Internet & Platforms

Today at SXSW, we are launching a Wi-Fi network + advocacy campaign called We Heart WiFi.  Fred and Albert both have posts up about it this morning. Over the coming weekend, folks at SXSW will be able to hop on to one of our free “Super Wi-Fi” hotspots.  The “super” part is that each of… Continue re...

Despite the extent to which I talk and think about car sharing and other newly possible. web-enabled modes of transportation, the truth is I still don’t use too many of them on a regular basis.  Need to work on that. It seems as though I need to travel to SF to get the urge to get around town in new...

One thing I’ve wanted for a long time now is a dashboard that helps me track the wide array of tech policy issues I follow. One place where I could check, every morning, to get a sense of what issues are trending & developing, what longer-term issues are brewing, what specific milestones are approac...

I’ve always loved Mozilla‘s mission and tactics – using awesome consumer products as the lever to make the web a better place to be. That’s why I’m happy to join their WebFWD accelerator program as a scout.  That just means that I’m one of many folks who are on the lookout for products and companies...

I consider myself an accidental policy person. In other words: I didn’t set out to study and understand how our policy decisions impact the world we live in.  Rather, I came at it from the perspective of design and experience (both real world and virtual) and ended up backing into the policy implica...

One of the more important, more contentious, and more complicated tech policy issues is radio spectrum allocation. It’s an issue I don’t have a lot of background experience in but have been learning a lot about lately. It’s a hot topic right now because the FCC is about to hold incentive auctions to...

Yesterday I spent the day at Princeton with Steve Schultze and the rest of the team at the Center for Information Technology Policy. The topic of my talk was “Peer Progress and Regulation 2.0” — something I’ve been thinking and talking about over the past several months, but haven’t yet written a to...

This morning I am heading down to the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy to talk about Peer Progress and Regulation 2.0.  The pitch goes like this: “Peer Networks” are bringing new organizational and economic dynamics to every sector — unlocking tremendous opportunity and potential. ...

I am bad at email.  Maybe everyone is.  But I feel like I’m worse than most; or at least worse than I want to be. I feel like my inbox should do a better job helping me find emails that are important.  I use Gmail and Priority Inbox, so I don’t mean “important” in that… Continue reading

Yesterday Uber made me feel like a superhero. It was about 10 degrees in Boston, and I was on the T on my way into Cambridge.  And as we pulled in to Kenmore station the conductor notified us that all Green Line trains would be going out of service.  So my train — and every… Continue reading

Yesterday, I went down to DC to visit the US Dept of Health and Human Services – and presented to their Innovation Council (a cross functional working group on innovation) about opportunities to bring “networked thinking” into the health space. This is clearly such an important area, with huge oppor...

Sunday night, Cescalouise‘s iPhone mysteriously went dark.  She had a lot going on Monday, so I gave her my phone to use, then I headed down to NYC for the day and following night. So I’ve been away from home for the last day and a half with no phone.  Not a huge deal, obviously,… Continue reading

I love Google Reader. I’ve used it for a long long time now to keep tabs on things.  I suppose it’s an old school method at this point, but I think it’s just great. The screengrab above is one of my home screens on my galaxy s3.  I have moved to a widgets-only mobile desktop,… Continue reading

I love milestones.  Times of year that mark change and give you a chance to pause and reset. I think that’s part of why I had such a hard time living in California during college, and why I appreciated the seasons so much when I moved back east.  They provide a very natural rhythm. The… Continue rea...

There is a practically non-stop flow of threats to the Internet.  That’s because the Internet is fundamentally empowering and therefore also threatening to those whose power is diminished. This week, there are two big things on the forefront, which my colleague Albert has written up today.  Both iss...

It’s hard to find the right balance when bringing technology into our lives.  I do think lots of us suffer from some form of internet / social media addiction, and it’s getting easier and easier every day to bring all of that with us everywhere we go. This will only continue to accelerate (and I… Co...

Just one of the many stories to get overshadowed by #frankenstorm today is the opening arguments of Kirtsaeng vs. Wiley in the Supreme Court.  This case will test whether we (as in, citizens of the US) have the right to re-sell items which may contain copyrighted components that were originally sold...

I buy a lot of books.  I find it impossible to browse the web and not stumble upon a book that looks worth reading. For instance, this one. Until recently,  I didn’t think use an e-reader so I always just bought paper books without thinking about it. I love having books on my bookshelf –… Continue r...

Steven Johnson, one of my all time favorite writers and thinkers has a new book out: Future Perfect – The Case for Progress in the Networked Age. Go buy it; I’ll be here when you get back (I love it when bloggers say that — I almost always do it myself). In Future Perfect, Steven… Continue reading

Yesterday, I wrote a guest post on the Google Public Policy blog on “the clothesline paradox and the hidden economies of the web“, fleshing out an idea that was raised at the USV Hacking Society event back in April.  I’ll include the video, below, of the conversation that kicked off this thinking: T...