David Siegel (1)

This book has its good bits and its not-so-good bits. It is certainly thought provoking and sparked off all kinds of ideas about what is possible. It is very wide ranging (libraries, the health care system, tax) and appears in general to be very well researched.

It was marred by several things. Firstly in a few particulars it was factually inaccurate (e.g in the assertion that print-on-demand - POD - books do not have ISBNs. The author misses a trick here - the ramifications of POD are potentially huge). Secondly the book is very ethnocentric. Just for example, Chinese internet usage is closing fast on the US. By mid century, China will have eclipsed the US and what China is doing on line will matter more to us than what the US is doing. Another example of ethnocentricity: the assertion that what Africa needs is the Internet. This is just asinine (try clean water).

The third weakness was an overliberal application of semantic pixie dust. We have "semantic information" (what other kind of information is there?), "semantic formats", "semantic legal documents", "semantic feedback" etc: and although I suspect that the author knows what he means by the term, he doesn't define it adequately for the rest of us. For example, he talks about "semantic" meaning (among other things) "unambiguous". I think what he means is that "there is never any doubt what a piece of data represents or to what/whom it applies". So "semantic" data combines the data value itself (39.4), what it represents (weight in kgs) and what it refers to (a particular make and model of lead-acid battery): but that is my extrapolation, not the author's.

The fourth weakness is that his depiction of the future does not even acknowledge the risk of the wholly disruptive. I recall reading in the 1960s a book written in the 1930s about the future of commercial aviation. It was comical because the author had not anticipated the gas turbine, the second world war or the social changes that ushered in mass air travel. This author might have been wise at times to have taken a broader view and shown greater humility in his prognostications.… (más)

A very visionary book, extrapolating the work being done on the Semantic Web to usage in everyday life in 10 years from now. Several of the case studies on how data can be standardized in various industries provided very stimulating thought.

Some very big leaps were made with then further projections built on them which could lead to many things not transpiring as forecast. I rather appreciate the vision as it gives us possibilities and trustfully will stimulate further entrepreneurial thought.

Kudos for the effort. It will be interesting to follow thepowerofpull.com to see what developments it tracks and how the author continues to relate them (or not) to his vision (things like data lockers, etc).… (más)

What I really like about Pull is that not only does Siegel explain the Next Big Thing, but he shows us exactly how it will benefit us in dozens of different domains. So unlike some other books, this is not pie-in-the-sky stuff. It is all very real, under development, test and deployment right now, and very accessible. (I just read about Cisco now using its entire 45,000 staff as an alpha for its healthcare systems - systems straight out of Pull!) It's a fun read if you want a glimpse of how you are in fact going to live in the not too distant future.

It never occurred to your grandparents that they would ever own two cars. It never occurred to your parents that they would carry mobile phones everywhere. It never occurred to us that nearly every room would have a computer in it. Now Pull shows you an engaging and enormously useful set of tools for the future. For entrepreneurs, it's a heads-up. For the rest of us, it's a well written, worthwhile book.… (más)