About this item
The definitive novel of today's Silicon Valley, Forever On flash-captures our cultural and technological moment with up-to-the-instant savvy. Matters of privacy and government intrusion, post-Tinder romance, nihilistic terrorism, artificial consciousness, synthetic biology, and much more are tackled with authority and brash playfulness by New York Times bestselling author Rob Reid. Meet Phluttr - a diabolically addictive new social network and a villainess, heroine, enemy, and/or bestie to millions. Phluttr has ingested every fact and message ever sent to, from, or about her innumerable users. Her capabilities astound her makers - and they don't even know the tenth of it. But what's the purpose of this stunning creation? Is it a front for something even darker and more powerful than the NSA? A bid to create a trillion-dollar market by becoming "The UberX of Sex"? Or a reckless experiment that could spawn the digital equivalent of a middle-school mean girl with enough charisma, dirt, and cunning to bend the entire planet to her will? Phluttr has it in her to become the greatest gossip, flirt, or matchmaker in history.
About the Author
Rob Reid is a writer and technology entrepreneur based in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. He's the author of "Year Zero" (Del Rey, 2012) - a novel about aliens with a mad passion for human music. He also wrote "Year One" (William Morrow, 1994) , a memoir about student life at Harvard Business School; and "Architects of the Web" (Wiley, 1997) , which chronicles the rise of the Internet as a commercial medium. His other writings have included a cover story for Wired Magazine, as well as prominent features in publications including the Wall Street Journal, Business 2.0, and the Gilder Technology Report. He has also written for countless websites, including Ars Technica, Wired. com, and Spinner. com. Rob was the founder, CEO, and Chairman of Listen. com, the online music company that developed the Rhapsody music service. Listen was the first online music company to secure full-catalog licenses from all of the major labels. Rob sold Listen to RealNetworks. Viacom's MTV Networks division later bought half of Rhapsody, and in March of 2010 it was spun out as an independent company. Rhapsody now has over a million paying subscribers.
