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Texting has been slow to take off in the U.S., largely because the service has been relatively expensive and far from ubiquitous. But that's changing rapidly: 27 million American cell-phone users can now send text messages, 50% more than last year. Besides, for most applications, personal computers plugged into the Internet--especially those with wireless connections--work just fine. Indeed, the computing power sitting on the nodes of these impromptu networks can be harnessed to do a lot more than call out troops for a rally. Rheingold considers the screen savers that millions of computer owners use to donate their spare computer power to search for intelligent life in the universe or, more recently, to find a cure for smallpox (see www.grid. org), as further examples of smart mobs in action. He calls them "supercomputer swarms."
Some of the most powerful smart mobs, Rheingold would argue, can be found on anarchic computer services like the Gnutella network, which replaced Napster as the favored venue for swapping music on the Internet. In these systems, groups of music enthusiasts gather and disperse in a dynamic, unpredictable way that makes it easy for kids to download free music but devilishly difficult for copyright holders to crack down on the practice. The music industry has already been transformed--if not mortally wounded--by mobs of music pirates. Government institutions may be relatively impervious to smart-mob technology, but they are probably not immune.