Audible's search page does not render results for me, so this is unconfirmed | | Where it came up | Marshall asked for it on 2026-11-03 as part of "all of Howard Rheingold's books" | ## 2. Book resources **Free (legal).** I found no legal free full text for general readers. - **Internet Archive.** [Item record](https://archive.org/details/smartmobsnextsoc0000rhei_x1e2) for the Basic Books 2003 printing (ISBN 0738208612). Its metadata puts it in the "printdisabled" collection with an access restriction, and Open Library flags the work as "printdisabled", so I expect borrowing is limited to patrons with a qualifying print disability. I did not check whether a general-reader loan is offered. - **Libby/OverDrive and Hoopla.** [OverDrive](https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=smart%20mobs%20rheingold) and [Hoopla](https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?q=smart%20mobs%20rheingold) search pages load, but their results are not visible from my box. I cannot say which libraries own it. Search your own library in Libby. - **Open Library.** [Work record](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15839936W); it shows no general e-book. - **Library copies.** [WorldCat](https://search.worldcat.org/title/50819606) (a 403 to my box; snippet only) is the usual way to find a nearby print copy. - **Free related material.** Rheingold's talks and writing on smart mobs are posted on Internet Archive, for example ["Smart Mobs, Collective Action, Media, and Democracy, Part 2"](https://archive.org/details/HowardRheingold-SmartMobsCollectiveActionMediaAndDemocracyPart2580) (a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 licence on the record) and ["Address to Korean smart mobs"](https://archive.org/details/HowardRheingold-AddressToKoreanSmartMobsHowToBecomeSmarterNotMobbier462-2). These are not the book. - **Project Gutenberg.** Not applicable. **Paid.** - **Amazon.** [Page for ISBN-10 0738208612](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738208612) and [page for 0738206083](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738206083) load, but I could not parse a price or a Kindle listing from them. I did not confirm Kindle availability. - **Google Books.** [Listing for the Basic Books reprint](https://books.google.com/books/about/Smart_Mobs.html?id=vbFPAAAAMAAJ), with the publisher's description. I did not check for a preview. - **Audible:** none found. **Cover:** [Open Library cover image](https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/6803414-L.jpg). ## 3. Author biography Howard Rheingold (born July 7, 1947, Phoenix, Arizona; Reed College; per [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Rheingold)) is an American writer, critic and teacher on the cultural and social effects of communication media. Earlier books in this vault: *Tools for Thought* (1985) and *Mind Amplifier* (2012); *Net Smart* (2012) is the sequel in spirit. Wired's 2002 review calls him the author of *Virtual Reality* "and other works in the early 1990s that prophesied the rise of electronic communities". The MIT Media Lab's event biography (for the *Net Smart* talk) lists him as founding executive editor of HotWired and founder of Electric Minds, editor of *The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog*, a lecturer at UC Berkeley and Stanford, and an honorary doctor of technology from De Montfort University. His sites: [rheingold.com/howard](https://www.rheingold.com/howard) and [smartmobs.com](https://www.smartmobs.com). ## 4. Author interviews and talks - **Wired, "Mobile Junkies Reshaping Society?" (Joanna Glasner, Oct 9, 2002).** [Article](https://www.wired.com/2002/10/mobile-junkies-reshaping-society/). It is mainly a review; the page says it also had an audio interview with the author, which I could not play. - **Mark Frauenfelder's interview for *The Feature*.** Cited in the Encyclopedia.com entry on Rheingold, which quotes him: "I hope that if nothing else, Smart Mobs helps make people aware of [the] struggle [to actively use technology or passively consume it] and what it means to our future and helps us influence it to some degree." I did not find the original interview; the quote is second-hand through [Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/rheingold-howard-e-1947). - **Internet Archive talks:** the two linked in section 2; neither is about the book's text, and I did not watch them. ## 5. Summary **Thesis, as others report it.** Smart mobs are, in the book's definition quoted by Wired, "people who are able to act in concert even if they don't know each other". Wired quotes Rheingold's central claim: "Mobile communications and pervasive computing technologies, together with social contracts that were never possible before, are already beginning to change the way people meet, mate, work, war, buy, sell, govern and create." The publisher's description (Google Books) says the book travels "from Tokyo to Helsinki, Manhattan to Manila", predicts a shift "as dramatic as the widespread adoption of the PC in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s", and draws on "sociology, artificial intelligence, engineering, and anthropology". It also covers the dark side: terrorist coordination, threats to privacy and "the ability to incite violent behavior". The same description says the real impact comes "not from the technology itself but from how people use it, resist it, adapt to it, and ultimately use it to transform themselves, their communities, and their institutions." **Chapter outline.** Chapter titles and page numbers come from the table of contents on the [Neural Archive's listing](https://archive.neural.it/init/default/show/1843), which I opened. The listing is for ISBN 9780738206080 (the hardcover's ISBN) and is the only published table of contents with pages that I found. Treat the page numbers as that edition's and not guaranteed for other printings. The start pages are consistent with the 217-249 notes range in the National Library of Australia's record. The Neural listing's own page count ("226") looks like a typo. The reviews I opened do not say which chapter each example sits in, so I did not assign them to chapters. - **Introduction: How to Recognize the Future When It Lands on You** (page not listed) - **1. Shibuya Epiphany** (p. 1) - **2. Technologies of Cooperation** (p. 29) - **3. Computation Nations and Swarm Supercomputers** (p. 63) - **4. The Era of Sentient Things** (p. 83) - **5. The Evolution of Reputation** (p. 113) - **6. Wireless Quilts** (p. 133) - **7. Smart Mobs: The Power of the Mobile Many** (p. 157) - **8. Always-On Panopticon ... or Cooperation Amplifier?** (p. 183) - Notes (p. 217); Index (p. 251) **Examples reviewers mention (chapter unknown).** Wired: Tokyo teenagers texting (the book's inspiration, per the review) and a view that being late no longer matters when you can message ahead; Stockholm fare-jumpers who text each other when a ticket inspector is coming; Steve Mann, the University of Toronto wearable-computing professor, who argues for wearables as protection from commercial messages; the 1999 Seattle WTO protests and the removal of Philippine President Joseph Estrada, both aided by mobile phones and text messages according to the book; and an unnamed Amish man quoted as saying "It's not just how we use the technology that concerns us. We're also concerned about what kind of people we become when we use it." The Booklist excerpt adds "ad-hocracy" and peer gossip about stores and restaurants picked up by mobile devices. **Reception (as reported by others).** Goodreads' search page shows 3.77 average from 867 ratings across 18 editions (Nov 3, 2026). Wired found it "rambling but intriguing", said the most compelling parts are the profiles of the people Rheingold meets, and noted that he "offers no solution" to the privacy conundrum. Excerpts quoted in the Encyclopedia.com entry: Publishers Weekly, "by far the best recent book on this topic"; Cory Doctorow in Mindjack, "required reading for this decade"; David Propson in Washington Monthly, that "actual smart mobs . . . remain elusive". Booklist (quoted on a library blog) called it "informed" and noted Rheingold's "somewhat skeptical stance" on privacy. Academic reviews exist: [Kathleen Courrier, "Broadband on the Run", *Issues in Science and Technology* 19(2)](https://www.jstor.org/stable/43312308) and [Randy Stoecker in *Contemporary Sociology* 33(6), 2004](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3593850). I did not read either (JSTOR access varies). This is not a balanced survey of critical response. ## 6. Fact-check Overall verdict: **mixed**. Publication facts and the table of contents are checked against catalog and review pages. Claims inside the book are not checked, because I did not read it. | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |---|---|---| | Perseus Publishing, 2002; ISBN 0738206083 | Supported | National Library of Australia catalog; WorldCat snippet; Google Books | | Released October 2002 | Supported | Wired (Oct 9, 2002: "to be released this month"); Wikipedia; Google Books | | Exact release day | Unsettled | Wikipedia 15 Oct; Google Books 16 Oct | | Page count | Disputed across sources | xxii + 266 (NLA, Internet Archive, WorldCat); 288 (Google Books, Wikipedia); 226 (Neural Archive, likely a typo) | | Eight chapters plus an introduction | Supported | NLA and WorldCat contents lists; Neural Archive TOC; Wired ("In eight chapters") | | Chapter start pages | Supported for one edition only | Neural Archive listing for ISBN 9780738206080 | | Estrada's removal in the Philippines was aided by text messaging, as the book says | Partly checked | Wired reports the book's claim. Wikipedia's article on the Second EDSA Revolution says Estrada left office on Jan 20, 2001, but the excerpt I read does not mention text messages | | "The year 2000 incident ... over a million Filipinos organized" (Encyclopedia.com) | Likely wrong | Estrada left office in January 2001 (Wikipedia, Second EDSA Revolution); Wired (Oct 2002) says "last year". I did not verify the "over a million" figure | | Definition quoted by Wired, "people who are able to act in concert even if they don't know each other" | Supported | Wired and the Encyclopedia.com entry quote the same words | | Birth date July 7, 1947 | Supported | Wikipedia | | Kindle and Audible availability | Not confirmed | Amazon and Audible pages did not yield usable results | | Claims made inside the book | Not checked | I did not read it | ## 7. Citations and references - Catalogs and listings: [National Library of Australia](https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/620460); [WorldCat](https://search.worldcat.org/title/50819606) (403 to my box; cited from a search snippet); [Neural Archive TOC](https://archive.neural.it/init/default/show/1843); [Google Books](https://books.google.com/books/about/Smart_Mobs.html?id=vbFPAAAAMAAJ); [Wikipedia, Smart Mobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Mobs); [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/smartmobsnextsoc0000rhei_x1e2); [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15839936W); [Amazon, 0738208612](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738208612); [Amazon, 0738206083](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738206083); [Goodreads search](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=smart+mobs+rheingold). - Reviews: [Wired, Oct 9, 2002](https://www.wired.com/2002/10/mobile-junkies-reshaping-society/); [Encyclopedia.com entry on Rheingold](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/rheingold-howard-e-1947) (source of the Publishers Weekly, Mindjack, Washington Monthly and *The Feature* quotations); Booklist excerpt as quoted on the HCPLC Lib 2.0 blog (page returned an error to my box when I rechecked; seen in a search snippet); [Courrier, JSTOR](https://www.jstor.org/stable/43312308); [Stoecker, JSTOR](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3593850). - Fact-check: [Wikipedia, Second EDSA Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_EDSA_Revolution). - Author: [rheingold.com/howard](https://www.rheingold.com/howard); [smartmobs.com](https://www.smartmobs.com); [Wikipedia, Howard Rheingold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Rheingold); [MIT Media Lab MLTalks page](https://www.media.mit.edu/videos/rheingold-2012-05-10/) (biography). - Free related talks: [Smart Mobs, Collective Action, Media, and Democracy, Part 2](https://archive.org/details/HowardRheingold-SmartMobsCollectiveActionMediaAndDemocracyPart2580); [Address to Korean smart mobs](https://archive.org/details/HowardRheingold-AddressToKoreanSmartMobsHowToBecomeSmarterNotMobbier462-2).