Internet.
The open web, platforms, peer networks, standards
- Beyond Civic Apps: Making All Apps More Civic
(cross-posted on the MIT Center for Civic Media blog, the PBS IdeaLab blog, and the Harvard Data-Smart City Solutions blog) A few years ago when I was working on the Civic Commons project with Code for America and OpenPlans, I did a presentation at Living Cities called “Cities that Work Like the Web...
- Chromecast, Net Neutrality and the Rise of New Gatekeepers
For the past few weeks, I’ve been enjoying starting to use my new Chromecast. For those who don’t know, Chromecast is Google’s new internet-video-to-tv device — plug it in, then stream web content from any device to your TV. The Chromecast experience has been eye opening, and it perfectly illustrat...
- Social Connections: from Something You Inherit to Something You Earn
(I’m writing this on the amtrak to NY as my computer quickly runs out of battery, and I have no charger, so this’ll be short…) Somehow, earlier this week, I came across Zenep Tufekci’s piece from last spring in the Atlantic on Social Media’s Small, Positive Role in Human Relationships. I liked it, ...
- PDF NYC: Powered By Us: Architecting Policy for a Connected World
Yesterday I gave a talk at this year’s Personal Democracy Forum. For those who don’t know it, PDF is a great event, and is now in its 10th year of bringing together the community of folks working at the intersection of tech, politics, and civics. You can see all the talks from yesterday (and today...
- Powered by Us
The week before last, I attended the Mesh Conference in SF, which brought together a big group of folks working at the intersection of the web and the “new economy”: i.e., the “sharing economy”, “peer economy”, “connection economy”, “collaborative consumption”, “the mesh”, etc. As you might imagine...
- The peer economy
I am writing this post from the balcony of my Airbnb apartment in nob hill in sf. Its by far the nicest place I’ve ever stayed in sf. Beautiful duplex penthouse, with an amazing view of downtown, for less than the price of a hotel room. To get here, I hopped a ride via Lyft,… Continue reading
- Google Fiber and Competition
It’s been pretty awesome to watch the roll out of Google Fiber. For those who haven’t been following, Google is piloting a program to deliver gigabit internet service (symmetrical — equal speeds for uploads and download), starting with Kansas City and coming soon to Austin, TX. This is important and...
- The Indie Web, Continued
I wrote last week about the Indie Web: the way that the web has the ability to help us grow and connect as individuals in awesome new ways. Here’s my latest entry in that story: For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved doing everything by bike. As a kid, the bike was my favorite… Continue reading
- The Indie Web
Last night at USV, we hosted the latest of several recent meetups on the “Peer Economy”. We are in the process of organizing a number of companies and organizations that represent a certain sector of the internet economy in NYC, with an eye towards building a more formal coalition (perhaps in the m...
- We Heart WiFi
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...
- WebFWD: Accelerating a Better Internet
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...
- Grokking Spectrum
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...
- Peer Progress and Regulation 2.0
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...
- Internet Centrism
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. ...
- House of Cards, and newsjacking the Blackout Bowl
This was a pretty fun weekend for alternative media experiences. Of course, House of Cards launched on Netflix, testing a new model of distribution, and the Super Bowl was interrupted by a 30-minute blackout, leading to a rush to “newsjack” the moment on social media. What I like about both the Netf...
- Peer Networks and Health Innovation
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...
- My Public Folders on Google Reader
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
- A web-wide moment of silence
Since last Friday, my life has seemingly been consumed with thinking about what happened at Sandy Hook elementary school. Maybe it’s the just horrific nature of the event. Maybe it’s that I’m a parent of two small kids, and I haven’t been able to stop hugging and kissing them and thinking about how ...
- Networks Under Threat
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...
- Analog + Digital, Revisited
I’m still frustrated with how book buying works. Totally randomly, we ended up watching the Tom Wolfe documentary on TV Friday night. It was really great — incredible to get a behind-the-scenes look at how he operates. He is clearly a master of the interview and a master researcher. He has an inc...