Having seen this book featured on Wired Online, I was super excited to get my free copy from a Goodreads giveaway.

At the end of it all, however, I was underwhelmed by this book. It felt more like reading a really interesting textbook than a page-turner, even a nonfiction one. It contains tons of useful tidbits and concepts – Dunbar’s number, Levy flight pattern, Three Degrees of Influence Rule – fun experiments and little known information about things I thought I knew a lot about, but still I had to plow through and keep reading.

I had the impression too that the focus of the book would be online social media and the connections society is making there, but that topic is really an aside and used, in the last chapter, more as one big proof to reinforce all of the points made throughout the book.

Connected was the sort of book that I had to read when someone else was in the room. That way I could read aloud the enlightening data and interesting statistics to my companion which would lead us down a merry path of fascinating discussion. Too bad the book’s own exploration of the same topics was usually bland.

In better social-connectedness news, I finally figured out how to add Google friend connect to my WordPress blog, so over in the sidebar there is a nifty little gadget that will let you “follow” me around and hang on my every word. hehe

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