Public parts : how sharing in the digital age improves the way we work and live / Jeff Jarvis.

Includes bibliographical references.

The ages of publicness -- The prophet of publicness: Mark Zuckerberg -- Public choices : Private Germans ; The German paradox ; My public parts ; My private parts -- The benefits of publicness : Publicness ... ; Builds relationships ; Disarms strangers ; Enables collaboration ; Unleases the wisdom (and generosity) of the crowd ; Defuses the myth of perfection ; Neutralizes stigmas ; Grants immortality ... or at least credit ; Organizes us ; Protects us -- A history the private and the public : Fiendish kodakers ; Technology fears ; The making of the modern public ; The public sphere -- The public press : Gutenberg's and God's gift ; The making and unmaking of mass media -- What is privacy? : How do you define privacy? ; How do we protect privacy? ; The ethics of privacy and publicness -- How public are we? : We have met the public, and they are us ; How public is too public? ; Oversharing -- The public you : Identity and reputation ; Public advice -- The sharing industry : The public economy ; Evan Williams: blogger and twitter ; Dennis Crowley: dodgeball and foursquare ; Philip Kaplan: blippy ; Josh Harris: We Live in Public and Wired City -- The radically public company : Imagine ; Open-and-shut case studies -- By the people : Killing secrecy ; Beyond openness -- The new world : Who will protect publicness? ; Principles of publicness.

Argues that the growth of social networking and increased openness online is beneficial in the digital age and can lead to increased collaboration and changes in the way people organize, govern, teach, and learn.