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This week: RSS branding, More Web 2.0 definitions, Spam and fake blogs, MBAs learn about Web 2.0, Techie post of the week.
A lot of interest this week in how the label 'RSS' is being usurped by 'feeds' or 'Web feeds'. Once the accepted brand name for syndication technologies, the big 3 Internet companies are all now using the term 'feeds' (or 'web feeds' in Microsoft's case) as their preferred method of promoting RSS technologies to their mainstream users. Most other RSS-related companies are doing the same: Feedburner, Six Apart, Bloglines are just a few high profile examples. And judging by all the comments on my initial post about this, a majority of people feel that 'feeds' is a better brand name for Web syndication technologies than 'RSS'.
But still, the term 'RSS' won't go out of usage amongst the geek set. RSS 2.0 is the dominant feed format - and is likely to remain so, unless Google can push their preferred Atom format onto the masses. And the RDF-derived RSS 1.0 will continue to have its fair share of disciples. Feeds is the way we'll be promoting all of these formats to mainstream users, but it won't stop us geeks from continuing our religious battles over RSS vs Atom and so forth :-)
There were some very interesting discussions about the meaning of Web 2.0 this week, sparked by Web legend Tim Bray's post entitled Not Web 2.0. Tim O'Reilly replied to Bray's post - see also the fascinating comments thread. I especially liked this comment made by someone called "pb":
"Web 1 was the period up to the dot bomb. Web 2 is what has been emerging, what has been succeeding, since that big implosion. I believe that this is the way most "average" people -- if not the technical elite -- will perceive the terms."
I'll be writing LOTS more about all this in the near future (that message brought to you by the Subtle Hint Department). For now I just want to point out that the term 'Web 2.0' seems to be generally accepted now. There still isn't a canonical definition, despite the best efforts of the Wikipedia contributers. But the conversations about Web 2.0 are helping everyone grok the term.
Dave Sifry has been running a series of thought-provoking posts on the "State of the Blogosphere". I particularly liked the 4th in the series, on the topic of Spam and Fake Blogs. The two most contentious posts I've ever written on R/WW were on this touchy topic, because it riles people up (including me!).
Dave wrote that Technorati has been "tracking an increase in the number of people who are trying to manipulate the blogosphere." He goes on to say that spam and fake blogs are almost always created by automated programs, not by people. They're driven by affiliate or advertising money and high search rankings. So Dave and others are working hard to "eliminate economic incentives" for these types of blogs.
Of course I heartily endorse and applaud this action by Dave, because as I mentioned in my (in)famous Bots post - these automated spam or fake blogs are polluting the Web and cluttering up search engine results.
The results are in for Bud Gibson's recent blogging bootcamp for Michigan MBA students. Over 6 weeks the students created and maintained blogs that competed with "cleaning and restoration services" websites. The results are interesting. All of the blogs ended up with a Google PageRank of 5, which was better than three of the old school websites. According to Bud, this suggested "that bootcamp sites would come out ahead of these two sites in searches where their content is equally relevant". The blog sites also had encouraging results in keyword tests.
Bud concluded:
"The bootcamp results demonstrate that with moderate but systematic effort bloggers can achieve search visibility that outperforms established local players for relevant searches."
This is what could be termed The Good Side of blogs for businesses. The Dark Side is the spam and fake blogs I wrote about above. It seems to be relatively easy nowadays for both sides to gain search engine ascendancy over old-school websites.
Nevertheless, it is great that up and coming business people are being taught the value of blogs and social software. You may've noticed that in my Weekly Wrap-Ups, I try to highlight non-techie manifestations of Web 2.0 as well as the geeky stuff. If the Web really is a platform, then we want to encourage as many people as possible to build on it.
Instead of a single post, this week I'd like to give a shout-out to the TechCrunch blog. Their regular profiles of Web 2.0 companies is exhaustive and wide-ranging.
They also have a weekly review of Web 2.0 news, modelled on my own Weekly Wrap-Up. But whereas I generally pick a few topics or a theme and drill down, the TechCrunch weekly provides broad coverage. So I think we complement each other in that respect. OK yes, we did have some friendly words about the name of their weekly review - but we've sorted that out now :-) I recommend you add TechCrunch to your RSS Aggregator.
That's a wrap for another week!
This week I kicked off a discussion about what the brand name of RSS should be, going forward. It's generated a lot of great discussion, including some excellent comments on my blog. And funnily enough, I'm now convinced that in fact RSS is not the right term to market to the masses. 'Web feeds' is the term I like the most, although the abbreviated 'feeds' is also fine. Mike Torres, Program Manager on MSN Spaces, made a very good point when he said that using the term 'web feeds' for RSS is akin to using 'web pages' to refer to HTML files.
Ed Bott also made an excellent point when he said: "The reason some people at Microsoft are exploring alternatives to RSS is because people don't understand the term."
But most interesting to note is the turnaround in the IE7 Team at Microsoft. They originally had an orange RSS feed button in the demo that Robert Scoble filmed just before Gnomedex in June (I specifically mentioned that in my post at the time). But now it seems Microsoft has abandoned the orange RSS button and gone with a stylized orange logo:
And to prove I'm not just drinking the Microsoft kool-aid, Yahoo is also using the term 'feeds' more to describe RSS. See this post referencing the "feeds module" of Yahoo 360 (hat-tip Havi). Needless to say, Google is using 'feeds' as their main term - and ignores the orange buttons altogether.
So sorry Dave and Robert, but it looks like the tide has turned. All 3 bigco's are using 'feeds' and the majority of people that commented on my post are too. The people have spoken - feeds is it.
This from Sir Robert Scoble:
"Watch for more business deals and from places you wouldn't expect them. I'm hearing from several of my friends, for instance, that AOL is looking for media properties blogging networks."
Interesting... I wonder if AOL read my Network of Niches post - I know some MSN folks did ;-) That post, and the one before it, caught the attention of a few Blog Network owners who pinged me afterwards. I won't lie to you - I'm hoping one of them signs me up, pronto.
You see, I finish at my day job on 24 August and I'm fishing for some blog writing work. I want to do some paid blogging to complement the analysis/research work I'm already doing.
If you'd like to hire a smart, focused, analytical Web 2.0/RSS/Social Media dude for your blog network - send me an email.
This offer won't last - someone is sure to snap me up very soon in this blog network bubble ;-)
IBM's new 'SoulPad' is a virtual computer on a small portable storage device, like a USB key or an MP3 Player. According to IBM, SoulPad "enables a paradigm of mobile computing where a user can suspend his computing environment on one PC and resume it on another PC that he may have never seen before."
New Scientist takes the slightly creepy soul metaphor even further:
"The virtual computer's "soul" - as the researchers dub it - can then be uploaded to a new PC simply by plugging the portable device in. This host machine needs no special software or even a network connection to take on an entirely new personality."
I can easily envisage a time in the future when we will not require a physical device to store one's computer "soul". I suggest that before long, you will be able to store all of your personal data on the Web. The IBM SoulPad is just an intermediary step towards a SoulWeb. Because why would we need a small mobile device when we can store everything on the Web?
I've been having a very interesting, sci-fi powered, email discussion with someone on this theme (before I heard about the SoulPad). My correspondent contends that we'll always need a physical device to store what he terms the "trust wall" of our data. My contention is that in future there will be no logical reason why even very personal data can't be stored on the Web, provided security and privacy implications have been solved by that point (admittedly that's a 'big if' looking at it with 2005 eyes).
Any fellow SF-minded Webheads out there with an opinion on this?
Google News now has RSS feeds (finally!). It's great that all the big Internet companies now offer RSS feeds, but Google's move unfortunately signals a split in RSS branding amongst the big media and technology companies. Like Microsoft, Google isn't embracing the term 'RSS'. Microsoft wants to call RSS "web feeds", while Google is simply calling them "feeds". And there's no sign of any orange buttons on the Google News Feeds page.
The NY Times, BBC, MyYahoo and lots of other media sites already use the pervasive orange buttons and the term 'RSS' - so there's now a definite split (dare I say, fork) in how RSS/feeds are being marketed to the public.
As I mentioned a week ago, personally I think the term 'RSS' and its orange branding has gotten too much traction on the Web already and it's too late to change it now.
In that respect Microsoft and Google shouldn't mess with the brand - it's bigger than both of them. But that doesn't mean they won't succeed in turning the brand into 'Feeds', because as the two biggest Internet companies around - obviously they hold a lot of sway. Dave Winer suggested that Microsoft and Google's name changes "will get routed around", but I wonder whether that's more hope than logic.
I'm conflicted on this. I'd like 'RSS' to continue as the brand name for syndication and feeds. But I also want mainstream adoption - and if Microsoft and Google achieve that by promoting 'feeds', well I guess NY Times, BBC and the others will follow suit in due course and it'll be happily ever after for syndication.
Like it or not, the big companies will drive mainstream adoption. Two of them obviously are reluctant to stick with the status quo and call it RSS. So which way will it go - RSS or Feeds?
UPDATE: This post has attracted some excellent comments. Most people seem to prefer "feeds" as the brand of RSS (and yes I'm using the word 'brand' far too often these days!). MSN's Mike Torres pointed out that HTML pages are known as "web pages", so it's appropriate that RSS feeds be called "web feeds". Peter Cooper said that his own Feed Digest, and Feedburner too, have already gone down this road and refer to them as "feeds". IBM's David Berger commented that "it's an overstatement that RSS and the orange box have "established" themselves as an Internet brand". These and all the other great comments, which mostly support "feeds" over "RSS" as the brand, are compelling arguments.
Hmmm, so "feeds" has the momentum - in this thread at least. I'd still like to hear some more views on this...
The Not Web 2.0 discussion has legs. Dave Winer pointed to Dare Obasanjo's post, specifically this bit:
"The problem with 'Web 2.0' and other over hyped buzzwords is that 90% of the stuff you hear or read about it is crap."
I agree, provided my blog is in the top 10% of Web 2.0 content ;-). But to be fair to Dare, he also states this:
"On the other hand I completely grok the simple concept that folks like me at MSN are no longer just in the business of building web sites, we are building web platforms."
Now that's what it's all about!
Also I note that Tim Bray recently updated the Wikipedia definition, leaving this little comment on the History page:
"Tone down the cheerleading"
Fair point. And even though I'm in the top 5% of Web 2.0 blogs (I just promoted myself), I'm guilty of writing some rubbish now and then too. Ben Barron called me on it recently. Here he is quoting my stuff, adding his own regurgitation sound effects:
"Apologies, I was just sick -- Sometimes it's involuntary, as I excited as I am about the "Semantic Web" - Some of us would rather get hit down by a car than be infinite in our praise (or jest ;) of "Web 2.0". I'm a fan of Rich's stuff on ReadWriteWeb.com but (oops I chucked again) remember Rich there was alot of PAIN : "It's an era of unprecedented construction (vomit) on the Web and this has generated a lot of excitement and optimism. (vomit) As Danny Ayers pointed out when he referenced Ian Davis' words: "Web 2.0 is an attitude (now its blood) not a technology"."
Ouch :-) But well deserved. I'm on great terms with Ben, so I joked about it in an email discussion afterwards. I promised him I'd keep it REAL on my blog and not get carried away with the excitement of the current era. My current theme is talking about how Web 2.0 is being put into practice in the 'Real World' (see this week's Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-Up), but I must remember to keep the Rah-Rah out of my Web 2.0 writing ;-)
A Network of Niches is a group of niche bloggers, each with their own unique look n' feel but collectively part of a branded network of like minds. This could be the way forward for a big company like Yahoo or AOL to roll out their blog networks, at the same time giving hope to niche bloggers who write original and compelling content.
Following on from my post entitled Gettin' Paid: A Future for Content Creators? Redux, I noticed (via Darren Rowse) that Yahoo already has a beta blog service running. Yahoo's Health Expert Blogs is not disimilar to what weblogsinc and Gawker do - blog about a certain topic under a business brand. Indeed there are signs that Yahoo is about to launch a Technology blog network.
However it's not at the level of what I had in mind in my Gettin' Paid post. I am envisaging a network of independent experts, each with their own unique brand. This may be a pipe dream of mine, but I still hold out hope that Yahoo or perhaps AOL (with Feedster's help) will implement what I dream of. btw Yahoo and AOL, I'm available for consulting work to help you do that! ;-)
Yahoo's Health Expert Blogs are certainly one step ahead of Microsoft's Filter network. The fact that Yahoo names its bloggers, and indeed centers each blog around the expert that writes it, is fantastic. e.g. Rodney Yee's Yoga blog has some great writing in it. All it needs though is some unique branding and design to bring out Rodney's personality even more. The design of the Yahoo Health blogs is bland and doesn't do justice to the 'voice' of the blogger. That's why I'm pushing a vision of independently branded bloggers, yet still identifiable as part of a network of bloggers who write about a defined topic.
A note about the terms I'm using: each topic has a number of niches. There is 1 blogger per niche but, for example, 10 bloggers per topic. So there is real potential for a Yahoo or an AOL to collect together groups of like minds ("experts") and get the best of both worlds - independence and network effects.
Yahoo or AOL (or another bigco) should let the bloggers keep the unique brands they've built up, but fold groups of them under their wing as blog networks - and pay them! The bigco's benefit by gathering experts into networks and promoting them on their homepages. And they get great content :-)
If I had to come up with a term for this - it'd be a Network of Niches. Which I define as: a group of niche bloggers, each with their own unique look n' feel but collectively part of a branded network of like minds.
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This week: Hype 2.0, Education 2.0, Battlestar Galactica 2.0, Recruiting 2.0, Techie Post of the Week.
This week I'm going to annoy everyone by labeling everything '2.0' ;-) There's been a lot of talk in the 'sphere this week about whether Web 2.0 is just a vacuous marketing buzzword. Tim Bray was the most high profile of the dissenters, but I've noticed a few other anti-Web 2.0 comments recently. Well, not so much anti-Web 2.0 as anti-hype. I guess a lot of people, and techies especially, are wary of another dotcom bubble bursting on us in a year or two. As Jay Fienberg commented in my post this week about this matter:
"From my own perspective as someone who was part of "dot-com", I would say, in some contexts, that "web 2.0" is being used to indicate 100% the same thing as "dot-com".
Specially, the way "dot-com" business talked about itself is the way "web 2.0" business talks about itself. (Same is true of many not-yet-businesses.)
On the other hand, the things that you talk about on this site are something that needs a name. And, I think "web 2.0" is a decent enough name for that collection of things."
I agree that we need to keep things in perspective and not get carried away with the hype, which is what happened to the dotcoms of the late 90's-2001. I still think the Web 2.0 era is a revolutionary one, but we have to be careful not to get overly excited by the smell of money. CNET's just published an article about Top 10 dot-com flops, which is worth reading as a cautionary tale ;-)
Gardner Campbell has a nice post about Web 2.0 for educators and the current generation of kids. Gardner wrote:
"...this year my first-year students were markedly more web-pervaded than my fourth-year students. That doesn’t mean they were more sophisticated in their thinking, it just means their horizon of expectations was in a different place–a place we should be prepared to journey to ourselves."
He goes on to suggest that "the younger students live on, and in, the Web".
In my post earlier this week, I said that Web 2.0 is about everyday people creating and building on the Web. Gardner's post is a reminder that the next generation are doing much more than that - they're literally growing up on the Web. Talk about a revolution...
The comments in Gardner's post are worth reading too - e.g. this from Gardner:
"I think my older students were just over the line of the divide between those who go to the Internet to find or do something and those who go to the Net to meet their friends and do the equivalent of watch TV or listen to music together."
Bonus Links:
- Web 2.0 is now part of an official course: IST 110: Introduction to Information Sciences and Technology ("This summer, I am piloting a new approach and parts of a special topics course I am designing called, Web 2.0: The Read/Write Evolution.")
- Two excellent powerpoints here: 'New Internet Literacies' (slide 17: "Rip, Mix and Learn" - fantastic! - and I'm pleased to see my blog is noted on slide 21); and the second ppt is 'RSS: The New Killer App for Eduators'
- John Pederson also has some thoughts on Web 2.0 and education.
The Unofficial Battlestar Galactica Blog wants the official Battlestar Galactica website to get with the program and deliver on their Web 2.0 promises. Specifically the Unofficial blog asks:
1. Where is the podcast for episode 2.03 Fragged?
2. Where are the deleted scenes for season 2 episodes?
3. Where are the Ron Moore blog updates?
4. Where are the video blog posts?
Even though the last time I saw Battlestar Galactica was when I was about 7 or 8 years
old and wishing I would grow up to be like Starbuck, I completely agree! Go the
Unofficial blog!
Recruiting.com has a nifty overview of how Web 2.0 technologies are changing the job recruitment industry (the post finishes with a bizarre comment on whether Steve Rubel attracts groupies! um, some thoughts are best left unblogged...). Anyway, the gist of it is that recruiters now have more ways to interact online - "and, therefore, more ways to use the web". Blogs, RSS and Tagging are specifically mentioned.
Speaking of jobs, I noticed this advert on the PaidContent.org job board this week from Disney Internet Group:
"Disney Internet Group: Manager, Strategy & Corp Dev: Seeking reformed Strategy Consultants, Investment Bankers with the "itch", and Entrepreneurs tired of fundraising pitches - Come help build the Web 2.0, with the resources of a $50 billion corporation and some of the strongest brands around."
Nothing like having "resources" at your fingertips to build Web 2.0 stuff. Money still counts in this world... but not too much, we hope (see Hype 2.0 above).
Last week I expressed my interest in the new AttentionTrust organisation, but wondered what it meant precisely. Well Peter Caputa has done us all a favour and written a post entitled AttentionTrust.org Explained Better. This is a nice summary of what AttentionTrust is all about:
"As we use the web, we reveal lots of information about ourselves by what we pay attention to. Imagine if all of that information could be stored in a nice neat little xml file. And when we travel around the web, we can optionally share it with websites or other people. We can make them pay for it, lease it, scream for it "show me the money", barter for it, whatever. The important point is that we get to decide who has access to it, how long they have access to it, and what we want in return. And they have to tell us what they are going to do with our Attention data."
It remains to be seen whether this is a Utopian dream, but the intentions behind AttentionTrust are certainly right on.
That's a wrap for another week!
Remember my post last year entitled Gettin' Paid: A Future for Content Creators?. In it I passionately made the case that there is a future for niche writers to make a living on the Web. Well there are signs that it may yet happen...
Microsoft has just started a network of blogs called Filter. The blogs in Filter are fairly bland and the writers are not revealed. Indeed it makes a big noise about the content being largely generated by the readers and the "bloggers" job is to filter it: "...our team of bloggers will filter the best stories, photographs, links and other interesting tidbits that you've sent in, as well as items that they've dug up."
Before you ask, NO the Microsoft Filter network is not my idea of content creators gettin' paid for their writing. Read on...
Interestingly, Jason Calacanis has put a positive spin on this 'blog network' competition from Microsoft. Jason wrote:
"Now, Iím thrilled MSN is in the game because at some point soon Iím sure they will make these Filter sites and/or Start.com the default homepage for tens of millions of MSN/IE users. [...] Having these big players move blogs to the top level will be huge for blogging."
I'm pleased Jason is being optimistic about it. I am too. Jason asked his readers for their opinions on which one of the big four will put blogs on the front page first: Google, Yahoo, MSN/Microsoft, or AOL?
I can tell you who it definitely *won't* be - Google.
My money's on Yahoo and AOL. Indeed I have hopes that both of them will fulfil my dreams of getting paid for my writing, by opening up and inviting truly independent content creators into their fold.
Microsoft's Filter network is a pretty bland, nameless lot of bloggers. Weblogs inc and Gawker are kind of inbetween Microsoft and where I want Yahoo and AOL to be. The personality of Jason's and Nick's bloggers shine through, but they do their thing under the weblogs inc and gawker umbrellas - instead of being their own unique Brands. Which is what I'm trying to be here at Read/Write Web ;-)
Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with Jason's or any of these approaches - just that I'm hoping one of the big players decides to truly open up their network to small unique brands.
Interestingly, new Yahoo hire Matt McAlister (ex-IDG) has been writing some thought-provoking posts along these lines. He wrote recently:
"I wish somebody would launch a media brand that covered the Internet business for people in the Internet business. I've bet my career on this industry, and it would be really nice if there was a brand that stood independently in the middle of it, reported on it with intelligence and depth and integrity, and helped facilitate dialog amongst us all."
I'm still trying to grok where Matt is coming from - but I bet you it has something to do with this current discussion of network blogs and what Yahoo has planned in that regard. In a follow-up post Matt wrote:
"What's missing is that independent voice, the insightful mind with a view from outside who can identify the right people to listen to and the right trends to pay attention to and the right companies to learn from."
Well, there's no shortage of independent and insightful voices out in the blogosphere! Whether Yahoo hires them, or brings them under their wing in a 'blog network', or some other approach - remains to be seen.
Could this be the rise of small, niche content creators gettin' paid for what we love doing? I sure hope so!
Summary: Web 2.0 is everyday, non-technical people using the Web to enhance their lives and businesses. The fact that so many people are now creating and building on the Web is what the '2.0' signifies.
Tim Bray dislikes the Web 2.0 meme, but mainly because it isn't technically version 2.0. With all due respect, this totally misses the point. Web 2.0 is about building new things on top of the Web - the 'Web as Platform' definition I wrote about recently.
It's an era of unprecedented construction on the Web and this has generated a lot of excitement and optimism. As Danny Ayers pointed out when he referenced Ian Davis' words: "Web 2.0 is an attitude not a technology".
Web 2.0 is not necessarily version 2 of the Web. The "2.0" part just happens to be a witty software reference signifying that it's a new world of Web opportunity. As Tim O'Reilly said in his post responding to Bray's: "...there's something qualitatively different about today's web."
Tim O'Reilly summed it up:
"Web 2.0 is the era when people have come to realize that it's not the software that enables the web that matters so much as the services that are delivered over the web. [...] The net has replaced the PC as the platform that matters, just as the PC replaced the mainframe and minicomputer."
So much is being built on top of this Web platform nowadays: new media such as blogging and podcasting, old media is moving to the Web, music (e.g. Webjay, iTunes), education, shopping (e.g. Amazon, eBay), marketing, banking, law, government - you name it, it's being built out on the Web.
I think Tom Foremski captured this point in his recent post, when he said:
"The new dotcoms are not technology companies, necessarily, but they are all "technology enabled" companies."
And that's what Web 2.0 means to me - everyday, non-technical people using Web technologies to enhance their own lives and businesses. The Web is an infrastructure, a foundation. What we create and build on the Web is what Web 2.0 is all about.
