A little Q&A re Traveling Geeks tour to UK and my thing
by Craig Newmark on June 23, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Well, they asked questions regarding all my service stuff and perspective, so maybe worth mentioning a little from the Econsultancy Q&A:
You founded craigslist in 1995 and took it to the web in
1996. That's almost a full decade before 'Web 2.0' really went
mainstream in a big way. What has it been like to watch Web 2.0 emerge
and grow into a mainstream, global phenomenon?
In the sense that Web 2.0 is about collaboration, it feels really good, maintaining and increasing my confidence in humanity.
It may be hard for many people to believe but you still do
customer service for craigslist. Obviously you could have someone else
do this so I'll ask the question: why do you do it?
It feels right, in terms of my commitment to our community and to public service.
It also helps me stay in touch with what's real, which is the same reason a President needs to keep his Blackberry.
You're passionate about open government and have written quite a bit about it. What is open government and why is it important?
Very
long story, but it's about genuine grassroots democracy complementing
representative democracy. People talk, figure out what matters, then
government listens and acts.
It also involves the government telling us what it's doing, so that it can be held accountable.
