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Shapeways Brings the Future of Stuff to New York City!
Albert Wenger – Nov 18, 2011
When we announced the USV investment in Shapeways a little over a year ago, I pointed out the potential to make New York City a global center for 3D printing. Since then the Shapeways team has done a lot to [...] Read more
Republic, Lost and United
Albert Wenger – Nov 17, 2011
Yesterday saw the beginning of a massive effort across a large number of Internet companies to help stop PIPA/SOPA legislation. While that is an important fight it is worth asking - can we afford to fight bad bills one at [...] Read more
Help Protect Internet Innovation
Albert Wenger – Nov 16, 2011
We have previously written about why the Protect IP Act (PIPA) is bad for innovation. The same is true of the House version of this bill which is called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). In fact, SOPA goes beyond [...] Read more
American Censorship Day
Albert Wenger – Nov 16, 2011
Starting today and for the foreseeable future the “Continuations” at the top of this blog will be covered with a call to Stop Censorship. If you read yesterday’s Tech Tuesday post on networking or are familiar with the history of [...] Read more
Tech Tuesday: No Computer is an Island (Networking)
Albert Wenger – Nov 15, 2011
It is funny how quickly we take things for granted that didn’t exist just a few years back (obligatory reference to Louis C.K. rant about appreciating technology). Today the thought of using a computer that’s not connected to a network [...] Read more
Work on an Amazing Community: Wattpad is Hiring Engineers
Albert Wenger – Nov 14, 2011
A few months ago we invested in Toronto-based Wattpad. In introducing the investment, I wrote the following paragraph on the Union Square Ventures blog: Since then Wattpad has moved into a new office and celebrated its 5th birthday. Yes – [...] Read more
Wikipedia, Occupy Wallstreet and the Possibility of an Open Congress
Albert Wenger – Nov 11, 2011
Whenever my kids tell me how their teachers don’t want them to use Wikipedia as a source I redouble my effort to show them why Wikipedia is important and how it works. In particular, I make sure they understand how [...] Read more
Emergency Broadcast System Fails Social Test
Albert Wenger – Nov 10, 2011
While I was driving the kids around on the weekend one of the radio stations announced that there would be the first ever nation wide test of the Emergency Broadcast System. My almost immediate reaction was something like “isn’t Twitter [...] Read more
Thinking About Social Networks
Albert Wenger – Nov 9, 2011
This morning on Techmeme I ran across three interesting and thought provoking pieces about social networks (all from within the last 24 hours it seems): 1. Maciej Ceglowski’s “The Social Graph is Neither” (10 points for great title alone) is [...] Read more