How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business

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.

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.

I read "Linked" after reading "The Tipping Point", hoping to find a somewhat more detailed exposition of networks. "Linked" provides this. Unfortunately, there just isn't that much to write about.

The main (and only) point that Barabasi makes is that most networks (particularly the ones he considers) are so-called scale-free networks, as opposed to random networks, and he gives plenty of real world examples to back this up. While this is a significant and intriguing point, it perhaps does not merit an entire book. The obstacle that "Linked" never overcomes is that its substance is purely observational: We learn "How everything is connected to everything else" but not why it is so or "what it means". This is particularly true later on in the book, in Barabasi's discussions of terror networks, corporate boards, and biochemistry.

"Linked" starts out fascinatingly and finishes boringly. Too bad.

A good introduction to complexity and networks. I would include this in a list of several books to read, including Steven Strogatz's Sync, Duncan Watts' Six Degrees, Melanie Mitchell's Complexity, Mark Buchanan's Nexus, Mitchell Waldrop's Complexity, among others. I appreciated the literary link to Karinthy. Each book of this genre gives unique insights, especially into the author's own research. If at all possible, read several. This book is a good place to start.

I got registered onto a few networking sites like Linkedin, Orkut and Hi5 in March and suddenly started thinking about term Network in social context. Being a computer engineer by profession and having worked on communication networks for last 5 years it was quite obvious to find parallels. And then I stuck upon this book. I must say i wasn't disapponted. Each Ideas has been built with convincing examples and is well supported by results from ongoing research being done by author. I would wait for him to write something on dissemination of information through social networks and network dynamics.

I have been involved in telecommunications networking for years, and recently started up a "community of interest" web site around SOA Networks.

This book will definetly help me understand the evolution and of adoption of networks as they apply to Service-Oriented Architecture.

This book is a excellent read for me, although it might be elementary for many. I loved it!

Gary E. Smith

SOA Network Architect

SOA Networks

The book assumes almost no mathematical background but it manages to detail a lot of his research processes. One of the best things about the book is the bibliography section which contains a wealth of references to the latest research papers --- if you are interested enough to know about the technical details!

After reading this book I changed majors from Biochemistry to Computer Science. This inspired me to look at Systems Biology & Computational Biology, and now I'm in graduate school. Great read, very inspirational!

I found this book to be entertaining. As though anyone REALLY knows how the world is put together! Interesting enough in theory, but Barabasi's evidence was not convincing enough for me. It's another attempt to popularize science, and a fairly good one, but that doesn't necessarily make its ideas true. Think skeptically--like a scientist would.

Excellent read. I'm a systems engineer by trade and although the book is by no means technical, it really drove the "connectedness" topic home for me as the author showed how objects naturally connect and grow in both real and abstract terms. If this sounds interesting- you will enjoy it too.

This book has some amazing insights and easy to read. It will inspire those who are dealing with the concepts of scale. Other comments have talked about Alberts ego trips but they arent ego trips. This book is written by someone that is very far into his field and is a part of it in real life. This book made me realize that there is endless inspiration on the internet and also check out this books website for some beautiful color images that accompany the chapters.

Linked is an excellent example of the new science writing. Dr. Barabasi winds a fascinating subject up with first rate examples that make the subject come alive. His style is quite accessable yet precise, and he makes the reader feel like a colaborator even through the hard parts.
A delightful read.

The transformation of hierarchies into networks is a defining characteristic of the information age. Linked helps us understand this brave new world of hubs, connectors, power laws and self-organization. If you care about the future, you should read this book.

Content is moderately interesting - nothing exceptional that hasn't been said before / better elsewhere.

I recommend "Out Of Control" by Kevin Kelly instead.

Much more research was done in Keven's work which reflects a more detailed and even broader view of the systems research.

The book traces the history and evolution of complex network theory covering: random networks, small worlds and the six degrees, scalefree networks in a coherent picture.
Recommended to anyone interested in network theory and its applications

It seems that science network is the sort of "integrative" science that is much needed in this reductionist age.

I think that this book is simple enough to make a good reading, and with real knowledge of the very frontier of science these days.

After reading a third of the book, I finally gave up out of sheer disinterest. The way the book is presented would probably be ideal for a student of network dynamics, or even a mathmetician. For an average reader like myself, it is far too detailed and laborious. There is very little entertainment value in the discussions that surround the occasional revelations. My suggestion: Read the abbridged version.

The book of Ecclesiastes says: "Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new?

It hath been already of old time, which was before us."

The discovery reported in this book is no exception.

The mechanism of generating power law distributions, which Barabasi claimed to have discovered, and named "preferential attachment" has been long known.

It first appears in the 1925 paper by Udny Yule, and was investigated by many researchers, most notably in 1955 by Herbert Simon. Yule's work was not unnoticed: it is described, for example, in the college textbook "Introduction to Probability Theory and its Applications" by William Feller.

Though mathematical description of "preferential attachment" appeared only in 20th century, the general idea was expressed long before. Gospel according to Matthew quotes Jesus as saying "unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance". Similar quotations appear in Luke's and Mark's Gospels.

Barabasi does mention Jesus in his book, but only in the context that Christianity became so successful not because Jesus was son of God, but because Paul craftily spread it through his social networks.

I think that scientists should stop this vanity of vanities and read the Bible.