Not long ago we were spectators, passive consumers of mass media. Now, on YouTube and blogs and Facebook and Twitter, we are media. No longer content in our traditional role as couch potatoes, we approach television shows, movies, even advertising as invitations to participate as experiences to immerse ourselves in at will. Frank Rose introduces us to the people who are reshaping media for a two-way world, changing how we play, how we communicate, and how we think."

In The Sea We Swim In, Frank Rose leads us to a new understanding of stories and their role in our lives. For decades, experts from many fields—psychologists, economists, advertising and marketing executives—failed to register the power of narrative. Scientists thought stories were frivolous. Economists were knee-deep in theory. Marketers just wanted to cut to the sales pitch. Yet stories, not reasoning, are the key to persuasion. Whether we’re aware of it or not, stories determine how we view the world and our place in it. That means the tools of professional storytellers—character, world, detail, voice—can unlock a way of thinking that’s ideal for an age in which we don’t passively consume media but actively participate in it. Building on insights from cognitive psychology and neuroscience, Rose shows us how to see the world in narrative terms, not as a thesis to be argued or a pitch to be made but as a story to be told. Leading brands and top entertainment professionals already understand the vast potential of storytelling. From Warby Parker to Mailchimp to The Walking Dead, Rose explains how they use stories to establish their identity and turn ordinary people into fans—and how you can do the same.

Psychologists, economists, advertising and marketing mavens-for decades, they failed to register the power of narrative. Most scientists considered stories frivolous. Economists were knee-deep in theory. Marketers wanted to cut to the sales pitch. Yet stories are key to how we comprehend the world and our place in it. In The Sea We Swim In, Frank Rose leads us to a new understanding of storytelling and its role in our lives. Building on insights from cognitive psychology and neuroscience, he shows us how to see the world in narrative terms, not as a thesis to be argued or a pitch to be made but as a story to be told. Leading brands and top entertainment professionals already understand this way of thinking. From Warby Parker to The Walking Dead, Rose shows how they design and implement complex narrative ecosystems for interconnected digital worlds-and how you can do the same.

Wandering, seemingly at random, Angelos is a free spirit ...no family, no connections and strangely no records. What is his mission? Why does he create such intrigue? And more importantly, to where will his trail finally lead?

It seems unthinkable today-but a quarter-century ago, when personal computers were still new, Steve Jobs was cast out of Apple. The year was 1985. IBM and Microsoft dominated the computing world. The revolutionary Macintosh, launched with such fanfare the year before, was foundering. And Jobs, the guiding force at Apple from the beginning, seemed a threat to his own company. West of Eden-a national best-seller when it first appeared in 1989, now updated with a new introduction-tells how Jobs lured John Sculley from Pepsi-Cola to lead Apple into the future and then found himself pushed into exile. This kind of corporate intrigue was far from the entrepreneurial innocence of Apple's early years. But this is more than a tale of corporate upheaval. It's a story of America in the '80s, when computers seemed as much a threat as a promise, conformity ruled in the corporate suites, and a desire to change the world was almost automatically suspect. It is the story of a visionary's fall.

The Internet provides an infrastructure that makes the steadily increasing amount of information accessible efficiently, quickly, and inexpensively. Closely connec ted with this opportunity is the danger that the available information will over charge the individual information seeker's capability to process the information and to judge its quality. In this situation, information intermediaries can take upon the role of an expert and a guarantor of quality similar to intermediaries in markets for physical goods or finances. Thus, information intermediaries can be a trust worthy, information processing third party, mediating between information seekers and information sources. The current technological development has created information technologies that are capable to efficiently process large amounts of information. However, the pro vision of intermediation services necessitates a thorough examination of the basic principles underlying the economics of information intermediaries as well as a sound foundation on information technologies. The present work by Frank Rose addresses the fundamental question concerning the economics of information intermediaries by means of an abstract model. The model focuses on services that concentrate on the search and mediation of information, and identifies the essential influencing factors of the intermediary's environment. The model is then employed to investigate the impact of environmental conditions on the information intermediary on the one hand, and the optimal strategy of the information intermediary as a reaction to environmental conditions on the other hand."

Not long ago we were spectators, passive consumers of mass media. Now, on YouTube and blogs and Facebook and Twitter, we are media. And while we watch more television than ever before, how we watch it is changing in ways we have barely slowed down to register. No longer content in our traditional role as couch potatoes, we approach television shows, movies, even advertising as invitations to participate—as experiences to immerse ourselves in at will. Wired contributing editor Frank Rose introduces us to the people who are reshaping media for a two-way world—people like Will Wright (The Sims), James Cameron (Avatar), Damon Lindelof (Lost), and dozens of others whose ideas are changing how we play, how we chill, and even how we think. The Art of Immersion is an eye-opening look at the shifting shape of entertainment today.