Futurist and digital-marketing consultant Edwards uses 'digital' to describe IT without ranting, but rather exploring. Stating, 'Digital entrepreneurs. .. with the Darwinistic ethos of Silicon Valley. .. seem to believe their achievements approach a condition of natural law driven by their. .. gold rather than the digital utopia they. .. suggest they’re creating.' He sees piracy as seriously compromising cultural arts, yet also perceives a micro-fan-based business model that is more successful than stadium concerts. While mourning newsprint shrinkage, he claims, 'digital took away the ad dollars—newspapers took away the news' by cutting resources, yet acknowledges that one cannot readily share articles from newsprint while digital news thrives in the virtual space of global social-media interaction. Perhaps most tellingly, Edwards analyzes Amazon’s customer relationship value with its 'first mover' business model: investor-subsidized low prices increase the number of buyers and destroy competitors, thus allowing the first mover, as the remaining source, to raise prices 'almost at will.' Hence, digital-market hegemony via global reach is the long game, which is harmful to consumers. A thought-provoking and controversial analysis.
This book is a crash course in the emerging problems of digital technologies. Education, politics, retail, financial services – all suffer as a result of ‘digital,’ but there is hope – some jobs will never get digitized. The hope is in consuming less of digital and adapting digital to us, rather than adapting to it.
Andrew Edwards never takes anything at face value and forces one to re-see, re-view and re-think basic assumptions about all things Digital. Digital Is Destroying Everything offers an important, historical perspective, crucial for understanding where Digital is taking us next.
Andrew’s important book weaves together business and social observations and commentary into an informative, compelling, and critical expose about how the pervasiveness of digital technology has, is, and continues to disrupt not only entire industries but the global economy too. Far removed from being a solely Utopian (or dystopian) view of digital destruction (and digital construction), Andrew explains in eloquent prose his futurist ideas on what digital is doing to our shared world today, how it may lead to a different version of tomorrow’s digital future than you may expect, and why governments and humanity should care – before our robotic overlords care for you on your behalf.
Tie down your industry and hang on tight to it, because if it can be digitized it can be destroyed… Or simply transformed and recreated. The choice of whichever way you want to view it remains your own. What Andrew Edwards does in this book is lay bare the facts that digital can be as destructive as it can be transformative (and vice versa). For a guy who admits to earning his daily crust in digital business, he also has no problem giving it a black eye when he thinks it deserves it. A scary title for a book packed with insight from a guy who understands that digital does what digital is. Cut and paste that directly into your brain!
Human interaction seems to be deader than dead. How many dinner times are silent because everyone in the family considers the happenings on their tiny screen to be more important than the person sitting across from them? Is personal privacy an obsolete concept? Political discourse has become balkanized, in that believers in nearly anything can put up their own website (or websites) and tell themselves that they are right, and everyone else is wrong. What can a person do about it? Reduce Your Digital Exposure. Leave your smartphone off until you actually need it. This is an excellent and eye-opening book. It should be read by everyone, especially by those who have to check Facebook (for instance) every few minutes.
With Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and the proliferation of cell phone apps, the digital age has created a revolution in lifestyles, education, finance, retail, and politics. In this book, Edwards, a digital marketing executive, investigates both the good and the bad of this new digital world. The good is easy to understand: lower costs of goods and increased communication. The bad involves reshaping the economy in potentially undesirable ways. Edwards includes chapters on digital threats to record companies, newspapers, photographic studios, and artists. Through his tour of the digital world, the author argues that Amazon transforms retail, MOOCS (massive open online courses) challenge universities, blogs alter politics, and telecommuting alters urban life. Privacy is often compromised when millennials are more willing to share their private information with others and governments request personal information to enhance security. According to the author, one key to reducing digital challenges is to have more face-to-face meetings. The book contains many references to current events published in popular newspapers and magazines.. . .Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals and practitioners.
In this age of big data and digital analytics, Edwards questions our idealization of changes produced by digital technologies. While updating the reader about how digital technologies are altering many industries and particular ways of life, this book highlights the centralization of power and the lack of human context that has ensued. It provides an overview of the far reaching consequences of the digital revolution and asks us to reevaluate the role of digital technology in our lives.
Living within earshot of the locomotive’s whistle, Thoreau reminded us that wildness is the tonic for civilization. Both Walden and Edwards' Digital deserve to be read outdoors, in nature, and then discussed with friends.
Whether you feel you have been a part of the digital revolution or not, it has more than likely changed your life. The last 25 years have been a whirlwind, it’s time to take a short break and read this book! Andrew’s style is only overshadowed by the wealth of information he has aggregated within the text. The Music Industry, Education, the Job Market, Retail, even Urban Life and Human Interaction have all evolved and Andrew walks you through the how and why with ease. A read that is not only informative but also extremely entertaining. See you at the end!
With Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and the proliferation of cell phone apps, the digital age has created a revolution in lifestyles, education, finance, retail, and politics. In this book, Edwards, a digital marketing executive, investigates both the good and the bad of this new digital world. The good is easy to understand: lower costs of goods and increased communication. The bad involves reshaping the economy in potentially undesirable ways. Edwards includes chapters on digital threats to record companies, newspapers, photographic studios, and artists. Through his tour of the digital world, the author argues that Amazon transforms retail, MOOCS (massive open online courses) challenge universities, blogs alter politics, and telecommuting alters urban life. Privacy is often compromised when millennials are more willing to share their private information with others and governments request personal information to enhance security. According to the author, one key to reducing digital challenges is to have more face-to-face meetings. The book contains many references to current events published in popular newspapers and magazines.. . .Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals and practitioners.
With Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and the proliferation of cell phone apps, the digital age has created a revolution in lifestyles, education, finance, retail, and politics. In this book, Edwards, a digital marketing executive, investigates both the good and the bad of this new digital world. The good is easy to understand: lower costs of goods and increased communication. The bad involves reshaping the economy in potentially undesirable ways. Edwards includes chapters on digital threats to record companies, newspapers, photographic studios, and artists. Through his tour of the digital world, the author argues that Amazon transforms retail, MOOCS (massive open online courses) challenge universities, blogs alter politics, and telecommuting alters urban life. Privacy is often compromised when millennials are more willing to share their private information with others and governments request personal information to enhance security. According to the author, one key to reducing digital challenges is to have more face-to-face meetings. The book contains many references to current events published in popular newspapers and magazines.. . .Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals and practitioners.
Futurist and digital-marketing consultant Edwards uses 'digital' to describe IT without ranting, but rather exploring. Stating, 'Digital entrepreneurs . . . with the Darwinistic ethos of Silicon Valley . . . seem to believe their achievements approach a condition of natural law driven by their . . . gold rather than the digital utopia they . . . suggest they’re creating.' He sees piracy as seriously compromising cultural arts, yet also perceives a micro-fan-based business model that is more successful than stadium concerts. While mourning newsprint shrinkage, he claims, 'digital took away the ad dollars—newspapers took away the news' by cutting resources, yet acknowledges that one cannot readily share articles from newsprint while digital news thrives in the virtual space of global social-media interaction. Perhaps most tellingly, Edwards analyzes Amazon’s customer relationship value with its 'first mover' business model: investor-subsidized low prices increase the number of buyers and destroy competitors, thus allowing the first mover, as the remaining source, to raise prices 'almost at will.' Hence, digital-market hegemony via global reach is the long game, which is harmful to consumers. A thought-provoking and controversial analysis.
