Gawker
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Web 2.Doh
This Is How Tim O'Reilly Monetizes Free
Ever wonder how much computer-book publisher Tim O'Reilly gets to flap his mouth at conferences about how everything should be free? His flack revealed it to the world last night via Twitter (of course). More » -
web 2.0
The bubble that wasn't
Jason Calacanis, the mop-haired founder of Mahalo, an overfunded Web directory, is musing on Twitter about "tickers and rallies past" — a Proustian substitution of stock markets for madeleines. But what, exactly, does he have to be nostalgic for?
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By Owen ThomasComment by JasonCalacanis: JCAL still in the game 4.87m uniques last month & Knicks got $40m in cap space 2010 LeBron coming December 15th Project A threads the... 4 Responses | Other threads
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caption contest
IE 8: Melts in your PC, not in your glass
"It pretty much is a perfect analogy. It's functional, rational and logical. But it looks like shit and I don't get it." So says photographer eyeliam of the carved-ice vodka tap at Microsoft's Web 2.0 Expo party last night. Care to improve the headline? Write a new one in the comments and we'll replace it with our arbitrarily-determined winner. TimsBoot won yesterday with "Who do I have to 'tweet' to get a free drink around here?" (Photo by eyeliam)
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By Jackson WestComment by m0nty.au: hmm, let me try that again. IE8: <blink> and you'll miss it. 2 Responses | Other threads
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caption contest
Who do I have to "tweet" to get a free drink around here?
Putting the "social" in "social media" are Tacit Knowledge VP Oz Sultan, left and Yerba Buena Center Webmaster James Im, right — with both mauling online marketeer and TechSet party cohost Stephanie Agresta, center. They were probably trying to kiss their way to free drinks, since the cash bar was charging $9 for beers and $13 for mixed drinks. But hey, there were free fried cheese sticks! Can you come up with a more compelling caption? Kiss one up in the comments and we may just kiss you back by making it the new headline. Cheers to TheChris2.0 who won yesterday with "Loopt encourages New Yorkers to walk." (Photo by Brian Solis, bub.blicio.us)
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By Jackson WestComment by WagCurious: What's yellow on the outside and white on the inside? 3 Responses | Other threads
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spy photos
Venture capitalists, they're just like us
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures carrying his own lunch order from Shake Shack in Manhattan's Madison Square to a group of tables where he was entertaining wantrepreneurs in New York for the O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo. Not pictured: Lane Becker, president of online customer-service startup Get Satisfaction, who kept his distance from the assembled nerds, pacing around a tree and chatting on his cell phone.
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By Jackson WestComment by kimbjo: Where is this ass kissing coming from VW? Try as they might, we all know VC's are the rubber neck... more » | Other threads
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events
Ignite provides a sweetly earnest kickoff to Web 2.0 Expo
O'Reilly publishing has set up the company's annual bazaar of of bizarre business models at the Javitz Center in Manhattan, but the festivities truly kicked off with last night's Ignite PowerPoint presentation spectacular hosted by O'Reilly Radar's Brady Forrest and Etsy's Bre Pettis. Pettis and friends used fourteen pounds of butter to bake 300 cupcakes and tubs of frosting, which partygoers were invited to decorate as part of a contest — the winners, Nick and Danielle Bilton, crafted the iPhone application icon cupcakes pictured here. Deb Schultz, a Six Apart veteran, did an Alley vs. Valley routine, noting that while in the Valley code is king, in the Alley folks know how to dress. For fellow Alley expats in the Valley, "You know you've gone native when you're wearing a sweater with flip flops." Case in point? Flickr developer Cal "Don Juan 2.0" Henderson wasn't wearing a sweater, but he did look to be wearing the same cargo shorts and flip flops that he was last spotted in. (Photo by Dan Lurie) -
silicon valley users guide
How to sell your software for $20,000 a pop
Weary of the ad-supported world of Web 2.0? Outside the echo chamber of Silicon Valley, there are software developers who write code that won't change the world, but that customers will pay real, five-figure license fees for — enough to sustain a growing, private business. It's all about finding a market that works and copying the competition. Call it anti-innovation. To explain how to do it, an entrepreneur named Bill wrote a blog post called "How to sell your software for $20,000." We've edited it down to a reasonable length below. Give the hoodie to Goodwill, say goodbye to your IPO dreams, and prepare to write the world's next great automated parking garage software. More »
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Comment by Shadowlayer: @Nicholas Carlson: I second the motion Just to add, another advantage of Web2.0 is that you can get hundreds of millions... more » | Other threads
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photoshop
What If Websites Were Realistic?
What if Facebook let you properly express your rage against the tool who just added you to the "Buying and Selling Friends" app? What if Netflix knew you'd skip to the dirty bits? I paid Jay Hathaway a slave's wage to draw up what this would look like. More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by Mike_Jahn: Websites, realistic? Who wants that. If I want realism I'll read a James Frey book. more » | Other threads
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once you're lucky, twice you're good
The index to Sarah Lacy's Web 2.0 book, revealed
In Silicon Valley, it's all about keeping score. The question entrepreneurs are asking about Sarah Lacy's Web 2.0 book: Am I in it? And how many pages? Michael Wolff's chronicle of the first Web bubble, Burn Rate, had a clever conceit: The index was published online at burnrate.com, driving people online to see if they were included in the tell-all, and then to the bookstores to see what Wolff had to say about them. (Too clever by half: The website is now abandoned, and there's no trace of the online-only index.) Lacy's instant history of this frothy time, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, could benefit from having its index published. The book is coming out a week from tomorrow, but it's already in the hands of most of the people she wrote about. Don't you think the likes of Kevin Rose, Max Levchin, and Mark Zuckerberg are counting the number of pages Lacy devoted to them? Soon you can, too. I'll be running all the pages from the index here over the next few days. -
valleyspeak
Five words or phrases to short on the slang stock exchange
CollegeHumor cofounder Ricky Van Veen has decided to short the word "douche."After a strong resurgence in 2005 and showing strong staying power through 2007, lately most of the people I've seen use it fit into two categories: 1) people over 40 who have finally had the word passed down the cool chain from their younger friends and coworkers. 2) the "douches" originally being described themselves.
We second this call. In fact, our own very special correspondent banned douche not long ago. Below, five more words we'd like to see tank. State your portfolio position and suggest other picks in the comments. More » -
quotable
Last call at Web 2.0?
"It's like the bar after 3 a.m. Nobody left over is all that exciting, the desperate women and men are trying to get one last shot at a hookup." — Via instant messenger, an entrepreneur who skipped this week's Web 2.0 Expo, on the conference scene.
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By Owen ThomasComment by waynelambright: Owen, is your last call at web 2.0 also indicating that next year, it will be called web 3.0, so... more » | Other threads
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loser-generated content
Dilbert buys into Web 2.0, now fully buzzword compliant
Cube-dwelling funny pages favorite "Dilbert" from Scott Adams has a redesigned website, sporting the now-ubiquitous "beta" label, offering widgets and buying into the user-generated content fad — you can now create "mashups" and work out your own corporate-minion frustrations within the confines of speech bubbles. [CNET]
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By Jackson WestComment by sample032: Dibert's more than a comic; it's a documentary. more » | Other threads
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web 2.0
Simple is the new complicated for hipster Web apps
It's starting to feel like 1988 around here, and not just because Rick Astley is back in the news. No, it's because old analog-like tech is making a virtual comeback online. Muxtape, the latest project from Vimeo's Justin Ouellette, allows aging alt-rockers and hip-hoppers to create mix tapes for their crushes like we used to with cassettes. And that's just one example. More »
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By Jackson WestComment by matto: Look out! Jason Calcanis is standing outside, in your lawn, with a boombox playing a Peter Gabriel tape right now! more » | Other threads
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silicon valley users guide
Proper use of "The 250"
"The 250" (pronounced "two-fifty") is the derogatory term used in real-life conversations — never online! — to describe the self-promoting cloud of Web 2.0 popular kids who seem to be constantly typing but rarely building value. In short, The 250 only matter to The 250. I've collected and anonymized some real-life sentences from the field to help you use The 250 authentically. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by raincoaster: And somewhere, someone whose initials are adjacent to KB crosses one off the list and thinks "249 to go!" more » | Other threads
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silicon valley users guide
The 250
Not every conversation happens online. A phrase you won't find on Twitter or Technorati is The 250 — pronounced "two-fifty" — a cruelly sarcastic euphemism used in real-life conversations for the small, cliquey group of self-appointed Web 2.0 insiders who seem to spend their days blogging and Twittering about one another. The gist is that The 250 are the 250 people who matter to The 250. None of the other 6 billion people on Earth care which of The 250 are dating each other or got onto a panel at South By Southwest. I'm loathe to name names other than Valleywag editor Owen Thomas, whose site the other 249 check obsessively for mentions of themselves.
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By Paul BoutinComment by davesaunders: Same reverse-elitism used in reference to people in Toastmasters, the Rotary Club, or those meanies that didn't pick you for... more » | Other threads
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debunker
Wikipedia And Digg Are Exactly As They Seem, Damn It
It seems obvious that Web 2.0 is not as citizen-generated as people would like to believe. So obvious that Slate's recent article, "The Wisdom of the Chaperones," seems too mainstream for the usually contrarian site. Writer Chris Wilson imagines that Digg and Wikipedia are still seen as radical examples of the wisdom of the crowds, and reveals that they're run by a small base of power users. Of course, Slate is wrong. Call it banal, but the user-written news site and encyclopedia really are the work of thousands, even millions of casual users. More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by IndianSlipper: @keithldick: 87.532% of all statistics are made up. more » | Other threads
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complaint department
Why Does Digg Hate Porn? [NSFW]
(See update below.) Fans of the Digg phenomenon know how valuable it is for any site to get a link featured on the social bookmarking behemoth. That's why our fellow Gawker Media siblings are constantly sending out emails asking us to check out their Digged stories ... emails that we immediately delete. You see, to us gentle pornsmiths, a Digg button is little more than a useless hunk of code, one that automatically rejects any submission deemed "obscene" or "pornographic"—i.e., any link that includes Fleshbot.com as part of the URL. [Fleshbot] -
microsoft
It's just like working at a hip new startup, pinky swear
It's hard to recruit the software engineers of tomorrow when your corporate image elicits visions of pocket protectors and blue screens of death, not rooftop foam parties and drunken nights aboard a corporate jet. To stop trendy Web 2.0 startups from stealing its best minds, Microsoft is pretending its the hip company we all know it's not. Its Hey-Genius campaign, awash with hipster kitsch and perpetual MIDI noise generation, invites young geeks to tour "the-not-so-little startup company up here in the great Northwest." More » -
venture capital
Kleiner Perkins still investing in Web, lackeys
Kleiner Perkins partner Randy Komisar freaked you out a little when he said the firm was done with Web 2.0, didn't he? ""We have absolutely no interest in funding Web 2.0 companies," he told Silicon Valley Watcher. Well, don't worry. Kleiner Perkins, which backed Amazon.com, Google, AOL, and, um, Friendster, remains in the game. More »
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Comment by Mikelamb: how can they just spout stuff and everyone reacts to it. It makes us all look like idiots out here... more » | Other threads
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fashion
You're with Stupid
Does Web 2.0 commodify the work of artists? Yes, if it makes them create silly projects like this "Are You Social?" shirt. "The owner of the T-shirt is expected to mark the services he uses with a pen and to wear it in public. What happens when users start wearing their network identities openly in public?" Then users start getting drinks thrown in their faces, that's what happens. Take off the shirt* and have a real conversation. More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by David Quiec: This guys looks like Chad Hurley, or Tony Hawk. more » | Other threads
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quotable
"... Kleiner Perkins has halted investments in Web 2.0. This would mean a lot more to me if I knew exactly what Web 2.0 was — I've been reading about it for years now, have co-organized two conferences on it, and I still don't know." — Canadian lawyer Rob Hyndman, who hasn't read Valleywag's Web 2.0 crib sheet. [Rob Hyndman] -
confirmed
Web 2.0 definitely for idiots
In response to my Web 2.0 for Idiots PowerPoint slide, commentarian nealsid writes: "How about the part where 'you help make it' but 'they make the money?'"
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By Paul BoutinComment by sample032: You didn't hear it from me, but there isn't really any money. more » | Other threads
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web 2.0 to english
Web 2.0 for Idiots
A reader emails in response to our Web 2.0 to English series, "I fail to see the problem with Tim O'Reilly's primer. Anyone who's not an idiot needs no further explanation." As a Reader's Digest contributor, here's the condensed version of your email: Fail. For the rest of us idiots, I've whipped up a chart. More » -
web 2.0 summit
The original definition of Web 2.0
I found the October 2003 Microsoft Word file in which O'Reilly editor Dale Dougherty proposed a new series of "Web 2.0" conferences. The one surprise is that the idea was originally much more machine-oriented.The first wave of the web was closely tied to the browser. The second wave extends the applications built on the web server and it will enable a new generation of specialized clients and automated web applications. (Emphasis added)
Four years later, as the saying goes: Web 2.0 is made of people. -
web 2.0 summit
Web 2.0 pitch generator — just add elevator
Always willing to lend a helping hand, Gadget Lab's Rob Beschizza created a Web 2.0 startup and press release generator. You know, so if your first Red Bull-fueled pitch crashes and burns, you can quickly con your way into a second audience with that VC. Sure, the idea may not be original — Web 2.0 generators are all the rage: A sales pitch, slogan, name, logo and website can all be yours at the click of a button. On the other hand, it's hard not to applaud an attempt to remind the world of irrational exuberance. And if you really want to have fun? Send the nonsense to Valleywag's Paul Boutin and watch him contort himself into knots trying to translate it into English.
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Comment by cv: This was far funnier when Tom Davis wrote the original buzzword bingo circa 1993 at SGI. The C program would... more » | Other threads
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web2ooh
Overstimulation at the Web 2.0 Summit
As the Web 2.0 phenomenon grows long in the tooth — some might say this year's TechCrunch40 conference was its official jumping of the shark — its most venerable proponents are struggling to create a sense of excitement around it. But for this year's Web 2.0 Summit, organizers John Battelle and O'Reilly Media are trying, perhaps, a bit too ... hard. Get an eyeful of the slogan. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by elvenjewel: should be "make SURE everybody is..." my bad! more » | Other threads
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web 2.0
Bruce Judson puts the "bull" in "bully pulpit"
Bruce Judson, the Internet pioneer, is taking a turn at pretending to be a Web 2.0 expert, blogging on Henry Blodget's Silicon Alley Insider. Yes, the very same Bruce Judson, Time Warner Internet vet turned hawker of free crap we wrote about a week ago, who's pawning his reputation as a marketer and business leader from the first Web boom to pitch his new venture, Free for Today. Why, oh, why, is Blodget handing Judson a megaphone? The fallen star's ruminations on Web 2.0 are obvious and boring, and a thinly veiled pitch for his free-crap website. Ah, yes, this is the real Web 2.0: Garnering attention through self-promotion, no matter how spurious your ideas or transparent your motives. Maybe Judson gets it after all.
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By Tim FaulknerComment by AdMonster: I had the "pleasure" of working at Time Inc. during the years that Bruce Judson's influence there was at his... more » | Other threads
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digg
Imitation is not always flattery
Social news filter Digg has spawned imitators, including Reddit and Slashdot's Firehose. Oh, and the late, unlamented Netscape. "Ripping off" is practically a core tenet of Web 2.0, though we suppose it sounds nicer if you call it "iteratively evolving industrywide best practices." One creative Web designer and Xbox fanboy, though, decided the Internet needed a Digg dedicated to Microsoft's Xbox consoles, so he created Diggxbox. As you might imagine, it uses its own version of Digg's user-driven filtering to sort the day's Xbox-related news. It's even adopted cute videogame touches like the Xbox's "red ring of death" as the "bury" button (as Digg's mechanism for voting "no" on a story is known). Cloning Digg is easy, but attracting a fanatical userbase like Digg's is another thing altogether. More »
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Comment by sample032: I quit reading Digg about a year ago, so when I do go back and visit, I notice the changes.... more » | Other threads
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videogames
Web 2.0 invades your living room, too
The dreaded marketing doublespeak so freely strewn across the Web is now invading your videogame consoles. Game developers are eyeing the market for cheap, fun "casual" games — the kind you play on a Nintendo Wii, as opposed to the graphics-laden shoot-'em-ups favored on Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation. To tap into that market, they're becoming fully buzzword compliant: "social networks," "crowdsourcing" and "user-generated content" are just some of the meaningless shibboleths that have jumped from the Web to the gaming world. BusinessWeek dubs it "Game 2.0." Please, somebody, frag me now. More »
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Comment by elvenjewel: @Mary Jane Irwin: Honest? You know what this is, right? This is American Idol for video gamers! ... more » | Other threads
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jakob nielsen
The State of Web 2.0 Design
Jakob Nielsen, perennial usability and interface design guru, made hay again yesterday with renewed criticism of Web 2.0 design. This is not the first nor will it be the last time Nielsen attacks Web 2.0 for a little press. Of course, there is wisdom and validity to his concerns. The Web 2.0 aesthetic and feature set are like obscenity: you know it when you see it. There is always good and bad design, and statements like "The idea of community, user generated content and more dynamic web pages are not inherently bad [...], they should be secondary to the primary things sites should get right" always ring true. However, as H.L. Menken said, "Criticism is prejudice made plausible." Let's consider the design and interface of some noteworthy Web 2.0 sites: More »
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By Tim FaulknerComment by hiteshmehta: Today, the dynamic web pages are not made in any rush hour, plenty of man hours goes in to research... more » | Other threads
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wild prognostication
The future's five enemies (and how to beat them)
NICK DOUGLAS — Wasn't it sci-fi author William Gibson who said "The future is here, it's just unevenly distributed among pithy sci-fi authors"? The future is indeed inevitable, but before it brings us a 24/7 carnival of worldwide post-scarcity, cyborg bodies, and Starbucks on Mars, it must fight enemies like the following five: Baby Boomers, the movie industry and music industries, cell providers, the government, and Web 2.0. More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by SumitraMenon: Web 2.0! Man i hate it. I happened to read strategist Sramana Mitra's definition to Web 3.0 and was pretty... more » | Other threads
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the interweb
The Future Internets That Never Happened
NICK DOUGLAS — "A new company is paving the way for a more automated Internet," shouts the New York Times. Oh god. New internets are like perpetual motion machines: they get "invented" all the time, but you'll never find a working model. Here are the most famous, including Cyberspace, the Semantic Web, and Bruce Sterling's Magical Spime World. More » -
web 2.0
IPO fever returns, rationally
You know, I was all set to make gentle fun of this Business 2.0 piece on 2007: The (New) Year of the Tech IPO. It even comes with "six hot IPOs to watch," not to mention 20 fantasy-league investments as dream'd by various Valley VCs (Tim Draper! Elon Musk! Steve Case! Bill Gurley!). But then, the main article climaxes with, "There will be no irrational exuberance this time around." There it is! The first characteristic of this bubble that makes it different from the last one. Otherwise identical so far, but thank God our exuberance is now totally rational.
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By Chris MohneyComment by Frazier: This is the best post I've seen in a while. more » | Other threads
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By Chris MohneyComment by egoboss: dear, oh dear. warhol was oh so right but in truth it's "everyone will be infamous for 15minutes" i'd love to... more » | Other threads
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web 2.0
If only "onboarding" was like "waterboarding"
A sure sign of Web 2.0 jargon collapse is the geometrically inverse relationship between expectations and rewards. For example, examine this NYC Craigslist ad for a "creative genius / idea generator." The ideal candidate is in fact an "idea factory" who can "push boundaries" with your "new edgy way of doing things" (at least they put scare quotes around "out of the box"). You must also have 7+ years of online/ad agency expertise and a solid portfolio of viral stunt crapola, all so you may be "onboarded" aboard "a viable Web 2.0 start-up" that can't afford to pay for a classified ad. Never fear, as your future "thought leaders" have no plans to endanger their launch money by paying you anything. Simply trade your 20 hours a week for stock option incentives and a free trip in a time machine to back when anyone would be stupid enough to take this job. Full ad after the jump, if you can stand it. More »
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By Chris MohneyComment by davidu: "The business model turns the current paradigm upside down." Not to be a total snark, but the current paradigm isn't so... more » | Other threads
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web 2.0
How to be a jerk about Web 2.0
NICK DOUGLAS — "Oh my god Web 2.0? More like Bubble 2.0!" Okay, good start. But to really intimidate non-geeks and show how you're so over Web 2.0 (as proved by the five parody logos you uploaded on Flickr and auto-inserted into your blog), you need to break out these advanced tactics. More » -
big media strikes back
Jealous of AllofMP3, majors sue
SCOTT KIDDER — Continuing our international web 2.0 coverage here at Valleywag, this morning Arista Records LLC, Warner Bros. Records, Capitol Records, and UMG Recordings Inc. sued everyone's favorite Russian Web 2.0 business, AllofMP3.com. As we all know, AllofMP3.com sells DRM-free MP3s for just under $2 an album. More » -
hype
Poland coming on strong with world class Web 2.0!
SCOTT KIDDER — Yeah yeah, we've all been Web 2.0ed out. After all, it's almost time for Web 3.0. But don't tell Poland — they're just getting started and are "coming on strong with world class Web 2.0!" More » -
silicon valley users guide
SVUG #11: What do 'alpha' and 'beta' really mean?
PAUL BOUTIN — Engineers use Greek letters like alpha and beta to be specific. But the fuzzy logic of marketers and magazine editors (me included) has rendered them meaningless. SVUG defines proper jargon after the jump. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Fatlimey: Unless you're NVidia or ATI, when your Beta is everyone else's Alpha. God bless Micro$oft for inventing Release Candidates [1..N]. more » | Other threads
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