"From visionary tech entrepreneur Oliver Luckett and MIT Media Lab's Michael J. Casey, a groundbreaking, must-readtheory of social media how it works, how it's changinghuman life, and how we can master it for good and forprofit. In barely a decade, social media has positioneditself at the center of twenty-first century life. Thecombined power of platforms like Facebook, Twitter,Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine have helped topple dictatorsand turned anonymous teenagers into celebrities overnight.In the social media age, ideas spread and morph throughshared hashtags, photos, and videos, and the mostcompelling and emotive ones can transform public opinionin mere days and weeks, even attitudes and priorities thathad persisted for decades. How did this happen? The scopeand pace of these changes have left traditional businesses-- and their old-guard marketing gatekeepers --bewildered. We simply do not comprehend social media'sform, function, and possibilities. It's time we did. InThe Social Organism, Luckett and Casey offer arevolutionary theory: social networks -- to an astonishingdegree -- mimic the rules and functions of biologicallife. In sharing and replicating packets of informationknown as memes, the world's social media users arefacilitating an evolutionary process just like thetransfer of genetic information in living things. Memesare the basic building blocks of our culture, our socialDNA. To master social media -- and to make online contentthat impacts the world -- you must start with the SocialOrganism. With the scope and ambition of The SecondMachine Age and James Gleick's The Information, The SocialOrganism is an indispensable guide for business leaders,marketing professionals, and anyone serious aboutunderstanding our digital world -- a guide not just tosocial media, but to human life today and where it isheaded next"--