An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths

216 Pages·2006·1.33 MB·English

by  Glenn Reynolds

Big Praise for An Army of Davids
“Glenn has written a book that’s important, even brilliant. And not only is it
beautifully written, it’s sure to be a bestseller as well. He’s right about the
changes we’re all living through. Ignore these small (big) ideas at your peril.”
— SETH GODIN,
author of
Small is the New Big
and Purple Cow
“I cannot think of a better book for the average reader to understand just how the
Web and other digital technologies are reversing the polarities of modern society
—restoring many features of daily life lost with the Industrial Revolution, while
at the same time inventing powerful new cultural institutions.”
— MICHAEL MALONE,
“Silicon Insider,” ABC News
“Reynolds gleefully hails the emergence of a new entrepreneurial class resulting
from the democratizing power of technology. . .”
— Publishers Weekly
“Reynolds presents his case with verve and wit.”
— ADRIAN WOOLDRIDGE,
Wall Street Journal
“. . . crisp and readable. . .”
— The Economist
“George Orwell feared that technology would enable dictators to enslave the
masses. Glenn Reynolds shows that technology can empower individuals to
determine their own futures and to defeat those who would enslave us. This is a
book of profound importance—and also a darn good read.”
— MICHAEL BARONE,
senior writer at U.S. News &
World Report and author of
Hard America, Soft America
“Reynolds is a compelling evangelist for the power of the individual to change
our world.”
— ARIANNA HUFFINGTON,
author of Pigs at the Trough
and
Fanatics and Fools
“A smart, fun tour of a major social and economic trend. . . . Glenn Reynolds is
an engaging, uniquely qualified guide to the do-it-yourself movements
transforming business, politics, and media.”
— VIRGINIA POSTREL,
Forbes columnist and author
of
The Future and its Enemies
and
The Substance of Style
“Reynolds attempts nothing short of explaining and predicting where the
Information Revolution will take us. . . ”
— JAMES L. MERRINER,
Chicago Sun-Times
“Glenn Reynolds’s beguiling new book tells the insightful story of how an ‘army
of Davids’ is inheriting the Earth, leaving a trail of obsolete business models not
to mention cultural, economic, and political institutions in its wake.”
— RAY KURZWEIL,
scientist, inventor, and
author of
several books including The
Singularity is Near
“Reynolds’ highly informative book . . . is about . . . ‘the triumph of personal
technology over mass technology,’ which is a trend Reynolds believes is only
‘going to strengthen over the coming decades.’”
— FRANK WILSON,
Philadelphia Inquirer
“Instapundit’s book reads fast. . . It’s just one big idea after another, like a
Hollywood thriller that piles on the plot rather than stopping to tie up the loose
ends. . . He’s fearless. . .”
— MICKEY KAUS,
Kausfiles
“The book covers everything from home-brewing beer to space travel, but all the
themes are connected by Glenn’s faith in human imagination and creativity. It’s
a must-read for anyone interested in where technology is taking us.”
— JIM MEIGS,
Popular Mechanics
“Glenn Reynolds isn’t just the author of An Army of Davids. He’s a living,
breathing embodiment of the book’s attractive and persuasive thesis. . .”
— NICK GILLESPIE,
New York Post
“‘Must-read,’ ‘gotta have,’ ‘culture-changing’ . . . I am suspicious of blurbs with
such overused plugs. But Glenn Reynolds’s An Army of Davids is in fact a must-
read new book that you gotta have if you are going to understand the culture-
changing forces that are unleashed and at work across the globe.”
— HUGH HEWITT,
syndicated talk radio host
and
author of Blog and Painting
the
Map Red
“Glenn Reynolds has written an essential book for understanding how
technology and markets are creating a bottom-up shift in power to ordinary
people that is changing business, government, and our world. Packed with fresh
ideas and adorned with graceful prose, An Army of Davids is a masterpiece.”
— JOE TRIPPI,
author of The Revolution
Will
Not Be Televised
AN ARMY
OF DAVIDS
HOW MARKETS AND TECHNOLOGY EMPOWER
ORDINARY PEOPLE TO BEAT BIG MEDIA,
BIG GOVERNMENT, AND OTHER GOLIATHS
GLENN REYNOLDS
To my wife and daughter
Copyright © 2006 by Glenn Reynolds All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical,
photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fundraising, or sales
promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reynolds, Glenn H.
An army of Davids : how markets and technology empower ordinary people to beat big media, big
government, and other Goliaths / Glenn Reynolds.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-59555-054-2 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59555-113-1 (TP)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59555-113-9 (TP)
1. Technology—Social aspects. 2. Digital media—Social aspects. 3. Internet-Social aspects. 4. Freedom
of expression. 5. Knowledge, Sociology of. 6. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)—Social aspects. I. Title.
HM846.R48 2006
303.48'33—dc22
Printed in the United States of America 07 08 09 10 11 RRD 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction Do It Yourself
Preface
1. The Change
2. Small Is the New Big
3. The Comfy Chair Revolution
4. Making Beautiful Music, Together
5. A Pack, Not a Herd
6. From Media to We-dia
Interlude Good Blogging
7. Horizontal Knowledge
8. How the Game Is Played
9. Empowering the Really Little Guys
10. Live Long—and Prosper!
11. Space: It’s Not Just for Governments Anymore
12. The Approaching Singularity
Conclusion The Future
Notes
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T
echnology empowers ordinary people. But other people are the greatest
source of empowerment in this world. In working on this project, I was
reminded again that I have been very fortunate with regard to the people I have
known.
My wife, Dr. Helen Smith, has been a source of encouragement, advice, and
support throughout. Even her health problems have served as inspiration for
some parts of this book. Likewise other members of my family–and in particular
my parents, who encouraged my interest in technologies and in writing–have
been great sources of help.
Many of the ideas in this book were first worked out in columns at TCS Daily,
where Nick Schulz has been an unfailingly supportive and inspiring editor.
When Nick first contacted me to solicit a weekly column, I was reluctant,
wondering if I had enough ideas to produce a column a week. Now, nearly four
years later, it turns out that he was right, and I did.
My dean, Tom Galligan, and the rest of the faculty and staff at the University
of Tennessee College of Law have been uniformly positive and encouraging
regarding my writing, even when it has veered from the legal-academic to the
technological and sociological. At a time when we hear much about the narrow-
mindedness and jealousy of the academy, it’s worth noting that the University of
Tennessee has been a consistently friendly and supportive place for me, despite
the fact that my work is politically incorrect from pretty much any and all
angles. I have never regretted choosing to join, and to remain on, the faculty.
Thanks too to my research assistants, Matt Lindsay, Josh Phillips, and Erika
Roberts, who discovered typos I had missed, offered helpful stylistic advice,
which I sometimes took, and located sources I was unable to find. Likewise to
faculty secretaries Sean Gunter, Neal Fischer, Michelle Gilbert, Teresa Michael,
and Tammy Neff. Other invaluable, and sometimes indispensable, help in
various forms has come from (in no particular order) Ashley Pope, Jennifer
Marks, Brannon Denning, Heidi Henning, Chris Peterson, Eric Drexler, Robert
Pinson, Jennifer Coffin, Nick McCall, Ralph Davis, Leigh Griffith, John
Ragosta, Doug Weinstein, David McCord, Rob Merges, and countless readers
and emailers via the InstaPundit and TechCentralStation sites. If you want to
understand how technology empowers ordinary people, try writing a popular
blog for a while, with a published email address. And my agent, Kate Lee of
International Creative Management, has been tireless, persistent, and a pleasure
to know.
I hope that you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it and
that the trend I outline will continue for the foreseeable future.
GLENN HARLAN
REYNOLDS
Knoxville, Tennessee 19 October 2005