The Third Wave by Steve Case [Book Review]

“You’ve Got Mail!”

That sentence is how a lot of people were introduced to the internet back in the early 1990’s and Steve Case was one of the men responsible for it. Yes, this is the story of America Online and one of it’s co-founders Mr. Case. The book is The Third Wave

I am no exception!

AOL was how I first got introduced and absolutely hooked on the possibilities of the internet. So when I learned that Steve Case had finally written a book about the start of America Online and his vision for the future, I jumped at the opportunity to dive in.

The history of AOL is absolutely fascinating! Online entrepreneurs the world over owe a lot to Steve and I couldn’t stop turning the pages of this history lesson. But that was only part of this book…

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Steve talks about ‘3 waves’ in the history of the internet. The first being the creation of the back end, such as AOL, Cisco, IBM and others…This is followed by the massive popularity of mobile and the 2.0 craze such as Facebook, Twitter, and other popular apps. Which brings us to the future…The Third Wave.

Steve refers to this as the Internet of Everything, which talks about everything being connected. Not just your phone and TV but EVERYTHING being ‘online’ just as electricity is always ‘on’ in our homes. It’s an amazing concept and we’re starting to see the truths of this in everyday life right now. And Steve makes the ‘Case’ that this is where the opportunity will be for entrepreneurs in the future.

So I have to almost give two reviews for this book…The first gets a huge thumbs up for the history of AOL and Steve Case’s memoir. Yet the second part of this book and the ‘Internet of Everything‘ left me wanting more. I couldn’t help but want to hear more about this topic and the huge opportunities we will all have in this third wave.

However I suppose that’s what Steve ultimately wanted the reader to ‘get’ from his book…He wanted us to get the gears moving upstairs to look at ways that we can, as entrepreneurs, capitalize off these massive changes we are witnessing.

Overall, this book was an enjoyable read to learn how this iconic company was formed and it also gave me chills thinking about the future and what may become of ‘everything’ being connected.

Want A Copy Of The Third Wave? It’s simple! I’ll be giving away a copy of this book and shipping it to one lucky reader of Plus1Daily. All I need you to do is to share this blog post for everyone to see and use the hash tag #Plus1DailyBookReviews , and you’ll be entered to win! I’ll announce the winner live on air this week! Good luck and happy reading!

2 thoughts to “The Third Wave by Steve Case [Book Review]”

  1. The Internet of Everything . . .

    It;s definitely happening! Went to look at kitchen appliances. The refrigerator had 3 cameras and temp sensors on wifi. The oven had temp and timers set up to broadcast. The glass cooktop had a section where you could connect to your phone and display the recipe you were using on it, and control the heat remotely. About the only thing you couldn’t do ‘online’ was make it taste good!

    Our new Toyota has an app to track your kids when driving, set the speed, and alert you if the car deviates from a pre-programmed route. You can even -push- messages to the onboard display.

    And I won’t even go into the aspects of the “Internet of Things (IoT)” being developed using microcomputers such as the RaspberryPi to control everything from robots to the HVAC in your home.

    Opportunity is everywhere in this -new- age.

    Start preparing today, as tomorrow you will already be a -day late- in seeing how to utilize the environment in which we are all headed.

    Good review of a book from one of the true leaders of not only the past but the future Jon!

    1. Yeah man, I really enjoyed it. Couldn’t put it down in fact. Gave me some serious goose bumps thinking about what will be the ‘norm’ in a few years from now. Very exciting.

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