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I think that the most beautiful thing lately hasn't been in hardware or software per se but collaboration - the idea behind Napster, which uses the distributed power of the Internet as its engine.

A lot of people use collaborative technologies badly, then abandon them. They aren't 'plug-and-play.' The invisible part is the social skill necessary to use them.

The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information.

The early cyberpunk idea was that networked computers would let us do our work at home, as freelancers, and then transact directly with peers over networks. Digital technology would create tremendous slack, allow us to apply its asynchronous, decentralized qualities to our own work and lives.

Remember all of the 'me too' social networks built just to have a social feature Facebook and MySpace didn't have? I built one for political discussion called Essembly. It enabled unique and potentially transformative social interactions, but only 20,000 people ever used it.

In a single generation, the Internet has given to virtually every person on the face of the earth the ability to communicate with fellow human beings on virtually any topic, at any time, and in every nook and cranny on the globe. This magnificent invention has done this without succumbing to government control.

Compunet was fantastic. You could upload these little demos of what you'd been working on, and it was a really nice social scene - years before the Internet.

The Internet has brought communities across the globe closer together through instant communication.

One of the wonderful things about Internet is it's like a salon. It brings people together from different intellectual walks of life.

The Internet enables us to share the ideas we have without having to create another hierarchy.