first time i heard about albert-lászlá barabási was from nikos salingaros, mathematician who worked/works? together with christopher alexander; he said: if you wanna learn about networking, talk with barabasi. well, barabasi is doing a lot of interesting stuff, more recently he and his team are talking about the effects of parasitic computing.

i like his book "linked" somehow more than "wisdom of crowd" or other best selling publications in this field.