smart mob

Coined by American journalist Howard Rheingold in his 2002 book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (see quotation below).

smart mob (plural smart mobs)

1. A group whose members do not know each other but are able to coordinate their actions through digital communication.
   • 2002, Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Cambridge, M.A.: Perseus Publishing, →ISBN, page xii:

     Smart mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don't know each other. The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities.

   • 2005 August 1, Kevin Kelly, “We Are the Web”, in Wired‎, San Francisco, C.A.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-07-12:

     This impulse for participation has upended the economy and is steadily turning the sphere of social networking – smart mobs, hive minds, and collaborative action – into the main event.

   • 2012, David Brin, Existence, London: Orbit Books, →ISBN, page 162:

     Calling up a smart-mob was tricky. People might already be too scattered and distracted by the rumor storm. The number to respond might not reach critical mass—in which case all you'd get is a smattering of critics, kibitzers, and loudmouths, doing more harm than good.

• flash mob

• smart mob on Wikipedia.Wikipedia