--- title: "Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-up, 21-27 Mar 2005" date: 2005-03-28 author: "Richard MacManus" categories: - name: "ReadWriteWeb" url: "/category/readwriteweb.md" tags: - name: "2005" url: "/tag/2005.md" --- # Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-up, 21-27 Mar 2005 This week: ETech notes, Yahoo love-in, Web 2.0 acquisition deals continue, Hacking Web 2.0, ubiquitous storage. ## ETech Takeaways I was on holiday the week ETech occurred, so I’ve been spending the past week catching up. My [food-themed notes are here](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002682.php). Also during that week [the next Web 2.0 conference was announced](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002679.php) – October in San Francisco. I’m aiming to make it to that one! ## Media Darling Yahoo I called Yahoo the [Teacher’s Pet](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002671.php) a few weeks ago and now Om Malik has [likened Yahoo](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.gigaom.com/2005/03/26/how-yahoo-got-its-mojo-back/) to a mojo-rejuvenated Austin Powers! Om still thinks Yahoo’s future is “broadband and mobile” and he is a tad dismissive of the developments that have caused Yahoo to become the “new darling of the chattering classes” – e.g. the Flickr purchase. However I’d suggest all of Yahoo’s Web 2.0 changes and innovations are (re)building a firm foundation for their media strategies. In fact I wrote about that at the beginning of March: [How Yahoo’s Web Services Support Their Media Strategy](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002667.php). So… what was new at Yahoo *this week*? Well the [Creative Commons Search Engine](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://search.yahoo.com/cc) beta had geeks salivating – including yours truly – because it’s an enabling tool for the Remix Culture. People can use it to find content to “modify, adapt, or build upon”. At this time probably only bloggers will use it, but in future it may become be a key component of Yahoo’s search engine (remember the Remix Culture is still in its infancy). Oh and Yahoo also announced [Yahoo 360°](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://360.yahoo.com/index_beta.html), a social networking blogging service. [Silicon Valley Watcher suggested](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2005/03/news_analysis_f.php) that Yahoo will incorporate Flickr into 360, which makes sense to me. NB: [Charlene Li](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2005/03/first_look_at_y.html) has the first real look at 360. OK, enough about Yahoo (you may be beginning to think I’m one of their employees…I wish!). ## More Web 2.0 Deals It may only be a mini, blogosphere-oriented, bubble. But there are a ton of acquisitions happening right now (and even more rumours!). The latest: [ Topix.net got bought](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://susanmernit.blogspot.com/2005/03/topixnet-to-be-acquired-by-newspaper-j.html) by a newspaper JV and [IAC made a mammoth offer](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://battellemedia.com/archives/001338.php) for Ask Jeeves. PaidContent.org has a fun [Buyout Countdown List](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.paidcontent.org/pc/arch/2005_03_23.shtml#012825), speculating about which other Web 2.0 companies are ripe for purchase. My suggestions were [del.icio.us](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://del.icio.us/), [43Things](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.43things.com/) and [Blogdigger](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.blogdigger.com/). [Steve Gillmor suggested](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gillmor/index.php?p=73) PaidContent.org, which isn’t a bad rumour to start 😉 Of course, [Read/Write Web](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.readwriteweb.com/) would also be a good new media investment – any offers? 🙂 ## Web 2.0 Hacking Looks like there was a great convention over in Taiwan recently: [YAPC::Taipei](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://yapc.elixus.org/english/schedule.html) (YAPC means Yet Another Perl Conference). While I’m by no means a Perl developer, there was one session that caught my eye – a talk entitled “Random Hacks” by [Tatsuhiko Miyagawa](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://bulknews.typepad.com/blog/2005/03/yapctaipei_day__2.html). Thanks to [Journal of acme](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://use.perl.org/~acme/journal/23866?from=rss) for the link. [The presentation](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://blog.bulknews.net/mt/archives/hacking-web2.0.pdf) (pdf) includes a section about “Web 2.0 Hacking” and there are some excellent tips in there about how to use blog APIs. [Tatsuhiko Miyagawa](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://bulknews.typepad.com/blog/) has also written an O’Reilly book, only available in Japanese, called [Blog Hacks](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/4873111749/250-6897047-1413851). Question: will it be translated into English? I’d love to read it. ## Techy Web 2.0 Post of the Week [ Daniel Lemire](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.daniel-lemire.com/blog/archives/2005/03/23/what-will-be-the-next-web-a-prediction/) wrote a thought-provoking post about ubiquitous storage. This is his prediction for the next phase of the Web: “I bet it is going to be ubiquitous massive storage. Very soon, in 5 years, we will reach the point where individuals will have access to infinite storage.” I immediately thought of [OurMedia](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://ourmedia.org/) (and I noticed [Seb Paquet](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/) left a comment saying the same thing). The next point that grabbed me was this: “Smart indexing and aggregating techniques are going to become extremely important.” **My view:** infinite storage of course means huge amounts of data, so I agree that smart indexing and aggregation are key to Web 2.0. Some of the companies already doing this include [PubSub](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.pubsub.com/), [Findory](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://findory.com/), [Rojo](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.rojo.com/). Not to mention the bigco’s, including Bloglines now that it’s owned by Ask Jeeves. As I wrote in a post this week, [RSS Aggregation + Search](https://web.archive.org/web/20060107145803/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002681.php) is going to be a winning strategy for whoever executes it best. *Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_20_weekly_w_9.php))*