Disqus - Latest Comments for bradburnham

Re: FCC Chair Refuses to Testify

bradburnham — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:14:22 -0000

Transparency compared to what? Do you know that when the FCC under Chairman Powell first classified Internet access as an information service regulated under Title I, he did it with no public comment period? Wheeler issued a notice of proposed rule making 8 months ago and invited public comment. He got 4,000,000.

This trope that Wheeler is somehow not being open is at least by comparison total BS

Re: USV Conversations

bradburnham — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 12:30:27 -0000

getting governance and ownership right and making sure that rewards go to the participants who create the most value seems like a very hard thing to do in a dynamic and changing market. Maybe it is better to focus on making the platforms skinnier and skinnier so that participants don't feel the need to engage in governance and they don't worry too much about the fairness of the economics - essentially I am describing a DAO that is so thin that every participant gets out the value they put in. In other words the market is so efficient that people work for themselves but find and benefit from leverage in the platform.

Re: Q of the week - Format

bradburnham — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 17:13:58 -0000

I agree. It is a noble experiment but this first iteration makes it too hard to follow the conversation

Re: Cannibalizing Transparency

bradburnham — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 17:11:33 -0000

Peter, you sound ready to cannibalize your own network. That is smart. But you gloss over the risk of unbundling. You offer the exchange to attract buyers who, when there is not book on the exchange may go to another retailer who will pay you a commission. I suppose, if decentralization leads to unbundling, eventually, if every attention routing affiliate service has equal access to your exchange, you would need to compete with others directly. Thats great for consumers , innovation, and competition, but it suggests we are heading toward a world where there is a larger number of smaller companies. Everyone will have to be careful not to over capitalize, but otherwise it will be very healthy

Re: Union Square Ventures

bradburnham — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:42:42 -0000

If you include in the marketplace for attention - discovery, you're probably right. A marketplace is just a way of lowering the cost of discovery for a buyer. If people can transact P2P and reputation is readily available, then maybe we don't even need a market place for attention. Maybe we just search for the products and the insights we want. That begs the question of whether it is possible to decentralize search.

Re: Deep Web Marketplaces

bradburnham — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:37:10 -0000

In your experience in India and China, how does the reputation system work? Does the peer network you mention actually verify the identity of the reviewer? I have heard that the identity and reputation systems in dark web marketplaces may not be a decentralized as we assume. The marketplace creators do have a real incentive to protect the integrity of the reputation system so they may put more effort into it that appears on the surface. They also have the advantage of an audience that is familiar with encryption, and comfortable using a private key to verify identity. In your experience are there independent identity and reputation schemes that don't depend on encryption?

Re: Union Square Ventures

bradburnham — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:29:54 -0000

This could happen if governments increased the potential liability to companies that do not properly safeguard user data, and then created a safe harbor for companies that avoided that liability by not storing data centrally but instead storing data in user controlled data stores like a Dropbox account.

Re: Web Apps

bradburnham — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 17:49:23 -0000

This is a really important trend to watch. Will it follow the same progression we saw with desktop apps and the web? Are there a set of mobile apps that will benefit from being pure web apps?

Today it seems that developers start at the other extreme. First they make their web site available on a mobile device. They they make optimize it for mobile. Eventually they write a new native app for Android and Apple. Which apps will swing back the other way first.

Re: Who Really Believes in “Permissionless Innovation”?

bradburnham — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 22:02:12 -0000

It seems pretty lazy to me to make no distinction between a world with property rights and one with none. There are so many possible market architectures between the two extremes.

Re: The Search For The Next Platform – AVC

bradburnham — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 15:40:06 -0000

I am baffled by the Nest and Oculus acquisitions because I see them as devices not platforms. Nest will be an endpoint in the Internet of Things but will it be a platform? Likewise Oculus may be a device that allows for a new mode of interaction with services on a network but is it a platform? You have to make a lot of assumptions to to believe these two investments become platforms that leverage the investments of many other developers the way FB or Android do today. Maybe, I just don't understand how rich these companies are or how worried they are about the next platform. Maybe these investments are justifiable simply to give them a seat at the table to watch these markets unfold.

Re: When did America become to afraid to explore a frontier?

bradburnham — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 12:00:12 -0000

Alan,

I'll admit that my post was not a rigorous, fact based, argument, but it seems to me that your criticism was every bit as vague. It seems pretty unarguable that the West was less governed than the East in the 19th century if only because of the logistical challenges of enforcing regulations in a such a vast territory with so few government resources.

Re: When did America become to afraid to explore a frontier?

bradburnham — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 10:47:57 -0000

Thanks Lindel for the spell check - I rarely write quickly with emotion but this parallel just struck me as too true and I had to get it out before I got lost in my day.

Re: Should we regulate the Internet like the real world or the real world like the Internet?

bradburnham — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 17:56:59 -0000

Wow - this is a really good idea and your proposed regulation does not sound ridiculous at all. The worst thing about the current model of regulation is how entirely free it is of any defensible data driven analysis. Is there any evidence that any of the current regulations improve public safety? There can't be because they have never tested an alternative. Do the driver tests make a difference? Who knows - no one gets on the street with out one. Your proposal allows for a much more defensible analysis of what works.

Re: AVC.com word cloud of posts from 2003-2013

bradburnham — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 15:51:56 -0000

I agree this is a neat visualization but it also shows the limits of this approach. Two of the biggest words are COMPANY and COMPANIES, followed by lots of other words like PRODUCT. PEOPLE, THINGS, BUSINESS, and BECAUSE. None of that really tells you much. The timing of the first mention of things like Bitcoin, or names like Kickstarter tells you more but you have to do some human filtering to get at that information. What I want is an insight generator. A system that would sift through these words, eliminate common language and duplicates, and try to identify patterns that may not even be obvious at the time to the writer - but that is a lot to ask.

Re: Will Digital Networks Ruin Us?

bradburnham — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 11:06:44 -0000

1) I am a capitalist - I completely believe in free markets - so I am not suggesting that the FB founders don't deserve any of their wealth. But the best thing about markets is they self correct. I think the way to compete with established networks is through innovation in governance and ownership not through features. I wrote a while ago that networks behave more like governments than companies. They create the environment in which others (users) create the value. That is not to undervalue the role of government. There is a reason that clean democratic governments oversea more robust growing economies. But the only way to compete with a dominant network effect is to change the game and the most promising way I can see for a new network to change the game is to offer a government that "governs best by governing least". That means among other things the government that extracts the lowest taxes from the economy they host. Stay tuned, my bet is that we will begin to see this form of competition.

2) A club is a good analogy - not sure it the network effects of a club are stronger or weaker - have to think about that. A club seems inherently more ephemeral. But the first point holds either way.

3) I only argued there was a correlation. It would to prove causation.

4) Yes networks are not going to produce steel. But as more of the economy is mediated my information and its byproducts, I think networks will become a larger portion of the overall economy and as we saw with finance even if large sectors of the economy are only influenced indirectly by networks, the may still control a disproportionate amount of value created

Re: Will Digital Networks Ruin Us?

bradburnham — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 12:58:12 -0000

I realize that citing driving, room renting , and crafting does not inspire confidence that people empowered by networks will create careers that are more rewarding financially than working in middle management for the incumbent bureaucratic hierarchies. It is probably easier to make the argument that any self actualized career is more rewarding spiritually.

But take the other side for a minute. Does it really make sense to hard code an existing demonstrably inefficient market structure just to preserve the jobs that structure supports. It is after all the the unproductive layers of the bureaucracy that creates both the jobs and the inefficiency.

Re: Will Digital Networks Ruin Us?

bradburnham — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 10:48:06 -0000

I have not read Jaron's book, so I am basing these comments on Joe's review. Jaron is right that networks will profoundly change the economy. He is right that, at least initially, they seem to be concentrating wealth in the hands of the platform creators rather the folks who use the platforms and are the ultimate source of value. I would argue that this problem predates the emergence of consumer networks like Facebook or Instagram. The increasing income gap between the 1% and the 99% is correlated very closely with the increasing importance of information technology and the rise of the financial services sector. Information technology has enabled the financial services sector to abstract value away from the actual underlying production or real value and shift it to those who are able to securitize that value in a series of increasingly complicated set of financial instruments - instruments that are only possible because of information technology.

Jaron takes a pessimistic view, seeing this as the inevitable course of the economy. I look at it as necessary (if ugly) adolescence for the information economy. I believe the answer is more information not less. As the real value creators in these networks understand their contribution better, it will naturally flatten this new value pyramid. The 13 creators of Instagram (and yes their venture capital backers) will need to share more of the wealth with the users who create the value. Jaron thinks this could happen if users are paid in current income for their data. I like Fred's proposal of a mutual company better because that allows users to participate in the equity value creation because it allows for more creativity in business models.

So it is not networks that are bad any more than automobiles were bad for destroying buggy whip manufacturing. Yes networks will, over time, replace inefficient bureaucratic hierarchies as the dominant means of economic production, and yes that means that many stable middle class jobs will go away. But networks will also create fantastic opportunities. First they will, as Fred says in his post today, put money back in the pockets of consumers as services that were previously expensive become much cheaper. Consumers will redeploy those savings in new sectors of the economy creating opportunity and growth. Networks will also empower many people to create their own living whether by driving for a ride sharing company, or opening their homes to visitors, or selling their ideas or crafts to a global audience on the Internet. These careers will be different in that they will require people to take responsibility for themselves, but in return people will have a great deal more control over how, where, and when they work.

I agree that is important to critically asses the impact of networks, but it is way too easy, in a period of dramatic change to incite fear of the future. But, lets hold ourselves accountable for doing the hard work to more fully understand the transformation we are living through. We need to find ways to minimize the inevitable social disruption while at the same time accelerating the creative destruction of the current economy. We can and should push through this period of adolescence to get to new economy that is free, fair and productive.

Re: AT&T's Sponsored Data is bad for the internet, the economy, and you

bradburnham — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 10:23:17 -0000

Kid - the thing you miss about net neutrality is how corrupted this market is already. I completely agree that we do not need net neutrality in a free market, but the only way we get a free market in telecom is to eliminate all spectrum policy, and franchise agreements. Even then we have to deal with the legacy of those historical regulations. The incumbents built up huge scale advantages as a result of those government granted monopolies. I do think it would be really interesting to see what what would happen if we eliminated telecom regulation. I think the only model is the most sophisticated military (probably the US or Israel) taking over spectrum in an active war zone. Vendors would employ mesh networks frequency agile radios much better antennas. It might be the right model for telecom infrastructure. The only question I have about that is how to manage competitors wasting a scarce resource by disrupting other competitors technology by jamming frequencies etc.

Re: In five years your personal online security could protect your identity

bradburnham — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 16:43:06 -0000

The is a cool vision but also a scary one. I can easily imagine that each user of online services has a fingerprint every bit as identifiable as their DNA, and that given enough data every individual user could be uniquely identified just by the bread crumbs they leave behind as they use the Internet. That is great for security. It would make it possible to move away from perimeter security like firewalls and allow for much more flexible security models that had minimal impact on user experience. The flip side is that it will be harder to be anonymous on the Internet. I still hope that someone finds a technical approach that separates identity from behavior so that we can have both.

Re: Teaming up with THE Football App

bradburnham — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 13:13:40 -0000

One of my favorite things about the entrepreneurs behind THE Football App is how scrappy they are. They largely bootstrapped the company for its first few years. They did that by selling ads. Those ads are still there today and will be for the foreseeable future, but they are exploring a number of more native business models - so stay tuned.

On the second question, I personally like their singular focus and believe that being the best at serving the 350,000,000 people world wide who follow football on mobile devices is a big enough market for anyone. If they decided to grow by covering everything from Formula One to Cricket, they would be positioning themselves as a utility. I believe their defensibility is in the community of their passionate fans, and those fans do not have that much to say to people who follow other sports.

Re: BABY NEEDS A NEW PAIR OF SHOES: A RESPONSE TO BRAD BURNHAM

bradburnham — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 10:54:40 -0000

I agree with everything you say here Fred, including that I "didn't need to go there" I care deeply that creative people be able to buy baby new shoes. I also worry that the current candidates for the "new boss" will be no better. Your instinct that artists will make a living outside the medium (through live performances for instance) is probably correct. The most successful artists will understand the unique characteristics of the Net and will figure out how to use their work to promote themselves. My "screed" was motivated by frustration that the content industry is working hard to equate themselves with the artists. It sounds like we agree that the two are separate. I also agree with you that curation is valuable, even increasingly valuable in a more and more cluttered world. Lets figure out how to support artists and curators in a way that fully exploits the capabilities of the Internet, and enables them to buy baby new shoes.

Re: #DontBreakTheInternet: How The Web Became a Political Force vs. SOPA

bradburnham — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:48:28 -0000

Geoffrey,

No one is suggesting that the Pirate Bay is hosting the Declaration of Independence. The problem is that the remedies proposed would undermine the characteristics of the Internet that have made it such a fantastic engine of innovation - primarily the right to innovate with out permission from an incumbent who may be threatened by your innovation. PIPA and SOPA would require search engines, social networks and ISPs to censor the net on behalf of content owners. That creates a significant burden for those services. It also won't work. The relatively simple techniques to circumvent the censorship will undermine the security of the Internet broadly and will lead inevitably the next step - which is the implementation of a great firewall. Once we go there, we will have become China. The concern is not that rogue sites protect free speech. The concern is that the remedy will stifle it.

Re: I Believe In The Internet - The Content Industry Doesn’t

bradburnham — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:32:43 -0000

I understand that there is real work behind the production of a CD, but somehow there is a whole cadre of artists that are doing that work and promoting their music on the Web without the music industry. I am not enough of a connoisseur to know how much is lost when music is produced in a garage, but I suspect that there are others out there who's mind is blown by the art not the production. I don't know how much of the cost of the music is overhead and promotion, and how much is production. It would be interesting to see that split.

I wonder if the second part of your argument - that China and Russia don't produce art - confuses correlation and causation. If the only reason we, as a species produce art is to make a buck, there would not be pictures of horses on the walls of caves.

Re: I Believe In The Internet - The Content Industry Doesn’t

bradburnham — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:50:55 -0000

That is a very eloquent defense of pay models for music. It is hard to argue that artists should not make a living from their work. I would never do that. But if you peel back the layers and get at the real cost structure of the music industry, it is clear that artists get a very small percentage of the take. The star making machinery of the industry seems to concentrate a lot of the attention on a small number of manufactured stars and most of the money goes to their promoters. Most artists I know hate that. I have heard that their are more musicians making a decent living today that there every have been, because the Internet allows them to build a brand outside the star making machinery. The key to building a brand on the Net is viral promotion. That only works if your best fans can promote you by passing your music along to their friends. There may be some way to get viral promotion and still put a price on it but it is still unclear how well that will work. The New York TImes is trying this by making it possible to open a link sent from a friend even if you don't subscribe, but forcing you to subscribe if you go to the site directly.

The industry would be really happy to squelch viral promotion because that would put the start making machinery back in charge. The current legislation would go a long way toward doing that. Is that really what artists want?

Re: The art of community management

bradburnham — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:07:48 -0000

As some one who started out in sales, this sounds exactly like what I did for a living 25 years ago. The difference is that I represented a small number of customers to my company. Community managers represent hundreds of thousands of users.