Digerati

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The digerati are the elite of the computer industry and online communities. The word is a portmanteau, derived from "digital" and "literati", and reminiscent of the earlier coinage glitterati ([1], glitter + literati). Famous computer scientists, tech magazine writers and well-known bloggers are included among the digerati.

The word is used in several related but different ways. It can mean:

  • Opinion leaders who, through their writings, promoted a vision of digital technology and the Internet as a transformational element in society;
  • People regarded as celebrities within the Silicon Valley computer subculture, particularly during the dot-com boom years;
  • Anyone regarded as influential within the digital technology community.

The first mention of the word Digerati on USENET occurred in 1992, and referred to an article by George Gilder in Upside magazine. Some sources say that the term was coined by New York Times editor Tim Race. In Race's words:

Actually the first use of "digerati" was in a Jan. 29, 1992 New York Times article, "Pools of Memory, Waves of Dispute", by John Markoff, into which I edited the term. The article was about a controversy engendered by a George Gilder article that had recently appeared in Upside magazine. In a March 1, 1992 "On Language" column in The New York Times Magazine, William Safire noted the coinage and gave me the honor of defining it, which we did like so:
Digerati, n.pl. -- people highly skilled in the processing and manipulation of digital information; wealthy or scholarly techno-geeks.

Contents

[edit] Members of the digerati

Some people who have been named as members of the digerati, particularly in the first sense of the word, with their title in John Brockman's Digerati: Encounters With the Cyber Elite (1996) in parentheses when they have one, include:

[edit] Free software visionaries

[edit] EFF/WELL

[edit] Publishers

[edit] Authors/Columnists

  • John Brockman (The Connector) -- author, editor.
  • John C. Dvorak (The Gadfly) technology columnist
  • Esther Dyson (The Pattern-Recognizer) writer, founding chairman of ICANN
  • Denise Caruso (The Idealist) runs Spotlight conference, New York Times columnist
  • John Markoff (The Scribe) NYT tech journalist, author, widely scorned by the "hacker underground" for embellishing his stories on Kevin Mitnick
  • Jerry Michalski (The Pilgrim) managing editor of Release 1.0, the newsletter published, and originally written and edited solely by Esther Dyson.
  • Richard Menta Technology columnist, editor of MP3 Newswire

[edit] Executives

  • Charles Simonyi, oversaw the development of Word and Excel at Microsoft
  • Ted Leonsis (The Marketer) President, AOL
  • Steve Case (The Statesman) founder and CEO of America Online
  • Greg Clark (The Physicist) President, News Technology Group, News Corporation.
  • John Doerr (The Matchmaker) Venture Capitalist, microprocessor
  • Bill Gates (The Software Developer) founder, Microsoft
  • Steve Jobs (The Alternate Software Developer) founder, Apple
  • Doug Carlston (The Thinker) cofounder, Brøderbund Software
  • Scott McNealy (The Competitor) cofounder and CEO of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
  • Nathan Myhrvold (The Chef) chief technology officer at Microsoft
  • Doug Rowan (The Curator) president and CEO of Corbis
  • Linda Stone (The Catalyst) was an executive at both Apple Computer and Microsoft Corporation. She coined the phrase, "continuous partial attention." See * [2] for current biographical information.

[edit] Academics

[edit] Miscellaneous

  • W. Daniel Hillis (The Genius) vice president of research and development at the Walt Disney Company, cofounder/chief scientist, Think Machines Corporation
  • Brewster Kahle (The Searcher) inventor and founder of Wide Area Information Servers Inc.,
  • Jaron Lanier (The Prodigy) writer, musician, artist, virtual reality developer
  • Stewart McBride (The Maestro) Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of United Digital Artists
  • John McCrea (The Force) manager of Cosmo, Silicon Graphics's next-generation Web software product line.
  • Kip Parent (The Webmaster) founder of Pantheon Interactive and is former electronic sales manager of Silicon Graphics.
  • Paul Saffo (The Oracle) director of the Institute for the Future
  • Bob Stein (The Radical) founder of the Voyager Company (CDROM)
  • Lew Tucker (The Evangelist) former director of Advanced Development at Thinking Machines Corporation and is the director of JavaSoft's Corporate and ISV Relations for Sun Microsystems, Inc.
  • Dave Winer (The Lover) software and blogging pioneer
  • Richard Saul Wurman (The Impresario) chairman and creative director of the TED conferences. He is also an architect, a cartographer, the creator of the Access Travel Guide Series
  • Stewart Alsop
  • George Gilder
  • Kevin Mitnick – the first publicly documented "cracker" (criminal hacker), widely a person of interest among the computer "underground" for being held without bail for nearly 2 years before being prosecuted in court.
  • Mark Figini founder and president of Digerati Consulting.
  • Terry Storch Digerati Pastor for Lifechurch.tv, a large multi-site church located in Oklahoma known for their innovation and use of technology. Also co-author of The Blogging Church.

[edit] References

  • Digerati: Encounters With the Cyber Elite by John Brockman, Hardcover: 354 pages Publisher: Hardwired; 1st ed edition (October 1, 1996) ISBN 1-888869-04-6

[edit] External links

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