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Summary: The best book on complexity
Review: Barabasi is a rarity among scientists: he can tell great stories for a wide audience without sacrificing scientific depth and accuracy. His book is simply the best book I have ever read on "the new science" of complexity. For those who liked Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point but thought it was a bit superficial and short on practical implications, Linked will be a dream come true.
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Summary: simple complexity
Review: barabasi has published some of the most groundbreaking and important new physics papers in the last five years. the study of networks, whether they are economic, social, technological, or biological, is one of the hottest areas in contemporary science and technology. more importantly, the results have immediate practical implications for, and applications in, the pharmaceutical, telecommunications, and financial industries, to name a few examples. barabasi is also a superb and engaging writer. even though he discusses cutting edge science, you won't find any equations here and the cases he describes are down to earth and close to home (computer viruses, hollywood movies, and marketing). this book is an interesting and fun read.
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Summary: Linked in the business world
Review: In "Linked" we have a rare opportunity to listen to a gifted teacher use narrative examples to explain his efforts to understand how the web and the internet are networked and organized. Barabasi shares with us his break-through concepts that show the web is not a random connection of computers and servers, but rather an organized network that continues to develop based on growth and choice. He then goes on to illustrate how many other areas of our lives can be better understood by viewing them as networks that follow the same development principals of growth and choice.
I believe "Linked" will become a clasic text for those who want to apply these network concepts to the business world as well as those whose first interest is the world of science. Why do some new business formats or new products or services take off while ohers fail? A careful study of "Linked" and the concepts of hubs, growth and choice may help illustrate and explain the reasons.
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Summary: Learn the science of networks from one of the key scientists
Review: Networks touch all the aspects of our lives from our society to software to genes. Understanding the structure and dynamics of networks is the goal of the recently revived branch of graph theory. Dr. Barabasi brings us lively, concise, and elegant up to-date account of the developments of in the new science. He has been on the forefront for the past 5 years, discovering the scale-free nature of the Internet, food webs and gene regulatory networks. The book is clearly geared towards people with science background; it contains numerous examples of application of the small world networks ideas to economics, biology, genetics, computer science, Internet and www. I highly recommend this book as an introduction to the subject.
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Summary: Captivating
Review: Very well written. The author was able to present his research in an easy-to-understand, extremely interesting and captivating manner - something which not too many people do very well. He matches his research findings to diverse examples of real life networks ranging from cell protein networks to networks of directors in corporate America. I think his writing is a great example of cross-disciplinary thinking. No prerequisites in network theory are needed to appreciate this book. It's written for the "layman". This book has peeked my interest. Also, the references/notes provided at the back are very useful.
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Summary: An extraordinary book!
Review: I have been reading literature on chaos, fractals, phase transitions and networks for years. I found Linked to be the best single, simple explanation of these conceptual advances I have ever read. Professor Barabasi has the gift of being able to both explain these difficult concepts to the novice while simultaneously challenging knowledgeable readers with his insights. I would strongly recommend this interesting and intellectually stimulating book to anyone, in any field, who has ever puzzled over any kind of network. In short, I strongly recommend this book to everyone.
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Summary: Thought provoking
Review: With so much buzz about Wolfram's book, great to see a book that DOES talk about NEW science. Barabasi, the top guy in the new science of networks, talks about what he knows best: complexity and networks, and how they affect our life. While an easy read, it is full of so many thought provoking ideas, that I'd read for a while and then have to put it down to reflect over the details of what I'd just read. Gladwell's tipping point was an entertaining read, but light on true understanding. Linked makes up the difference: it breaks new ground, offering the reader insight and research into the structure of networks in just about all fields and aspects of life. While Gladwell chats about connectors, people who are incredibly sociable and well-connected, Barabasi is the one who really gets to the heart of the matter. He discovered these connectors (he calls them hubs) while looking at the www (Yahoo and Google are some of those), and he shows that they are present in the cell, in the business world (Vernon Jordan), in sex (Wild Chamberlain), in Hollyood (Kavin Bacon) and many other networks. These hubs are not accidents, but they appear in all networks as a simple rich gets richer process is responsible for them. If you REALLY want to grasp how ideas spread, how to stop AIDS, how to break down the Internet, how to use your neighbor's computer, how to make your website matter or how to became a board member in a big company, Linked is a good place to start. Barabasi breaks down a complex world into very simple, clear concepts. While I have read several books about 'new' science, this one is really about something new, exciting, and hard to forget. Highly recommend it.
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Summary: Good job.
Review: The author was able to convey a difficult subject into laymen's terms. Every body must know what is in the book about the network, because, we are all members of it. It is a politically neutral book. The author does not express any of his own views when he examines social issues. It is rather a math book than a self-help book. The discussed topics are the latest development in the field of mathematics, but you do not have to be a Mathematician to read or understand it. You can even use the knowledge that you acquire from LINKED to understand the latest car ads too. When have finished reading you will feel that you could have been the author, because it is all inside of you or every one but you never were able to put it on paper.
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Summary: Introduction to the Future
Review: In the networked world it is important to understand connections and how they affect us. This book takes some of the hottest research in physics, mathematics and sociology [strange bedfellows, eh?] over the last 4 years and makes it very interesting. Insights into how the internet works, how epidemics spread in human networks, how the info economy works, what's happening in microscopic biological networks and glimpses into business and terrorist organizations. Also, many interesting 'real life' peeks at the scientists doing this cutting edge research. For a scientist, Barabasi is a great story teller! Hard core research distilled to be understood by non-geniuses... worth reading... several times.
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Summary: A complex world in simple words
Review: This is an excellent book. The author is extremely able to explain difficult concepts about complex systems in a simple and precise manner, using examples from a variety of domains. The richness of applications -- ranging from spread of epidemics to the internet-- is the first strength of the book and of the theory of scale free networks that appear to be a very promising and original tool to understand the web of interactions of complex systems. The second strength is the clarity of writing: a rarity in the scientific world. This book is an example of good writing with the objective of being understood and making science accessible.
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