Mr. Shirky divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. His consulting practice is focused on the rise of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, web services, and wireless networks that provide alternatives to the wired client/server infrastructure that characterizes the Web. Current clients include Nokia, GBN, the Library of Congress, the Highlands Forum, the Markle Foundation, and the BBC.

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom is a book by law professor Yochai Benkler published by Yale University Press on April 3, 2006. A complete PDF of the book is freely downloadable on the wiki of the book and is available under a Creative Commons Noncommercial Sharealike license.[1] Benkley has said that his editable online book is "an experiment of how books might be in the future," demonstrating how authors and readers might connect instantly or even collaborate.[2]

The UK-based peer to peer finance service Zopa (see here for a previous report) had already been “cutting out the middleman” between lender and borrowers for some time by letting lenders specify what rate they want to lend at and matching them to identity and credit-checked, risk-assessed borrowers willing to pay that rate.

IF THE banks won't lend you money, might a stranger? Probably not, to judge by recent data from Prosper, an American peer-to-peer lending marketplace (a place where people can lend their own money to other people).