Overall, I found the readings in The Social Life of Information to be interesting, although they felt more like Part II of last week's Information Ecologies (as mentioned by classmate Chris Meyers in an earlier post.) 

I did, however, feel that some of the text was a bit dated.  Early on in the readings, Brown and Duguid bring up the idea of "endism", which really got me thinking.  They list a handful of things in society that are believed will be "brought to an end" by the ever-evolving technology around us.  The authors seem to dismiss this notion, but the fact is that in the nine years since this book was published, we have seen trends sway a bit in the direction of certain aspects of "endism."  For example, the book cites that technology could end "press, television, and mass media" as well as "universities."  Let's now look at the world as it is in 2009.  Hard copy newspapers are rapidly being phased out and replaced with faster-paced online reporting and blogging, we can watch newscasts and news video online, and one of the newest trends at colleges is the option of "online class" (in some instances, a person can even complete a full college education via online resources.)  The idea of "endism" may not be too far-fetched, in some cases.

One other concept that I found particularly interesting was the idea of manipulation of information by autonomous agents, especially product brokering.  The authors talk about Amazon.com keeping tabs on what items you search for, then, at a later date, recommending similar products based on your earlier searches.

This was a great example of the overall theme of this book; where we are with technology versus where we think we should be.  Product brokering seems to be a prime example of a developed technology with the intention of convenience, but lacking the critical thinking that would raise the quetion of; Do we need this?