[ecrea] new book The Leisure Commons: A Spatial History of Web 2.0

Hope all is good on your side! I want to share some good news with you 
(esp for those who are not on fb). My book, 'The Leisure Commons: A 
Spatial History of Web 2.0' has just been published by the Routledge 
Science, Technology & Society Series.
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415887113/

Some of you might know this. I had the idea for this book way back in my 
New York days but decided not to pursue it as I think one dissertation 
was all I could handle :-) When I came to Holland, I was fortunate to 
win this two-year grant that gave me time and space to write this up. It 
has been tremendous fun working on this as it has taken me to such 
different disciplines and scarily, made me an expert on every possible 
type of park you can think of! So yeah, in case you saw me hanging out 
in the park during work, I swear it was for research :-)

So here's the blurb below.
About the book: There is much excitement about Web 2.0 as an 
unprecedented, novel, community-building space for experiencing, 
producing, and consuming leisure, particularly through social network 
sites. What is needed is a perspective that is invested in neither a 
utopian or dystopian posture but sees historical continuity to this 
cyberleisure geography. This book investigates the digital public sphere 
by drawing parallels to another leisure space that shares its rhetoric 
of being open, democratic, and free for all: the urban park. It makes 
the case that the history and politics of public parks as an urban 
commons provides fresh insight into contemporary debates on 
corporatization, democratization and privatization of the digital 
commons. This book takes the reader on a metaphorical journey through 
multiple forms of public parks such as Protest Parks, Walled Gardens, 
Corporate Parks, Fantasy Parks, and Global Parks, addressing issues such 
as virtual activism, online privacy/surveillance, digital labor, 
branding, and globalization of digital networks. Ranging from the 19th 
century British factory garden to Tokyo Disneyland, this book offers 
numerous spatial metaphors to bring to life aspects of new media spaces. 
Readers looking for an interdisciplinary, historical and spatial 
approach to staid Web 2.0 discourses will undoubtedly benefit from this 
text.

Indeed, at this point, it is insanely expensive but fortunately, the 
paperback comes out soon which is for the mere mortals :) For those who 
are interested in reviewing it, you can get a free copy from Routledge:
http://www.routledge.com/resources/complimentary_exam_copy_request/






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