Nicholas Carr, a real journalist, has a blog post that argues that Web 2.0 is amoral. That’s a relatively uninteresting academic argument though. Of more practical import, is his rage against the “cult of the amateur”. But I find it curious that he bases his argument against amateurs on a completely false statement: “The promoters … Read more

Microsoft Emerging Business Team member Don Dodge has another thought-provoking post on Internet business. Don notes how so many innovative companies who were market leaders in the 90’s have been overtaken by the new era of “fast followers”. Here’s his list of examples: * AltaVista -> Google * Napster -> iTunes * VisiCalc -> Lotus … Read more

This week: Geeks being creative, Yahoo! RSS research, Reading Lists, Making money with Mash-Ups, Techie Post of the Week – Dave Winer on Nerd TV sponsored by: Geeks being creative I’m now back in my home of New Zealand, after spending two fantastic weeks in Silicon Valley. As I look back on my time there, … Read more

Uber classifieds site craiglisthas requested that Oodle, a classifieds ‘meta’ search engine, refrain from scraping its content. This has the potential to be the first high-profile case of a mash-up site being slapped for taking another site’s content. In a recent ZDNet post, I wrote that the business models for Web 2.0 mash-ups are beginning … Read more

Whether you love or hate the Web 2.0 meme, you have to admit it’s gained a lot of traction in both tech and business circles. Now we’re beginning to see cultural and sociological posts about Web 2.0, although Danah Boyd and Barb Dybwad have both written great posts on similar themes in the past. Anil … Read more

As TechCrunch reported, two more resources have been added to our nascent Web 2.0 Workgroup. Mike wrote:“Podtech.net is a very popular podcast site hosted by John Furrier that is redefining corporate press practices. Recently, for instance, Yahoo gave Podtech an exclusive pre-announcement right to discuss their podcasting service last weekend. SolutionWatch, written by Brian Benzinger, … Read more

This’ll be my last post from Silicon Valley for a while. I’ve been here for two full weeks and I’ve had a fantastic time! I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Mike Arrington for letting me stay at his house and making me feel so welcome – thanks Mike! It’s been a hub of … Read more

This is the best thing I’ve written in ages… thanks to Saurier Duval for doing a mash-up of my blog. Some choice extracts: “The stats they released today indicate theyre well on their way to explain them in the Web as a service concept (which is by no means a new regular feature of Web … Read more

Mike Arrington has another Ode to Memeorandum on Techcrunch. I’m a big fan of tech.memeorandum too and it’s changing the way I read blogs and catch up with the latest tech news. My first rave review of memeorandum was a month ago when it went live and since then I’ve met Gabe in person – … Read more

For the record, I have actually read Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland. Indeed just over a year ago I wrote on my blog that Microserfs is my favourite Douglas Coupland book. I wasn’t in the room when Dave Winer talked to the others about it, leading him to write this:“I’m over at the Web 2.0 Workgroup … Read more

I’m sensing a backlash about the rising VC interest in Web 2.0. Mike Rundle takes aim at Flock in his post subtitled “The Leaning Tower of Buzz”. He thinks Flock is only useful to the blog crowd and doesn’t have a viable business model. Bart from Flock disagrees, saying in the comments that they do … Read more

The Web 2.0 Workgroup has expanded to 4 blogs (and more to come!), with the addition of Dave Winer’s Two-Way Web blog. This is awesome news, because the Two-Way Web site was a defining influence on me when I first started blogging. Dave was around at the TechCrunch house later in the day and then … Read more

To all those Web 2.0 companies looking to get acquired by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! or eBay, Don Dodge has handily compiled a list of tips. Don works on the Microsoft Emerging Business Team. In his latest post he starts by noting Microsoft’s “rich tradition of acquisitions”. He points to a list of Microsoft investments and … Read more

The necessary components of a mash-up according to the panelists are AJAX or a similar client-side technology, APIs in the backend (or RSS and/or scraping if need be – although some people argue scraping isn’t truly Web 2.0), and a lot of work on the UI and data sets by the developer(s). Paul Rademacher mentioned … Read more

Yahoo! announced two major products this week: a podcasting service and then blog search integrated with Yahoo! News Search. Both of these products are outputs of Yahoo!’s strategy to introduce more user-generated content to their media offerings, as outlined by their CEO Terry Semel at the Web 2.0 Conference. Some people have criticised the design … Read more