Internet, 2012.
The open web, platforms, peer networks, standards
- Open source and open knowledge
I spent part of the train ride home today working on a coding project (the Highrise bookmarklet I blogged about wanting on Monday). It’s almost done and I’m excited to start using it. I am not a great programmer, but I like it a lot. I only took one CS course in college. I really… Continue reading
- Creativity and Free Culture
This morning started out in such a great way. I’m on a mailing list at the Media Lab called “awesome”, and this morning Kasia Hayden sent around a link to this incredible piece of creative work: It’s a marriage proposal presented as a “live lip-dub” of Bruno Mars’ “Marry You“. Basically a live mus...
- Step Number One: Internet Access
In the spirit of posting highlights from this week’s Freedom to Connect conference, I’d like to next point to the talk given by former FCC chairman Michael Copps, entitled “Step Number One to Getting our Democracy Right”. Here’s the video: The full text is here, and it’s probably a quicker read tha...
- Innovation Under Austerity
Yesterday at the Freedom to Connect conference, Eben Moglen delivered a fantastic talk entitled “Innovation Under Austerity”. It’s about an hour long and is really worth the watch. Eben lays out, in clear, compelling terms, the case for open, decentralized, bottom-up innovation as the clearest way ...
- Netizen Effects
Last week, Twitter did something big: they introduced a new patent assignment agreement that binds them to use their patent arsenal only for defensive purposes. In an environment where things are getting ugly in software patent land, this is a bold move. The agreement (here on GitHub), which they’l...
- Connected Learning
Yesterday at the Center for Civic Media, our lunch guest was S. Craig Watkins, a professor at UT Austin working on a variety of projects under the heading of “Connected Learning”. In his blog post about the idea, Dr. Watkins defines this as: the increasingly complex ways in which young people’s lea...
- Solving Problems the Internet Way
The Internet works differently than most other things we’re used to. 20th century humans are accustomed to hierarchy, control and scarcity. The Internet, by contrast, is distributed open, and abundant. That difference is fundamental — it not only empowers what’s possible on the Internet (which we...
- Loud power and quiet power
When the Internet erupted on January 18th to voice its discontent with SOPA and PIPA, it was a moment of loud power. Fight for the Future has a nice infographic describing everything that happened that day: 115,00 websites blacked out, 10mm signatures gathered, 8mm calls to congress; all in one day...
- What we mean when we talk about Networks
I’ve been spending a lot of time recently thinking about networks. By networks, I mean groups of people, connected to one another via the Internet, who are able to do things and solve problems together by way of their direct connections to one another. As seemingly obvious as that definition may be...
- Cities that Work Like The Web
Here are slides from a talk I gave at the Living Cities Strategic Forum on Technology and Civic Change. Continue reading