Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

Rheingold, Howard 407Glover, Bill, and Himanashu Bhatt. RFID Essentials. Sebastapol,Calif.: O’Reilly, 2006.Newitz, Annalee. “The RFID Hacking Underground.” Wired, May2006. Available online. URL: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/rfid.html. Accessed November 12, 2007.“Privacy Best Practices for Deployment of RFID Technology,Interim Draft.” CDT Working Group on RFID, May 1, 2006.Available online. URL: http://www.nclnet.org/advocacy/technology/rfid_guidelines_05012006.htm.Accessed November12, 2007.Sweeney, Partick J., II. RFID for Dummies. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley,2005.Rheingold, Howard(1947– )AmericanWriterOn his Web site, Howard Rheingold says that he “fell intothe computer realm from the typewriter dimension, thenplugged his computer into his telephone and got suckedinto the net.” A prolific writer, explorer of the interactionof human consciousness and technology, and chronicler ofvirtual communities, Rheingold has helped people from studentsto businesspersons to legislators understand the socialsignificance of the Internet and communications revolution.Born on July 17, 1947, in Phoenix, Arizona, he was latereducated at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, but lived andworked for most of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area.A child of the counterculture, his interests included theexploration of consciousness and cognitive psychology. Hisbooks in this area would include Higher Creativity (writtenwith Willis Harman, 1984), The Cognitive Connections (writtenwith Howard Levine, 1986), and Exploring the Worldof Lucid Dreaming (written with Stephen LaBerge, 1990).In 1994 he updated the Whole Earth Catalog, a remarkableresource book by Stewart Brand that had become a bible forthe movement toward a more self-sufficient and humanscalelife in the 1970s.Rheingold bought his first personal computer, mainlybecause he thought word processing would make his workas a writer easier. In 1983 he bought a modem and was soonintrigued by the thousands of PC bulletin board systemsthat were an important way to share files and ideas in thedays before the World Wide Web (see bulletin board systems).Interacting with these often tiny cyberspace villageshelped Rheingold explore his developing ideas about thenature and significance of virtual communities.In 1985 Rheingold joined The WELL (Whole Earth ’LectronicLink), a unique and remarkably persistent communitythat began as an unlikely meeting place of Deadheads(Grateful Dead fans) and computer hackers. Compared tomost bulletin boards, the WELL was more like the virtualequivalent of the cosmopolitan San Francisco Bay Area.The sum and evaluation of these experiences can befound in what is perhaps Rheingold’s most seminal book,The Virtual Community (1993; revised, 2000), which representsboth a participant’s and an observer’s tour through theonline meeting places that had begun to function as communities(see virtual community). Rheingold chronicledthe romances, feuds (“flame wars”), and growing pains thatmade The WELL seem much like a small town or perhapsan artist’s colony that just happened to be in cyberspace.In addition to The WELL, Rheingold also exploresMUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) and other elaborate onlinefantasy role-playing games, NetNews (also called Usenet)groups, chat rooms, and other forms of online interaction(see conferencing systems and netnews and newsgroups).Rheingold continues to manage the BrainstormsCommunity, a private Web-conferencing community thatallows for thoughtful discussions about a variety of topics.Rheingold saw the computer (and computer networksin particular) as a powerful tool for creating new formsof community. The original edition of his book Tools forThought (1985 and revised 2000), with its description ofthe potential of computer-mediated communications, seemsprescient today after a decade of the Web. Rheingold’s VirtualReality (1991) introduced that immersive technology.Around 1999 Rheingold started noticing the emergenceof a different kind of virtual community—a mobile, highlyflexible, and adaptive one. In his book Smart Mobs, Rheingoldgives examples of groups of teenagers coordinatingtheir activities by sending each other text messages on theircell phones (see flash mobs). Rheingold believes that thecombination of mobile and network technology may be creatinga social revolution as important as that triggered bythe PC in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s.In 1996 Rheingold launched Electric Minds, an innovativecompany that tried to offer virtual-community-buildingservices while attracting enough revenue from contractwork and advertising to become self-sustaining and profitablein about three years. He received financing from theventure capital firm Softbank. However, the company failed,and Rheingold came to believe that there was a fundamentalmismatch between the profit objectives of most venturecapitalists and the patience needed to cultivate and grow anew social enterprise. Rheingold then started a more modesteffort, Rheingold Associates.According to Rheingold and coauthor Lisa Kimball, someof the benefits of creating such communities include the abilityto get essential knowledge to the community in timesof emergency, to connect people who might ordinarily bedivided by geography or interests, to “amplify innovation,”and to “create a community memory” that prevents importantideas from getting lost. Rheingold continues to bothcreate and write about new virtual communities, workingthrough such efforts as the Cooperation Commons (a collaborationwith the Institute for the Future). He is also a nonresidentFellow of the Annenberg School for Communication.Rheingold’s writings have garnered a variety of awards.In 2003 Utne Reader magazine gave an Independent PressAward for a blog based on Smart Mobs. That year Rheingoldalso gave the keynote speech for the annual Webby Awardsfor Web-site design.Further ReadingCooperation Commons. Available online. URL: http://www.cooperationcommons.com/. Accessed November 12, 2007.