The FCC is apparently planning to adopt a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) seeking comment on network neutrality. An NOI is an informational proceeding, in which the agency asks questions but doesn’t propose any rules. I’m concerned that this is an attempt to dissipate some of the pressure for nondiscrimination rules, which is now focused on Congress. I actually think the FCC would be the better place to address Net Neutrality ...

OneWebDay is a global celebration of the Web and its importance to our lives. The first one is being held today in dozens of locations around the world. My friend Susan Crawford is one of the organizers, and deserves a great deal of credit for kicking off an important, decentralized effort. It’s worth being reminded from time to time that The Web is People.

A bogus poll funded by Verizon purports to show that most Americans oppose network neutrality. Just reading the press release, though, shows how slanted the questions were: “According to the survey, when presented with a choice between video choice and additional net neutrality legislation, an overwhelming majority of voters supported video choice.” Let’s see. Do you want more choice or more legislation? That’s a toughie! Does anyone put any stock ...

I’m recovering from watching the Philadelphia Eagles collapse yesterday against the New York Giants. Walking out of a stadium with 65,000 other dejected fans was a painful experience, although of course the latter stages of the game were even more painful. One of the things I love about being a sports fan is the communal exhileration you get when the times are good. I guess that means you have to ...

The Economist has a few quotes from me in a story this week on social networking sites.

Nick Carr: “Openness is not only the technological structure of the net but also its reigning ideology. But it would be a naive mistake to assume that economic interest will inevitably lose out to technological structure in determining the future shape of the commercial internet.” Well said. And relevant to more than the issue it was written in response to — whether MySpace will try to suck value out of ...

Senator Stevens says that gridlock over network neutrality may derail passage of comprehensive telecom reform legislation this year. It’s remarkable that the net neutrality issue has gotten such traction in such a short period of time, especially given how little public and industry interest there was for a long time. Though it’s not widely appreciated, the battle over what is now called network neutrality started in 1998, and the outcome ...

Last night, my Wharton colleauge Jerry Wind told me about We Are Smarter Than Me, a fascinating project that he is involved with, along with former Supernova speaker Tom Malone of the MIT Sloan School of Management. The project is going to write a book about leveraging the power of communities in business by… leveraging the power of community! The entire book will be communally created and edited as a ...

I still remember what I thought that moment, as I stood on the roofdeck, watching the towers crumble, wondering whether my wife was still alive: The world will never be the same again. Everyone around me was crying, as far as the eye could see. We had witnessed the explosions and flames as the planes plowed into the buildings. For an hour, we had heard the sirens screaming downtown to ...

The Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC has finally launched its first outdoor WiFi hotspot, more than two years after Open Park, a non-profit group I’m involved with, offered to deploy free WiFi access across the National Mall. For reasons that remain mysterious, the Smithsonian rejected Open Park’s efforts, and instead is hiring vendors to deploy more limited WiFi access. There are only a limited number of antenna locations on the ...