Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaborators

The creator of the breakout hit Here Comes Everybody reveals how new technology is changing us for the better.

In his bestselling Here Comes Everybody, Internet guru Clay Shirky provided readers with a much-needed primer for the digital age. Now, with Cognitive Surplus, he reveals how new digital technology is unleashing a torrent of creative production to be able to develop into our world. For the first time, persons are embracing new media that allow them to pool their efforts at vanishingly low cost. The result of this aggregated effort range from mind-expanding reference tools like Wikipedia to life-saving Internet sites like Ushahidi.com, which permits Kenyans to report acts of violence in real time. Cognitive Surplus explores what’s imaginable when people unite to make use of their intellect, energy, and time for the greater good.