Internet.
The open web, platforms, peer networks, standards
- 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
- Prescient Markets
One of my favorite phenomena over the past few years — and one of the stories I like to tell most about why the internet is awesome — is something I call “Prescient Markets”. Marketplaces (or just producers in some cases) that take a large amount of the risk out of producing & selling products… Con...
- The Enterprise End-Run
This post has been a long time coming. It’s the idea that keeps coming back; the slow hunch that’s been brewing and brewing for months. For some reason, it’s taken me forever to actually write it out. So here I finally go. Last Friday night, I had the pleasure of judging a round of the… Continue ...
- Big Data
Next week, I’m heading to Santa Clara for a few days of “big data” at the O’Reilly Strata Conference. I’m really looking forward to it, and expect to have my mind blown several times over. I’m on the program committee for the conference, though I joined late and missed the chance to review proposa...
- Wanted: Strategic Networking Tool
I’d like to make an addition to my internet wish list for 2011: a Strategic Networking Tool. Here’s what I mean: Online networks of all kinds are very good at telling you who you’re already connected with. Who your friends are, who your professional contacts are, etc. This is great, but it’s all ...
- The DIY Empire
Last night, I attended an event at Harvard about the Knight News Challenge, put on by Hacks/Hackers Boston and the Knight Foundation. The room was full of people who are interested in applying for the News Challenge grant program. I was there to talk about our Knight project, OpenBlock, specifical...
- Is _____ for you?
I get way too much spam in my inbox, even just counting things I’ve signed up for myself. Most of it I delete, but today’s email from CoTweet stood out, and is worth mentioning. A while back I signed up for CoTweet, just to check it out — nutshell: CoTweet lets you collaboratively monitor and… Cont...
- Silenced!
Today, I got my first dose of Twitter smack down, as my account was suspended along with a bunch of others following yesterday’s Gov 2.0 Expo. Ouch! Well, at least I’m in good company. As one of the commenters on the Tech Crunch article noted, a situation like this is definitely a bit of a… Contin...
- Web App of the Week: SmartyPig
I stumbled upon SmartyPig this week while looking through the Happy Cog website, after reading a Zeldman post, linked to by Daring Fireball, which was brought to me via Melkjug. Gotta love the blogosphere. Now, after all that, not only do I have a new Favorite Web App, but I have a new bank. My… Con...
- Digifesto
One of my colleagues at The Open Planning Project, Sebastian Benthall, has started blogging over at Digifesto. Seb is one sharp cookie, so keep an eye on this blog for lots of great web gems — the blog will be focusing on “how the internet and open source software can be used by civil society… Conti...