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 model of San Francisco’s BayShare) at some point in the future. As is to be expected, we spent the bulk of the discussion trying to figure out what it is, exactly, that ties us all together. I think there’s a pretty strong thread, but it’s not immediately clear how best to describe it. So I hereby invite you, the Internet, into the conversation. So, as a thought experiment, how might you describe the common approaches and values between:
At USV, we have a word for all of this, which is simply “networks”. That’s great and effective as an investment thesis, but it’s actually rather abstract as way of communicating the idea widely. In Steven Johnson’s recent book Future Perfect, he uses the term “peer network”, which is better but still somewhat problematic (as peer means “pier” to most people and “napster” to others). And our working description, as you can see, is “peer economy”. Anyway, rather than try to “draw a box” around all of this — we instead attempted to (at Matt Brimer’s suggestion) focus on the center — on the core opportunities, values, and methods that all of these communities believe in and operate around. The ones that stood out to me the most were:
increasing personal freedom through community support;
creating economic empowerment;
valuing authenticity and real human connection;
built on trust (as developed within each community);
and perhaps my favorite: Andrew Wagner’s “as New York as a slice of pizza”
In my world, I focus a lot on words like “innovation” and “networks” — but I think the thing that really stood out to me about last night’s conversation was the centrality of the human component. Empowering “real people” to do new and awesome things. To access new economic opportunities for themselves, while at the same time rediscovering community. The idea that stuck in my head last night is about the “Indie Web” — what’s so interesting about the web and the networks of people on it is that they are at the same time individual & independent AND hyper-connected. The fact that we’re connected lets us be independent. It’s almost a paradox. I like the idea that the web makes it possible to be an indie musician, dj or filmmaker, to be an indie craftsperson or manufacturer, an indie journalist, publisher, or even an indie scientist. And what makes most (if not all) of this possible is the ability to be an indie entrepreneur, whether that’s through an open source project, a meetup, a web app, or even a venture-backed company (which is, admittedly, a certain flavor of “indie”). The point is, that on an open web, we have the unfettered ability to make new things that enable people to do new things. Which is pretty awesome and exciting.
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 ways. A few months ago, I tried out Scoot’s new battery-powered short-term scooter rental service, which was really fun (and will get much better as battery life improves).
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 model of San Francisco’s BayShare) at some point in the future. As is to be expected, we spent the bulk of the discussion trying to figure out what it is, exactly, that ties us all together. I think there’s a pretty strong thread, but it’s not immediately clear how best to describe it. So I hereby invite you, the Internet, into the conversation. So, as a thought experiment, how might you describe the common approaches and values between:
At USV, we have a word for all of this, which is simply “networks”. That’s great and effective as an investment thesis, but it’s actually rather abstract as way of communicating the idea widely. In Steven Johnson’s recent book Future Perfect, he uses the term “peer network”, which is better but still somewhat problematic (as peer means “pier” to most people and “napster” to others). And our working description, as you can see, is “peer economy”. Anyway, rather than try to “draw a box” around all of this — we instead attempted to (at Matt Brimer’s suggestion) focus on the center — on the core opportunities, values, and methods that all of these communities believe in and operate around. The ones that stood out to me the most were:
increasing personal freedom through community support;
creating economic empowerment;
valuing authenticity and real human connection;
built on trust (as developed within each community);
and perhaps my favorite: Andrew Wagner’s “as New York as a slice of pizza”
In my world, I focus a lot on words like “innovation” and “networks” — but I think the thing that really stood out to me about last night’s conversation was the centrality of the human component. Empowering “real people” to do new and awesome things. To access new economic opportunities for themselves, while at the same time rediscovering community. The idea that stuck in my head last night is about the “Indie Web” — what’s so interesting about the web and the networks of people on it is that they are at the same time individual & independent AND hyper-connected. The fact that we’re connected lets us be independent. It’s almost a paradox. I like the idea that the web makes it possible to be an indie musician, dj or filmmaker, to be an indie craftsperson or manufacturer, an indie journalist, publisher, or even an indie scientist. And what makes most (if not all) of this possible is the ability to be an indie entrepreneur, whether that’s through an open source project, a meetup, a web app, or even a venture-backed company (which is, admittedly, a certain flavor of “indie”). The point is, that on an open web, we have the unfettered ability to make new things that enable people to do new things. Which is pretty awesome and exciting.
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 ways. A few months ago, I tried out Scoot’s new battery-powered short-term scooter rental service, which was really fun (and will get much better as battery life improves).
Investing @ USV. Student of cities and the internet.
The Slow Hunch by Nick Grossman
Investing @ USV. Student of cities and the internet.
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 these hotspots is connected to the internet backbone not by cable, but by another high-speed wireless link, operating in the “open” or “unlicensed” frequencies (meaning that anyone who wants to can use them). These link back to a gigabit fiber connection (which is apparently higher bandwidth than the official sxsw WiFi network). The point we’re trying to make is that awesome things are possible when we open up our airwaves for innovation. “Open spectrum” — or sections of our “wireless real estate” that anyone can build in, is a huge economic driver. The fact that any person or company can build equipment (chips, laptops, phones, washing machines) and networks that run in open frequencies leads directly to massive innovation and broad choice. I like to think of it as a sky full of lego blocks:
The reason this is interesting is that the bulk of our airwaves are reserved for exclusive use — either by government actors, or by corporations (like AT&T and Verizon) that have purchased the rights from the government. We do this to encourage investment in infrastructure (by granting a monopoly), to avoid interference, and to raise money for the government (through up front fees). Of all of these reasons the last one is the most troubling — as we are consistently tempted to sell out our future to bring in some cash now. Part of our job — and I still don’t think we’ve done it well enough yet — is to make it really clear how massive the opportunity in the open approach is. The same way that there are game changing dynamics in open systems like Wikipedia, Firefox and Android. There is still more to be done there, and I’ll do some follow up posts on that. So for now: if you’re in Austin, please enjoy some Super WiFi on us. If you’re watching from home, please join in with call to support the FCC in opening up more spectrum for innovation.
. The twist is that it’s all based around airport trips. Here’s the idea:
Every day, thousands of people drive to their local airport and park their car in long term parking before they head out of town. At the exact same time, thousands of people are arriving at that same airport — and guess what, lots of them need cars. Add a little web-based matchmaking, booking, and logistics, and there you go.
What I like about this approach is that it builds on behavior that people are doing anyway — dropping off and picking up cars at airports. It’s not a huge stretch to go from there to peer-to-peer renting, especially if the whole experience is really seamless. There is something about that arrangement that helps overcome the awkwardness that is a factor in lots of peer-to-peer businesses. Maybe airports is the perfect beachhead for entering the peer-to-peer car sharing business (or maybe not; we’ll see…).
My experience with FlightCar was pretty good. The online booking was really easy, just like renting a normal car, but with the added bonus of getting to pick out the exact car you’ll be driving (I chose a 1999 Audi A4 with a stick-shift — not a car you’re often likely to rent; my second choice was a mazda miata).
A FlightCar valet met me at the baggage claim (after a bit of wrangling since I was 2 hours early and we were waiting in the wrong place) - I dropped the valet and signed the paperwork, and then Brad, Albert and I set out on our way.
I gotta say, I actually liked it a lot — just like you feel more like a local when you stay in an Airbnb apartment, there is something different about driving a “real” car when you’re traveling. In this case, it’s a car I’ve always liked, and I don’t get a chance to drive stick that often, so it was definitely more fun than my typical rental.
FlightCar is still working out the kinks in the service, there are a few rough edges in the pick up / drop off experience that they’ re still working out, in this case the car wasn’t washed and was out of gas when I picked it up. The former will continue to improve I’m sure, and the latter was likely a function of my showing up early.
I feel like with all of these peer-to-peer services, there’s an initial hump you need to get over before you can participate at all. Something to get you past the “whoa that’s kind of weird” moment that many people have as their first reaction. Like Airbnb did with their “crash the inauguration” website around the 2009 inauguration.
In this case, I thought FlightCar did a good job of doing that for me.
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 these hotspots is connected to the internet backbone not by cable, but by another high-speed wireless link, operating in the “open” or “unlicensed” frequencies (meaning that anyone who wants to can use them). These link back to a gigabit fiber connection (which is apparently higher bandwidth than the official sxsw WiFi network). The point we’re trying to make is that awesome things are possible when we open up our airwaves for innovation. “Open spectrum” — or sections of our “wireless real estate” that anyone can build in, is a huge economic driver. The fact that any person or company can build equipment (chips, laptops, phones, washing machines) and networks that run in open frequencies leads directly to massive innovation and broad choice. I like to think of it as a sky full of lego blocks:
The reason this is interesting is that the bulk of our airwaves are reserved for exclusive use — either by government actors, or by corporations (like AT&T and Verizon) that have purchased the rights from the government. We do this to encourage investment in infrastructure (by granting a monopoly), to avoid interference, and to raise money for the government (through up front fees). Of all of these reasons the last one is the most troubling — as we are consistently tempted to sell out our future to bring in some cash now. Part of our job — and I still don’t think we’ve done it well enough yet — is to make it really clear how massive the opportunity in the open approach is. The same way that there are game changing dynamics in open systems like Wikipedia, Firefox and Android. There is still more to be done there, and I’ll do some follow up posts on that. So for now: if you’re in Austin, please enjoy some Super WiFi on us. If you’re watching from home, please join in with call to support the FCC in opening up more spectrum for innovation.
. The twist is that it’s all based around airport trips. Here’s the idea:
Every day, thousands of people drive to their local airport and park their car in long term parking before they head out of town. At the exact same time, thousands of people are arriving at that same airport — and guess what, lots of them need cars. Add a little web-based matchmaking, booking, and logistics, and there you go.
What I like about this approach is that it builds on behavior that people are doing anyway — dropping off and picking up cars at airports. It’s not a huge stretch to go from there to peer-to-peer renting, especially if the whole experience is really seamless. There is something about that arrangement that helps overcome the awkwardness that is a factor in lots of peer-to-peer businesses. Maybe airports is the perfect beachhead for entering the peer-to-peer car sharing business (or maybe not; we’ll see…).
My experience with FlightCar was pretty good. The online booking was really easy, just like renting a normal car, but with the added bonus of getting to pick out the exact car you’ll be driving (I chose a 1999 Audi A4 with a stick-shift — not a car you’re often likely to rent; my second choice was a mazda miata).
A FlightCar valet met me at the baggage claim (after a bit of wrangling since I was 2 hours early and we were waiting in the wrong place) - I dropped the valet and signed the paperwork, and then Brad, Albert and I set out on our way.
I gotta say, I actually liked it a lot — just like you feel more like a local when you stay in an Airbnb apartment, there is something different about driving a “real” car when you’re traveling. In this case, it’s a car I’ve always liked, and I don’t get a chance to drive stick that often, so it was definitely more fun than my typical rental.
FlightCar is still working out the kinks in the service, there are a few rough edges in the pick up / drop off experience that they’ re still working out, in this case the car wasn’t washed and was out of gas when I picked it up. The former will continue to improve I’m sure, and the latter was likely a function of my showing up early.
I feel like with all of these peer-to-peer services, there’s an initial hump you need to get over before you can participate at all. Something to get you past the “whoa that’s kind of weird” moment that many people have as their first reaction. Like Airbnb did with their “crash the inauguration” website around the 2009 inauguration.
In this case, I thought FlightCar did a good job of doing that for me.
