Gawker
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anniversaries
The Web at 20: Not Quite Old Enough to Drink, Yet Drives Us to It
Dear important scientist Tim Berners-Lee: Thank you for inventing the World Wide Web 20 years ago. It's really great and stuff! But were you aware of the crimes committed in your name? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by tetragami: Oh Christ, someday I will be explaining to kids that I am older than the internet. 11 Responses | Other threads
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feuds
Blogfather Accuses Twitter of Payola Scheme He Pioneered
Dave Winer, the old guy who takes credit for blogging, podcasting, and other tech trends, is mad at Twitter CEO Ev Williams. Why? Because Williams is making people — people who are not Dave Winer — famous. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by i38warhawk: The "Suggested Users", who at the same time built Twitter, are ruining any real world functionality. Tweets from people I... 1 Responses | Other threads
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dave winer
Why did Californians ban gay marriage?
I love Dave Winer's blog. He's even crazier than me, but he's pathologically unable to lie. Winer's latest post admits something most Californians would deny: The first time he learned a friend was married to another guy instead of a gal, he blurted out, "I find this shocking and it makes me a bit uncomfortable." He got over it, but he remembers that feeling. Dave, don't ever change. Remember when you found out I was working for Denton? That was hilarious. (Photo by tobiashm)
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By Paul BoutinComment by LeeGeryon: I think it is because of the campaign to call it marriage. If they had called it anything else... 5 Responses | Other threads
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politics
Karl Rove's Jedi mind tricks don't fool Dave Winer
"I totally don't trust Rove when he says that McCain has gone too far," writes Berkeley blogger Dave Winer, of Dubya's former campaign mastermind. "I wouldn't take the bait and pass this on as the Obama folk are doing. There's got to be a virus in there somewhere. Some devious trap that springs later in this process." Aw shoot, now if that doesn't happen, I'll be disappointed.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Valleygrrl: I found it interesting that Karl Rove was endorsing Hillary Clinton in the wall street Journal during the primaries. Wonder... 1 Responses | Other threads
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telcos
Comcast will pop a cap on your bandwidth in October
250GB, or "125 standard definition movies," will be Internet service provider Comcast's new cap on monthly bandwidth usage for downloads, according to a release from the company — which confirms some rumors and shoots down others. Which is 200GB short of what cranky customer Dave Winer has been reported to use. Better send some cupcakes to your friendly Comcast support representatives on Twitter for overage indulgences. [DSL Reports]
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By Jackson WestComment by jeffjenn: Well, I guess this pretty much ends that whole plan to stream HD movies (Netflix, Hulu etc)to the mainstream's TV... 1 Responses | Other threads
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twitter
Hot startup to squirm away from old man's caring embrace
It's been a rough year so far, Internet, what with Twitter's ups and downs, Facebook's family feud, and Microsoft's failed bear-hug acquisition of Yahoo. Now a bunch of grumpy old men are plotting a "bear hug" on Twitter, too. Not a takeover, per se, and more passive-aggressive than hostile. But make no mistake: Steve Gillmor and his gang want to bend the microblogging platform to their will, with their ursine embrace, at Bear Hug Camp, a group grope set for September. More »
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Comment by Shadowlayer: The twitter (microblogging) concept is poised to become a standard, since is too small to be a class of its... more » | Other threads
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silicon valley users guide
Want more traffic? Throw your widgets overboard
"Some blogs, like TechCrunch and Mashable are so loaded with widgets that they take at least 30 seconds to fully render," gripes a post by frequent Valleywag commenter Alan Wilensky. So true! When I was a website producer, I used to plot page load times versus daily pageviews. Load speed affected traffic — and hence revenue and brand reach— far more than I could convince my managers. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by raincoaster: I'm sorry, but it is NOT widgets. It is ads. There is Flash everywhere, there are browser-hijacking scripts, there is AUTO-PLAYING YOUTUBE... more » | Other threads
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willie brown
SF's dotcom-era mayor now black, white and read all over
Willie Brown, San Francisco's only black mayor (1996-2004) and a fixture in local politics for more than 40 years, has popped up as the Chronicle's latest columnist. Brown's first offering reads like a mix of Herb Caen and Dave Winer — short, first-person musings on current events, ending with a namedrop of Willie's rich neighbors at the St. Regis. It's pro forma to hate on Brown in San Francisco, even though he helped legalize oral sex and badgered President Clinton to leave the city's pot clubs alone. Willie's real crime? He always plays to win, and he usually does. For most politicos, a newspaper column would signal early retirement. In Brown's case, I can't wait to see how he parlays the Chron gig into his next big score. (Photo by AP/Eric Risberg)
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By Paul BoutinComment by Jeremy: I would always see Willie at various places, and I would inevitably beg him to come back and save the... more » | Other threads
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social networks
Calacanis, Scoble, Arrington pawns in FriendFeed's smart marketing campaign
Egobloggers Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble as well as startup PR clearinghouse Michael Arrington all want to know: How amazing is it that after two years of using Twitter, they've each already got nearly half as many "followers" on FriendFeed after just a few months? Asking the question, each offer hypothetical answers involving the social-network aggregator's ease of use — "The comment systems is so fast and easy that it's perfect," says Calacanis — or Twitter's frequent outages — "Twitter downtime plays a big part," writes Arrington. But here's the real answer to the amazing growth these bloggers have seen on FriendFeed: More »
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Comment by Mr. Gunn: giania: So, some people have different groups of friends on different sites, and FF provides a way to follow all... more » | Other threads
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feuds
Blogfights: A 100-word history
Nearly ten years before Violet Blue vs. Boing Boing, the Internet's early bloggers discovered their new medium's killer application: Personal spats. Radar Online blogger Choire Sicha, angling for his 14th return to us here at Gawker Media, recounts blogfeuding's past. Choire: tl; dr. Only one era bears recounting: the months after 9/11. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by raincoaster: Choire can do much better than that; it read like a topic forced on him. more » | Other threads
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geek love
Julia Allison and Dave Winer share love of un-conferences
A reader writes to us concerned that the apocalypse is nigh. Why so scared? Because wantrepreneur Julia Allison (who was not fired from Star magazine) and cranky RSS guru Dave Winer are now link lovers. What sparked this show of mutual affection? Winer's treatise on how he created the first, true "un-conference" back in 2003, where instead of panels, it was a discussion — because "the eloquence and intelligence in the room are distributed not concentrated." This apparently reminded Allison of class discussions at her alma mater, Georgetown, "except this time you care." (Photos by Brian Solis, bub.licio.us and Doc Searls) More »
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By Jackson WestComment by michaellamb: I had about .005% of respect left for Whiner, and now I have -.000001% left. more » | Other threads
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broadband
Comcast considering 250GB monthly cap on downloads
Internet service provider Comcast is considering instituting a 250-gigabyte monthly cap on downloads, according an anonymous source cited by BroadbandReports.com. Users would be allowed one month over the cap in a year. Any month after that, and the customer would be charged $15 for each 10GB in excess. No cap is expected for uploads. Cranky RSS guru Dave Winer, who admits to downloading an astronomical 450GB a month, would end up with a regular $300 surcharge on his Comcast bill. More »
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By Jackson WestComment by EdaAntlion: comment Now boarding ATA flight 666 with service departing Comcast every half hour to Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-verse, Clearwire and points... more » | Other threads
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comcast
Not even Comcast's Twitter-stalker can placate Dave Winer
Comcast has assigned a customer-service employee to monitor Twitter for the passive-aggressive whines of tech-savvy insiders. A tipster forwards us evidence of the Twitter-stalker in action in the screenshot below. Meanwhile, another sighting of this rare customer-service animal in the wild comes from bilious blogfather Dave Winer, best known for arguing about which obscure Internet technologies he invented. Yesterday he posted a rant about how the Internet service provider abruptly cut him off. (The cause: Software he wrote which inefficiently downloads Flickr photos en masse.) After Winer complained over Twitter, the stalker, a Philadelphia-based customer-service rep named Frank, reached out, but couldn't help. So Winer called Comcast's hotline for Internet miscreants and recorded the call (MP3). During that conversation, a Comcast rep threatened to shut down Winer's connection. "I asked if I could get this in writing," Winer reports. "He said no." More »
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Comment by blowdart: If Comcast keeps Winer of the internet they'll probably gain a legion of new grateful geek customers. more » | Other threads
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poll
Happy birthday, Julia Allison, we're finding a new man for you
Geek-loving cover girl Julia Allison turns 27 soon and all she wants — other than a MacBook Air and whole long list of stuff — is a boy, "tied with a red bow, like a new car for graduation." Knowing Julia's taste for geeks like Kevin Rose and some guy who used to run some video site, we figured: Who better to help Julia land a new man than Valleywag readers? So help her out and vote in our latest poll. More » -
contest
Remind us who we're sleeping with this week?
"It would be easy to put together a scorecard and a list of Web 2.0 luminaries who haven't graced their pages," suggests sexy Internet daddy-type Dave Winer. "We might find out who's sleeping with the editors of Valleywag." Great idea, Dave! You make a chart, we'll run it at full 720-pixel width. Promise. But only if you specify which editor. One of Winer's commenters claims Blognation owner Tristan Louis got a free pass from the 'Wag. But did Louis pay through the nose for Mary Jane Irwin's sweet, sweet GFE embrace, or is Owen Thomas giving him the reacharound for free? Readers care about those little details.
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Comment by DaveMcClure500Hats: i beg you: please refrain from using the words "Dave Winer" & "sex" (or derivatives thereof) in any future VWag... more » | Other threads
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too insidery
Protoblogger Dave Winer suggests Valleywag doesn't write about people its editors sleep with. His readers quickly correct him: "Or could it be that you've slept with the editors, but you're really bad at sex?" Precisely. Who wants to hear about bad sex? [Scripting News]
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By Owen ThomasComment by Carlos: @fishneversleep: nobody he's slept with is still alive more » | Other threads
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exits
Mitt Romney, my choice for president, "suspended" his campaign today. More disappointing? Dave Winer, who will never, ever let you forget his pioneering role in blogging, will continue to blather on about the election in his Twitter feed for months and months. Dude, we get it. You like Obama.
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Comment by fear_me: So glad he decided to stop aiding the terrorists! The nation is safer now that Mitt has JOINED FORCES... more » | Other threads
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blogging for dollars
Blogs beat New York Times 4-1 in five-year contest
Five years ago, daddy-blogger Dave Winer bet NYT president Martin Nisenholtz that by 2007, blogs would be more relevant sources than the Times in Google search results for the year's top news stories. (Obligatory brag: The bet was my idea.) The Long Now Foundation has handed down its final decision on the bet. The Times came out ahead on the mortgage crisis. Blogs won on the other four topics — the Iraq war, Virgina Tech's shootings, oil prices, and Chinese exports. But you need to know that the Long Now panel blamed the bet's terms for its lopsided outcome: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by raincoaster: @sample032: there'd be more of a point to that if Blogger blogs outranked Wordpress.com ones, but in my experience the... more » | Other threads
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geek love
Online, lovelorn Dave Winer claimed "athletic build"
There are lies, damn lies, and personal ads. Dave Winer, a newcomer to The Well, an online community, posted one in 1994 that said he had an "athletic build." I don't have a photo of Winer circa 1994 (anyone?), but this one from 2001 doesn't show much supporting evidence. Winer's ad, courtesy of Upcoming.org founder Andy Baio: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by loose_anoous: is the dude naked? @uncoveditor: a lot candles could be made. more » | Other threads
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dave winer
Blogger calls for Hillary Clinton's death
Death threats get dished out online routinely, and few take them seriously — the Kathy Sierra row of last spring being the notable exception. But Dave Winer, the blog pioneer, may have chosen the wrong target over the weekend. In a Twitter sent while watching Hillary Clinton on TV, he wrote "Kill Hill Kill Hill." Webheads accustomed to Winer's dyspeptic logorrhea may dismiss such talk as the ranting of an addled mind. But the Secret Service, which protects Clinton as both the spouse of a former president and a presidential candidate herself, may view it with more jaundiced eyes. If agents pay Winer a visit, will he Twitter about that, too?
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By Owen ThomasComment by NikFromNYC: Uh, this person should be uh, like, you know, totally, like arrested and held without Soros to bail her out,... more » | Other threads
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paul boutin
Wikipedia wins, I lose big bet on the news
Blogger Rogers Cadenhead doesn't get to declare the official winner of the bet between the Dave Winer and the New York Times. Google — the company, not the search engine — will call a winner, and the Long Now Foundation, which holds the cash in the pot, will decide the issue. I know because I set this all up in 2001, by talking to Google PR chief David Krane before approaching Winer and the Times to arrange a wager on whether blogs or the paper of record would cover the big stories of this year better. The bet ran in Wired's Long Bets issue. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Steve Zenone: Haha... I love the twist to this story. Sometimes getting too caught up with who's "right" we become shortsighted. Clearly... more » | Other threads
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the loser is you
Five Years Later, Who Rules Google?
Five years ago, blogger Rogers Cadenhead recalls, blogging sorta-evangelist and RSS king Dave Winer made a long bet with Martin Nisenholtz, the senior VP for digital operations at the New York Times. The proposition was this: "In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times' Web site." The best part is, their arguments at the time both pro and con are pretty hilarious—because they've been rendered obsolete. Though technically one of them won, there was another real winner, Cadenhead points out. More »
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By ChoireComment by Michael Jahn: @Furious_George: Go to the Gawker main page, open the Hippie post, and imagine what it was like to get anything... more » | Other threads
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geek love
Dave Winer tweets his way into our hearts
Twitter isn't all Jason Calacanis yelling death to Luddites or Jeremiah Owyang pontificating on his own marketing prowess. Sometimes it's about love. Loooooooooooove. Coooooooool. Like this sweet tweet from blogfather Dave Winer. Want to know what she said? More » -
anniversaries
Happy birthday, blogosphere!
Ten years ago, on December 17, 1997, Jorn Barger coined the term "web log" for a webpage where an author "logs" the other webpages they find interesting. Since then, blogging has become serious business for some and a place for nonsensical blabber for others. Though Dave Winer frequently claims that he was the first to launch a weblog at Scripting News, it was really just an online archive of columns rejected by HotWired. Jorn Barger had the first true weblog worthy of the name at Robot Wisdom.
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Comment by onethumb: There were *lots * of blogs by December 17, 1997. I was blogging as far back as 1995. ... more » | Other threads
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conferences
News flash: Industry events dull
"The problem with most conferences is we don't have enough to do," laments seminar veteran Dave Winer, who admits to Web surfing, emailing and instant-messaging during presentations. In Las Vegas today, speaker Mike Arrington from TechCrunch forgot to show up. [Update: Arrington says he never agreed to do the event.] Why bother? Instead of onstage pony shows and awkward demo booths, conference sponsors should just set up an open bar. Invite potential clients to come schmooze with a few paid celebs and Marc Canter (zzz at left). Think David Hornik's The Lobby for the rest of us. But first, make sure the Wi-Fi's rock solid.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Tiltawhorl: Please god, no more Calacanis nonsense and certainly no more Cantor. If he wakes up, he might eat the whole... more » | Other threads
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blogging for dollars
Big blog conference somewhere
This week, a bunch of bloggers are gathered somewhere to blog about blogs, blogging and bloggers. We forget the location — Vegas? or is it Beijing? — but topics will include blogs and politics, blogs and business, blogs and the media, and how to make some dough at this blog thing. Unless Dave Winer shows up and pisses everyone off by telling the truth again, we'll skip it.
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By Paul BoutinComment by d1taylor: And yet, curiously, it *is* going to be a valuable event for people who are either new or already way... more » | Other threads
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silicon valley users guide
Gossiping to reporter backfires — hurray!
I'll be sad if Techcrunch editor Michael Arrington ever figures out what all those tedious journalism-school terms like off the record and deep background actually mean. Because I hate the way tech people act as if Arrington and other established writers work for them. They see journalists as outsourced copywriters, under specific orders what and what not to write. Yesterday Arrington blogged, "We got a senior person at MySpace to talk to us about it off record .. . this person confirmed that [MySpace cofounder Tom Anderson] is really '36 or 37' and that MySpace has been trying to keep this quiet." He was promptly chewed out by a member of the Valley's most know-it-all caste: a software engineer. More » -
media
"When I got a prominent link from a TechCrunch piece on September 30, it generated 228 hits." — Scripting News blogger Dave Winer disputes the clout of the latest A-list, Techmeme Leaderboard. (TechCrunch is No. 1 on the list, Winer No. 35.) For context, Winer once counted over 100,000 hits to Scripting News from one of Valleywag writer Paul Boutin's articles for Slate.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Gabe Rivera: Well, I got a total of 15 hits from appearing here on Gizmodo: [gizmodo.com] That link wasn't prominent, but neither... more » | Other threads
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on the record
"Just curious why do you lie in your public posts, yet try to sound so reasonable in emails? Answer is on the record of course." — Blogfather Dave Winer, in a not-very-private email to Valleywag writer Tim Faulkner. Tim's reply: "That's just how I roll, Dave. How do you manage to sound so unreasonable all the time, in every conceivable medium?"
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By Tim FaulknerComment by Nick Douglas: Nice, Tim. Wait til you get the pleasure of meeting Winer in person. The first time I did (at a... more » | Other threads
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feuds
Crusty old Web wanker Dave Winer cybersquats on rival
Update below. Arguing with a child will just leave everyone frustrated, but some people never learn. If you thought blogfather Dave Winer's recent spat with blowhard Jason Calacanis was childish, you don't know the depths of the man's juvenility. In January, he argued with commenter Nick Irelan on his blog, Scripting News, about the origins of RSS, blogging, and podcasts. But unlike most Winer spats, the Internet manchild's typically disproportionate response could actually land him in legal trouble. More »
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By Tim FaulknerComment by Nick Douglas: It's a shame, Rod, because it'd be so much more fun to see a nice guy like Woz show up... more » | Other threads
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feuds
Calacanis and Winer need to learn the art of the heckle
Gnomedex, the Chris Pirillo-organized geekathon that took place over the weekend, claims to "unlock the attendee's spirit." Instead, the highlight of the event was the opening of a giant can of whoopass. Relentless self-promoter Jason Calacanis and blather-prone blogfather Dave Winer locked horns, and it wasn't pretty. Calacanis's presentation, unsuprisingly, was an infomercial for his latest venture, the human-powered search engine Mahalo. A few attendees started to heckle Calacanis, and Winer jumped in with the proclamation, "You're spamming us!" The presentation continued but led to a one-on-one berating, a weekend blogfight, the dissolution of a "friendship", and Winer withdrawing from Calacanis's TechCrunch20 startup conference. Winer's offended by Calacanis's self-promotion, Calacanis by Winer's lack of manners; but what really cheeses me off is their rank amateurism when it comes to heckling. More » -
quotable
Says blogfather Dave Winer: "The iPhone is a great example, but it'll be a short-lived product, I think, kind of like the Apple III or the Newton." Or, say, every business venture Winer has ever touched. [Scripting.com]
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By Owen ThomasComment by categorically: I love Dave. He's so irrelevant, but somehow he's always in the news. One day I hope to... more » | Other threads
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dave winer
Web 3.0 is like a group hug
TIM FAULKNER — Dave Winer, web technology pioneer and prognosticator, is sharing his vision of Web 3.0, the buzzword that was cliché before it was even coined. Unfortunately but perhaps unsurprisingly, his prediction, or rather his aspiration, has little to do with the evolution of web applications or modes of expression; instead it amounts to a detente to the self-made feud between professional journalists and the blogosphere. More »
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By Tim FaulknerComment by SumitraMenon: Sramana Mitra has developed a compelling definition of Web 3.0, and differs on the viewpoint that Semantic Web would be... more » | Other threads
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geeks gone wild
10 Most Embarrassing Geek Photos
NICK DOUGLAS — Underneath all that decorum and collared polyester, geeks have crazy personalities waiting to bust out. Normally they have to suppress those personalities to appease investors and look like Real Important Bosses. But when they find their time to shine, they pull poses that would make Star Wars Kid proud. Here are the top ten photos some geeks wish time forgot. (Warning: some shots are a touch NSFW.) More » -
silicon valley users guide
SVUG #12: What blogs should I pretend to read?
PAUL BOUTIN — Skip the year-end recaps and next week's inevitable Predictions for 2007. Instead, bone up on these four tech/biz insiders whose blogs you don't read, but should say you do. All four are way more successful than you. Each posts faster than you can read. SVUG's party trick: Read 'em today, then trust they'll keep blogging the same topics through March. More » -
diggbait
The nine most surprisingly great business moves of 2006
NICK DOUGLAS — Good deals are obvious. Great deals are not. News Corp's $580-million purchase of MySpace was "Murdoch's Folly" no more when Google paid $900 million to power MySpace search. In that spirit, here are the top nine business moves from 2006 that don't make sense — at first. Below, the video that started Deal #1. More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by rice: Didn't Apple start shipping Intel in 06? I am now just waiting for MacBookPros to pre-bundle Bootcamp *and* Vista.... more » | Other threads
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digg
Loose wires: Digg your own grave
- A must-read on Workspace Design for computer programmers. [Joel on Software]
- All the talk of a democracy/meritocracy balance on Digg, including this high school test essay masquerading as a TechCrunch post, is a load of overblown media hype. Just letting you know. [TechCrunch]
- CNET, the business blog that brought you the infamous HP business-secrets story that launched a legal investigation, gets us caught up on the ensuing chaos with a nifty timeline. Fold-out optional. [CNET]
- When feisty AOL exec Jason Calacanis tells Dave Winer and Tim O'Reilly to make love, not war, the show is over. [Jason Calacanis]
- Old AOL Cancel Script: Six whole steps buys you an extended psychological attack. New guidelines: you will be accompanied by a ROFLMAO along the way to a BFF 4EVR. [Consumerist]
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scobleizer
Blogger breakdown: Spot Scoble at Google
- Ex-Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble may miss out on Burning Man, but he'll have fun visiting the Googleplex today with Googler Matt Cutts. Insert cruel "don't empty the snack room" line here, and send phonecam pics of Scoble to tips@valleywag.com. [Matt Cutts, photo by ~C4Chaos]
- Jason Calacanis tells everyone in the Internet industry, blog or die. Somewhere, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz is pumping his fist and shouting "Yessss!" [Calacanis.com]
- RSS pioneer Dave Winer says an army of unnamed people are pissed at publisher Tim O'Reilly. (And it's totally not Winer's bitter recrimination for not getting an invite to last weekend's exclusive "Friends of O'Reilly" Camp, nor the two men's ongoing battle since 2000.) [Scripting.com]
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By Nick DouglasComment by forestwag: OMG, Dave Winer is such as ass. Can we all agree to just not invite him to any industry parties/conferences... more » | Other threads
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dave winer
Dave Winer trades up
Blogger Dave Winer was long known as an irritant — he's got some strong opinions, and he's managed to offend quite a lot of individuals. Now, his awkward phrasing might help him trade up to offending whole people groups at once. From Dave's blog: More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by Avery: You should put up a countdown until Dave Winer stops blogging (at the end of this year). Preferrably with a... more » | Other threads
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microsoft
Best Weekend Ever: Segway to commercial
Over the weekend, while you shivered in the wind at the beach, life went on for the tech world: More »
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Thu Jul 9
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