Did you notice that the people who invented Web 2.0 were having a meeting in their office today — not attending Web 2.0?

Yeah, it is a little suit-heavy over there. We'll have live updates from the summit for the rest of the day.

• Ryan from Adaptive Path, inventors repackagers of Ajax, writes why AP's cooler than O'Reilly. [Second Verse]
• Zorba the Greek owns Web 27.0, y'all, so no steppin'. [Zorba the Greek]
• Why did respected blogger Thomas Hawk retract his lash-out like so: "First off I probably should not be calling Tim O'Reilly an asshole. It's not a very nice thing to call someone and it's somewhat juvenile." A reader says it's politics: "Thomas Hawk is an FM [blog ad network] member, btw. Dollars to donuts he got a call from [O'Reilly friend and FM owner] Battelle after the "asshole" remark." [Thomas Hawk's retraction]
• By the way, John Battelle is STILL NOT GOING TO COMMENT about the (totally-unfair-guys-really-tim's-away-that's-vacation-immunity-guys-guys-please-guys) O'Reilly affair, except to update and say Cory Doctorow's big-fucking-benefit-of-the-doubt post was fair. [Battelle Media]

Bigger, earlier updates: Web 2.0 (TM): The shit hits the fans [Valleywag]

I have an NBC Nightly News crew following me today.

The story is about how we work our ass off trying to keep up with email.
Which means I need email today.

Send me stuff
All day
please

.b

Bryan Mason

Oh, the trials of adoring media attention! However shall he cope? Well, we wouldn't want to hand his e-mail addy to a crowd of strangers, so I'll leave it to you to figure out Bryan at Adaptive Path's address. If you do, send him an encouraging note — such as "Good luck wagging the dog!"

• Title: Web 2.0 has a local address
• Subtitle: South Park, the neighborhood that fostered the dot-com boom, is back
• Trend angle: San Fran is back too — the whole Valley is back. And this time the businesses are real.
• Poster children: Adaptive Path, Rubyred Labs, Wired, Technorati, VideoEgg, Mule Design Studio, and other tech companies from Bryant to Brannan, Second Street to Third Street
• Photos: Aerial shot infographic, kids in the park, street signs, and Rubyred's Thor Muller at the Cereal Bar.
• Lead: South Park startup Rubyred Labs has a trendy Cereal Bar.
• Sources: Scott Beale (Laughing Squid founder, photographed the Cereal Bar); Janice Fraser (CEO of South Park stalwart Adaptive Path); Matt Sanchez (CEO of startup VideoEgg); Jesse Blout (mayor's director of economic development); Jeffrey O'Brien (a senior editor of long-time South Parker Wired Magazine); Neighborhoodparks.org; Max Applegarth (owner of local cafe Caffe Centro); Jonathan Nelson (founder of online marketing agency Organic); Jonathan Wright (from burnout dot-com BigWords.com); Maggie Mason (mighty blogger and writer); Elvis Jessie Presley (homeless man); Jonathan Grubb (Rubyred co-founder and cereal analyst); Amy and Thor Muller (Rubyred co-founders and Noe Valley baby-raisers)
• Best line: "I saw 20-year-olds in head-to-toe Prada and said, 'This cannot last'" — Maggie Mason
• WTF: The tumbleweed story

Web 2.0 has a local address [SF Chronicle]

The SF office space should save some Flickrites from the commute to Yahoo's Sunnyvale HQ. But will it cause some tension, what with Adaptive Path's recent Google deal? Nah, the Flickr folks and Adaptive Pathers are Boom 2.0 kids — life is one big mash-up.

Photo: Adaptive Path office [Maggie Mason on Flickr]

The alleged deal: Adaptive Path would agree to let Google hire two members of the team. But AP wouldn't know which ones until after the agreement. Then Google, like an America's Top Model panel, interviewed everyone at AP and scooped up its two favorites.

So Adaptive Path had to sign a contract not knowing which team members would say goodbye. It's almost like seeing a family break up — except the orphans get a six-figure salary.

(By the way, prodigal son #1 was Jeff Veen, who first made Measure Map. AP can't disclose the second new Googler.)

Earlier: Google buys Measure Map [Valleywag]
And: Google eyes Measure Map [Valleywag]

hipster 1: "Of course I can define Web 2.0! It's ....... um ...wait .... "

hipster 2: (hums Jeopardy theme)

And:

Adaptive Path's real product is four-letter words.

And:

All comments are spam.

Man, I want his friends.

Then stumble over to the Velvet Spade around 900 Red River (near the invite-only Blogger party at the Iron Cactus, which started too early for our tastes). Ben Brown of the Consumating dating site co-hosts with music service Odeo and developer firm (and stellar party-throwers) Adaptive Path from 9 on.

Have fun, careful 'bout your drug choice (unless you don't have a panel to lead tomorrow), and keep that little card with your hotel room number.

I'm not sure what Battledecks is, other than what Adaptive Path co-founder Lane Becker says on its SXSW event page:

Hot consultants will drop bombs and display mad skills as they battle at the freestyle PPT presentation event of the season.

But whatever it is, I'm on the panel of judges, so if you're in Austin for SXSW Interactive, come to the Room Day Stage at 10:30 Saturday and watch...the things...and then say hi to Valleywag. And Adaptive Path.

BattleDecks: Southwest Invitational [SXSW]

But it still can't get no respect. At the latest AP party, Irina Slutsky of Geek Entertainment TV quizzed notables like HOT or NOT's James Hong and 43 Folders blogger Merlin Mann. The question: "What is Adaptive Path?" The answers: guerillas, life choices, navigating water, and maybe a beverage.

What is Adaptive Path? [GETV]

Told ya. If you haven't already seen Jeffrey Veen's post on the Google Blog, the Measure Map creator just left the UI consultants at Adaptive Path and sold his user-friendly stat-tracker to Google. (Of course, Valleywag readers knew it five days ago.)

In his post, Veen doesn't mention Google Analytics, the all-business stat-tracker that cares more about clickthrough rates than conversation. Om Malik says that Google could help Measure Map, which "sucked wind." Assuming the company doesn't kill MM, maybe that cute interface can take some of the ugh out of Analytics.

(Meanwhile, Mint's still the classiest stat-tracker on the market. Will Yahoo scoop it up? Haven't heard any such rumors.)

Here comes Measure Map [Official Google Blog]
Measure Maps Hooks Up With Google [Om Malik]
Measure Map goes to Google [Adaptive Path]
Earlier: Google eyes Measure Map]

Update: It's true.

Since Google acquired Urchin — the service that became Google Analytics — people assumed that MeasureMap would go to Yahoo. MeasureMap displays data such as number of visits, source of traffic, geographicaly distribution of visitors, and does so in a graphically appealing fashion. The service was built by Adaptive Path, the user experience gurus; many of their friends now work at Yahoo, which seemed like a natural acquiror.

However, we hear that it's Google, not Yahoo, that's close to clinching a deal for MeasureMap. The official logic will be this: with Urchin's raw power and MeasureMap's friendly design, Google Analytics will be unbeatable. Translation: it's so pretty, I've got to have it, so what if I already have one.