The essential messages imparted by the author of this book, all of which are important to understanding Web 2.0 concepts, could have been compressed by 50% or more, in my opinion, and made more readable. Nonetheless, with considerable effort to stay awake, I managed to slog my way through to the end.

This book takes a look at the business and technology aspects of the mass-sharing open- source world whose principal Logo is 'Wikipedia'. It argues that the way of the future is in a new non- heirarchical business model in which the creative resources of mass publics work to solve problems together. My question is how people are rewarded for their efforts, and what economic benefit will accrue to the individuals who participate in this?
Hundreds of thousands anonymously contribute to creating 'Wikipedia' They are not paid for this. But they must have income from somewhere else. What happens to those who formerly worked in the Encylopedia world and had jobs? Where are they working now?
If all is open- source how will individual writers, painters, composers be rewarded for their creative efforts?
I simply do not understand through this work how the whole world of future work will be organized.
Clearly this book picks out and elaborates important trends. But it does not answer the main questions I have.

Wikinomics is a painful read. The only reason that I finished it is that I was on vacation in a foreign location where it was hard to find an English bookstore with anything beyond Danielle Steele. I think that I could have learned as much about the topic from reading Ms. Steele. At least she can spell :)

Now that I have vented, here's what I didn't like:
- Too much meaningless jargon
- Arguments that rely on points that are not remotely proven
- Usually no consideration of alternative evidence/interpretations

One of the other reviewers called the style "consultantese". That is a great description. It reads like a marketing brochure for a management consulting firm, not a technology or economics book.

I'm giving it 2 stars only because the topic is important, so if you can manage to make it through the book you probably will pick up something important.

I couldn't finish reading this book completely before it was time to return it to the library. It is not one I want to purchase to reference again and again.

At first, I was thrilled to receive Tapscott and William's message. The companies they cover are the new stock market darlings of the Internet.

It absolutely makes sense for a software development company, such as the one I am at now, to open up support channels for "prosumers" to tell us what they want and need in our products. Such effort would also provide material for marketing, development, customer support, Help files and User Guides. This is not so much "mass collaboration" as it is good, old-fashioned "listening to the customer."

Although Tapscott and Williams don't have a very in-depth understanding of exact technologies powering the collaboration phenomena, they do a great job of illustrating the very real changes currently cutting apart the music, media, financial services and just about every industry. Executives ignore these developments at their peril.

Blogging, for one thing, seems like the new press release. The online public pays more attention to a supposedly personal message from a CEO than a canned press release aped by the media.

But then, I found myself slogging through it. The book is full of the same generalizations over and over again. The authors spend way too much time to get to too few points. They make obvious attempts to coin new jargon. The authors admit to several "studies" they have done, raking in, by their own admission, $9 million, so I guess such unabashed egocentricity must work in the real world, although I thought mighty corporate heads were smarter than to fall for that.

Like their own experience, the authors often confuse entrepreneurial spirit, with few resources, for corporate creativity. They never offer a clear blueprint for how a company without a solidly established R&D department, and its attendant army of patent protecting prosecutors, can tap the intellectual brainpower of the World Wide Web for maximum profits.

While the stories are fascinating, they can hardly compare to the realpolitik of economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner's Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.

Nor can they compare to the vast world-wide experience and sophistication of New York Times globe trotting columnist Thomas Friedman in his seminal The World is Flat.

Finally, in my opinion, Wikinomics does hold up as well as the fascinating story John Battelle etches in The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture.

All three of these books are factually stronger, and yet easier to read, making them more powerful, informative and thought provoking than Wikinomics. And yet, Wikinomics is a good sequel to The Search, because it shows how companies are capitalizing on the spread of free information on the Internet.

Red Hat capitalized on open-source Linux. IBM supported open-source Apache while their own Websphere languished. Linden, and many others, profit from the content created by their users.

As I write this, two giants are making opening salvos in the smart phone operating system market. The man who revolutionized personal computers, handheld music players, movie animation and music distribution with proprietary technology is announcing that more than 250,000 people downloaded the free tools to build applications for his proprietary iPhone. In the meantime, Google is using open source for their smart phone OS.

Tapscott and William must be thrilled. Stayed tuned for their sequel.

I listened to this on CDs instead of turning pages.

It might be better as a book; it would be easier to skim.
The book is organized in chapters, sections, and subsections,
but I do not know how deep the outline goes. Chapters are
numbered and named, but the more detailed portions have
names only. The narrator is good, but he can not reveal
the level of the topic in the outline, so you can skip
parts you suspect will only add another example of a point
already made.

The book is too long, at 11 CDs. I suspect 4 to 6 could
deliver all the worthwhile material.

Other reviewers have noted a profusion of "consultantese."
Much of it is blather. The favorite word is eco-system.
The authors can talk of yours, each of your competitors,
each of your suppliers, and each of your customers, all in
the same sentence, with each eco-system being different.

There is also a lot of integration, all of it seamless.
A person that can help you is "the uniquely qualified mind"
and there are thousands of them. Those were the ones that
annoyed me most. Other readers will focus on other cliches.

The book contains many examples of organizations using the
principles of openness, "peering", colaberation,...
Some have enough history that they appear to be long term
success stories. Some show promising signs of success.
Others might or might not make it, but the authors know
they will.

The authors seem to think they have found the next big thing,
and businesses, even all organizations, better get on
board or they will be left behind, in the dust, doomed to
failure, in the dustbin of history.

In spite of the flaws, there are probably several hundred,
or thousand, successes that could be triggered by one of
the insights in this book.

what a great book. it's one of those books, like daniel pink's a whole new mind, or some of seth godin's books and patrick lencioni's books, that constantly had my brain thinking about changes we could/should make to the company i lead. seriously, like dozens (hundreds?) of ideas. maybe a few of them will actually get implemented!

the book is about how a web 2.0/wiki culture is changing our world; specifically, it's about how collaboration is changing work places, content development, and problem solving. two chapters in particular had my brain really churning: the one on open-source work spaces, and the one on collaboration spaces for idea generation, development and sharing. i really do expect those to shape some stuff for ys in the months and years to come, and have been working to put some notions into motion already.

while this would be an interesting read for anyone, i think (as it speaks to our changing culture), it's an important and great read for anyone in an organizational leadership role (church, ministry, business).

A must read book! Two recommendations for the next extended edition:

1. More practical examples for Small and Medium enterprises. Wikinomics could mean the revenge of the small enterprise in front of the giant multinational.
2. To start off with for everybody easily understandable chapters on the `Global Plant Floor' before moving to `Ideagoras', `Prosumers' and `New Alexandrians' more accessible to youngsters who have been brought up with playlists, peer-to-peer file sharing, online multiplayer video games, instant chats and wikis

Karel Uyttendaele - Belgium

This is a fairly shallow but broad overview of collaborative technologies on the Web. It's very readable, as long as you don't mind a bit of repetitiveness, and interesting. Most of the repetitiveness came from the book's being about "seven new models of mass collaboration" and the "four principles - openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally" that power them; naturally, there is quite a bit of repetition in applying the principles to 7 similar models, but it helps the readability.
Little is original, I have come across nearly all of the ideas before in my reading, but the authors did an outstanding job of integrating them into their views. I think the power of the technologies is a little overhyped, but not badly so.

The book describes how "Electronic Group Formation" can
produce a better consensus on a whole range of industrial
issues. According to the author, the web is the new
public square. It allows groups of individuals to
collaborate in a "real time" environment. This new shared
space opens up the whole group formation process. Wiki
harnesses the power of mass collaboration.

There are significant benefits with regard to peer
productivity; namely,
o harnessing talent external to the entity or organization
o create incremental value with more quality input
o reduce costs and shift competition
o harvest external ideas and confirm some internal ones
o the idea that customers can be co-innovators because
they actively use the product or process
o embrace consumer power
o take the friction out of competition
o turn work and randomized ideas into value
o the World is your R & D laboratory

The idea of an open/peer review process trumps the
traditional hierarchical organization with rigid
levels of authority and the lack of transparency.
Overall, this book has some very important enhancements
for taking full advantage of the group formation process
to develop/refine old ideas or re-shape new ones.

Wikinomics by Tapscott and Williams is Simply Grand! The book is both entertaining and enlightening. It is more of a philosophic view than a text book and one does not need to be a CFO to understand how the money is made. It clearly shows the trends occurring in the current business models and explains global economics in a context that is understandable for the everyday businessman and the consumer. I appreciated the lack of wordy technical jargon which always makes me wonder if the author is using big words to hide intellectual inadequacies.
A brilliant programmer once told me that elegance was best illustrated with simplicity and this is a book that is elegant in that way, it is simple, and the excitement and exuberance make it colorful. It swipes over the past, showcases the present and offers a bright glimpse of our economic future.
Too many small businessmen and working people don't understand the new economic strategies or that globalization doesn't mean they will get less opportunity and prosperity, it means they will get more because the markets are so enormous. This book could go a long way to help in educating them, but though I like the title, because it is trendy and techy I don't think many people who would benefit from this book will find it.

A wiki is a website that is editable by anyone that visits it. Wikipedia, for example, is an editable encyclopedia with more than 2.3M pages (as of April 2008). People all over the planet, with all sorts of backgrounds have contributed to Wikipedia. Tapscott and Williams tap this idea of mass contribution and mass collaboration as the basis of this book. In addition to Wikipedia, they cite examples in automotive, pharmaceuticals and technology to suggest that mass, open collaboration is the key to forward progress. The examples they cite are amazing indeed, and worthy of closer inspection. However, the book makes a quantum leap by suggesting that mass collaboration is changing everything. We just aren't there yet. Most companies are very inward-focused and resistant to open collaboration.

One other comment: The writing and content of this book are not on par with Tapscott's other books, especially the excellent The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril In The Age of Networked Intelligence.