Howard Rheingold, World-Renowned Author, Futurist, And Digital Guru, Joins Wireless Ink's Advisory Board

COLD SPRING HARBOR, NEW YORK, DECEMBER 30th, 2003. Wireless Ink, LLC, the mobile publishing solutions company, today announced the addition of Mr. Howard Rheingold to its Board of Advisors.

Mr. Rheingold is one of the world's gurus of cyberspace and digital culture. An author, journalist, and editor, he is also a visionary, a futurist, and a synthesizer of today's ever-changing telecommunications applications.

In addition, Mr. Rheingold was the founding executive editor of HotWired; the successful commercial webzine launched by Wired magazine in 1994, and was its first editor. He was also the author of the weekly multimedia newspaper column, “Tomorrow,” which was distributed to dozens of newspapers across the country by King Features Syndicate.

For more than 15 years, Howard Rheingold has been on the leading edge of the cyberspace revolution, as a participant and an observer, and his forecasts, advice, warnings, and dreams have been shared with audiences around the world, eager to stay abreast of developments in this fast-moving field. His books have been published in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Japanese.

While knowledgeable about the technical and commercial possibilities of these merging communications media, Howard Rheingold is especially interested in the human and the policy issues that inevitably result from the adoption of new inventions. He has a proven track record of being able to identify the way our lives, businesses and institutions are going to change tomorrow as the result of technologies that are emerging today. In the 1980s, he forecasted the rise of the Internet. In the 1990s, he wrote about virtual communities. Now, he is looking at the astonishing changes that are going to take place as the result of today's mobile communications, ubiquitous computing, geographical position sensing, and social reputation technologies.

Howard Rheingold has shared his excitement, concerns, and solutions with dozens of prestigious organizations, associations and corporations worldwide. He has written about computers and their implications in such best sellers as The Virtual Community (1993), Virtual Reality (1991), Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind (1988), and Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Amplifying Technology (1984). In 2000, MIT Press reissued revised editions of Virtual Community and Tools for Thought. Howard's present forecasts about what he calls “Smart Mobs” are the subject of his current book. Perseus published his book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, in Fall 2002.

In 1996, Howard Rheingold launched his own electronic business called Electric Minds, a second-generation web publishing company. In 1997, he sold it to Durand Corporation and is at work on a new book exploring future technologies.

Rheingold Associates, his latest enterprise, is a consulting network (www.rheingold.com/associates) that helps commercial, educational and nonprofit enterprises build online social networks and knowledge communities.

Howard Rheingold lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family. He was educated at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.