The Slow Hunch

Internet, 2014.

The open web, platforms, peer networks, standards13 posts

  • Dec 17, 2014
    Regulation and the peer economy: a 2.0 framework

    As part of my series on Regulation 2.0, which I’m putting together for the Project on Municipal Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, today I am going to employ a bit of a cop-out tactic and rather than publish my next section (which I haven’t finished yet, largely because my whole family has th...

  • Dec 16, 2014
    Web platforms as regulatory systems

    This is part 3 in a series of posts I’m developing into a white paper on “Regulation 2.0” for the Program on Municipal Innovation Harvard Kennedy School of Government.  For many tech industry readers of this blog, these ideas may seem obvious, but they are not intended for you!  They are meant to he...

  • Dec 12, 2014
    The magic of making hard things easy

    I wrote earlier this week about how life is, generally, hard.  There’s no question about that. One of my favorite things about the Internet, and probably the most exciting thing about working in venture capital, is being around people who are working to re-architect the world to make hard things eas...

  • Dec 1, 2014
    Support services for the Indie Economy

    Over the course of the past year, I’ve been interviewed a bunch of times about the “peer economy” or the “sharing economy” (Fastco, Wired, NY Times, PBS Newshour), with most of the focus on the public policy considerations of all this, specifically public safety regulations and the impact on labor. ...

  • Nov 13, 2014
    I agree with Ted Cruz: let’s supercharge the Internet marketplace

    There has been a lot of debate about how to protect Internet Freedom. Today, Senator Ted Cruz has an op-ed in the Washington Post on the subject, which starts out with an eloquent and spot-on assessment of what we are trying to protect: Never before has it been so easy to take an idea and… Continue ...

  • Aug 29, 2014
    Every once in a while I’m reminded of how awesome the Internet is

    I woke up this morning, early, to an email from my mother-in-law pointing me to this: It’s the story of a 9-year-old boy who built an arcade out of cardboard boxes in his dad’s used auto parts shop. Kids at school teased him about it, and he had zero customers, but he had built something… Continue r...

  • Aug 26, 2014
    Dropbox and personal data

    More and more, recently, I’ve been noticing web services that use Dropbox for storing user data.  For example,1Password, OneName and Diaro. With all the talk about user control of data, data liberation, privacy, etc — I actually feel like this is is a super nice approach, at least for some use cases...

  • Jul 16, 2014
    The open internet and the freedom to innovate

    I spent the last two days in meetings with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his staff, discussing their proposed Open Internet rules (aka net neutrality).  Monday’s meeting was with a group of NYC VCs, and Tuesday’s meeting was with group of NYC startup CEOs and GCs. Coming out of these meetings, and af...

  • Jun 26, 2014
    Joi’s 9 principles of open innovation

    I spent the day Tuesday at the Civic Media conference, put on annually by the MIT Center for Civic Media and the Knight Foundation.  In addition to being a gathering of a fabulous community of civic hackers and builders, it’s also where Knight announces the winners of the NewsChallenge grant contest...

  • May 16, 2014
    The FCC open internet vote

    Yesterday, the FCC met to vote on its notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the Open Internet.  As was generally expected, the commission voted, along partisan lines, to move forward with their plan for Open Internet rules — a plan that, as currently designed, would allow for fast lanes and slow l...

  • May 12, 2014
    FCC’s response to the VC open internet letter

    Over the weekend, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler sent a response to the letter that over 100 VCs and angel investors submitted last week.  In the letter, we stressed the importance of an open internet as a foundation for the stunning levels of investment and innovation we’ve seen in the internet applicati...

  • May 8, 2014
    Defending the open internet

    Over the past few weeks, the future of the open internet has come into sharp focus, as the FCC’s 2010 open internet rules were struck down in court, and then plans for new rules from the FCC came into public view.  Amidst fears that the internet is f**ked, debate has raged about what this all… Conti...

  • Feb 25, 2014
    I don’t know how to shop anymore

    The sole is starting to peel of from my snow boots, so I’m in the market for some shoe goo or Gorilla Glue.  I’d really like to get it today because the flapping sole is getting annoying. As I was thinking about this just now, I realized that I don’t know how to shop anymore.… Continue reading