MSM vs blogs (reduxdux)

Chris points me to a discussion on the strengths of  bloggers and MSM? Is Megan right about what blogs are good at and what they aren’t? To summarise her arguments (I go into more detail below) bloggers make good opiners and good filters for the weird and idiosyncratic. Because they aren’t paid they don’t make […]

Peer-to-peer mobile apps for Indian farmers

The Times has picked up on a project we launched through the innovation group at Reuters. Called Market Light it will provide farmers with price and weather information to help them get better prices for their primary products. The Indian agricultural market is beset with information problems throughout the supply chain which leads to poor […]

On user motivations

Nick Carr republishes a comment by Yochai Benkler on user motivations and commons-based peer production. Two key points for me (my emphasis) The reason is that the power of the major sites comes from combining large-scale contributions from heterogeneous participants, with heterogeneous motivations. Pointing to the 80/20 rule on contributions misses the dynamic that comes […]

Solving house buying angst

For the past nine months, we have been house hunting. In the current market, it is a bore. Not enough housing stock being the biggest issues. But the biggest problem in my book is the asymmetry of information between buyer and seller. Fundamentally we are intermediated by the estate agent who holds his cards close […]

Promising to be interesting

By I thought I ought to share my first YouTube video nonetheless. It is one of a long running series, you’ll be pleased to hear.

I am back

Just what the world needs. Another blog. So I am back after an 18 month hiatus during which time a lot happened, most excitingly this chap, who is now being hilarious. I started blogging in early 2000 using a tool called Pyra. We actually used Pyra as a project management tool for a few companies […]