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There is a great moment in the film, The SocialNetwork , when Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, met Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, the founders of Facebook, in New York. Parker has made the trip to New York to meet Zuckerberg and this face-to-face meeting will make all three immensely wealthy. In Aaron Sorkin’s script this is a pivotal point in the success of Facebook. Saverin is in New York meeting potential advertisers to try and turn their start up into a business. He is thinking it could be worth a million dollars. Zuckerberg is not interested. He thinks Facebook is cool. He is keen to meet Parker because he has cool reputation as the man who brought the music industry to its knees. The other person at the dinner table is Christy, the girlfriend of Saverin. It is a fancy restaurant and Parker is 25 minutes late and Saverin does not like him or being there. After initial discussions Parker scales up Zuckerberg’s ambition. Facebook, he says, could be worth a bill...

When you see the stock market valuations of Internet and social media companies that price audiences at billions of dollars even if there are no profits you may scratch your head in confusion. Future Perfect by Steven Johnson is a book that captures the optimism behind those stock prices and despite its US focus provides some good pointers for small businesses everywhere. At the heart of his argument to be optimistic is his belief that LeGrand stars will be replaced by Baran webs. No, I didn't know what he was on about either. But it is compelling to read on. LeGrand stars are systems like big corporations and big government, named after the Frenchman who built France's railway network centred on Paris. It's super-efficient until the centre breaks down. Paul Baran was an engineer who worked in the US defence industry and developed a communications web that the Soviets could not disable by knocking out the centre. It became the internet. In his book. Johnson gives...