Mobile communications and pervasive computing technologies, together with social contracts that were never possible before, are already beginning to change the way people meet, mate, work, war, buy, sell, govern and create.

Markets are as old as the crossroads. But capitalism, as we know it, is only a few hundred years old, enabled by cooperative arrangements and technologies, such as the joint-stock ownership company, shared liability insurance, double-entry bookkeeping.

When designers replaced the command line interface with the graphical user interface, billions of people who are not programmers could make use of computer technology,

We like technology because we don't have to talk to anybody.

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.

Technology no longer consists just of hardware or software or even services, but of communities. Increasingly, community is a part of technology, a driver of technology, and an emergent effect of technology.

Whenever a technology enables people to organize at a pace that wasn't before possible, new kinds of politics emerge.

Inexpensive phones and pay-as-you go services are already spreading mobile phone technology to many parts of that world that never had a wired infrastructure.