Ask.com is releasing a new blog search feature on their search engine, as well as integrating search more into their leading web-based RSS Reader Bloglines. You'll recall that Ask.com (or Ask Jeeves as it was known then) acquired Bloglines in February 2005 - and ever since then a lot of us have been waiting for Ask.com functionality to be integrated into Bloglines. Not to mention waiting for a Bloglines UI overhaul... but more on that later in this post. So finally Ask.com has come out with some new functionality for Bloglines - and I have to say it's a noticeable improvement. Mike Arrington also seems impressed.
I'll start with the new Ask.com features. Admittedly I never use the Ask.com search engine. I'm one of the many millions who over the years has got hooked on Google's search engine - and have no reason to switch. But the latest comScore search engine stats show Ask.com has 5.9% of the market, which is not insignificant. Still, it's well behind Google (42.7%), Yahoo (28.0%) and MSN (13.2%). Also it's behind AOL (7.6%), so Ask.com is 5th overall. Search Engine Watch analysis shows that Ask.com has stayed pretty steady throughout the past year - neither growing much or losing share.
Interestingly, according to the media material provided to me, Ask.com is pitching the new blog search features as being "the next generation" of Blog and Feed Search - moreso than being a value-add to its Web search engine. This suggests it is eyeing the blog search market that Technorati currently dominates. What isn't surprising is that Ask.com is finally leveraging their Bloglines asset. They say they are combining Ask.com’s "world-class search technology" with "the industry’s most robust feed and article data" from Bloglines. While Ask.com's search engine prowess could be questioned (when comparing it to Google especially), I certainly agree that Bloglines has a very rich blog data set that probably isn't matched by any other vendor (except maybe Yahoo).
Ask.com claims that its blog search will yield superior results, due to that by now familiar 2.0 term "collective human intelligence". They state:
"Instead of crawling, Ask Blog & Feed Search harnesses the subscription data of hundreds of thousands of real people who use Bloglines, the #1 online feed reader, to create our search index. In the absence of a mature link structure, people provide the best way to discover the freshest, highest quality feeds -- information that isn’t exposed to crawlers. In addition, this “collective human intelligence” provides a natural defense against spam, as people typically do not subscribe to low quality content."
(emphasis mine)
So Ask.com really is making the most of its Bloglines asset - and again I must use the word *finally*! In essence they're saying that Bloglines users tell the engine what is the best content. Ask.com is also applying their search algorithm on top of the Bloglines subscription data. Users can then filter their results.
As well as the 'Advanced
Search' option, there are three sorting tabs - Relevance, Most Recent, Popularity. When I
spoke to the Ask.com team on the phone, I asked what the difference was between Relevance
and Popularity. I was told that Relevance analyzes the link structure, using their search
algorithm - it's "subject specific popularity". The Popularity tab on the other hand
analyzes the number of subscribers and links within Bloglines.
The other main features of Ask.com blog search are:
1. Binoculars - Roll-over to preview the site without leaving the page.
Uses some neat-o Ajax technology, that previews the last 5 posts of a blog. In my testing
it did load slightly slowly and the pop-up went outside the browser frame at the top (in
Firefox). But those are minor glitches, which will be improved I'm sure.
2. Subscribe - Subscribe to feeds using your preferred reader.
Interestingly, Ask.com doesn't just offer the Bloglines reader - but options to subscribe
using Google Reader, Newsgator, Yahoo, and a generic RSS button (in that order). Also,
and this is a key feature I look for in blog search engines, I can subscribe to search
queries.
3. Post To - Share results by posting them to your favorite sites. The
options are Bloglines (post-it feature), digg, del.icio.us and newsvine (in that
order).
There are also 3 types of results - Posts, Feeds, News. I asked about how the News sources are chosen and was informed that it's an editorial judgement by Ask.com staff - much like how Google News chooses its sources. This will supposedly provide "more professional" results. Although I was disappointed to discover that neither Read/WriteWeb or my ZDNet blog is deemed "professional" enough to make the cut... yet (hint, hint).
There are a whole lot of other features, but best to check those out by using the new Ask.com blog search yourself. Just go to the ask.com homepage and click on 'Blogs and Feeds' at the bottom of the right-hand menu. My tests revealed some good results - however my own blog was conspicuously absent most of the time! A fixable glitch I'm sure :-)
As for Bloglines integration of Ask.com search technology, the only UI addition is a new 'Search' tab at the top of the page. There are some nice filtering options, such as limiting your searches to your own feed subscriptions. Plus things like citation search and 'Top Queries for the Past Hour'. There are also post and feed previews, using Ajax magic. Also the same filtering options available in Ask.com blog search - Relevance, Freshness, Popularity, etc.
But... that same old blue and boxy UI. There has been some Ajax fairy dust sprinkled over it (with the post and feed previews), but when oh when will we see an upgrade to Blogline's UI?! I put this question to the friendly Ask.com people who showed me the demo. They told me that for this upgrade they focused on functionality. The roadmap for Bloglines development does have both feature and UI upgrades in it, but a timeframe for this wasn't revealed to me. I was also told that they "don't want to shock our user base" with a UI overhaul, because they have such a large user base and everybody has different ideas on what a good UI should look like - should it be river of news, three panes, etc.
OK I do understand the need to be conservative with the Bloglines UI - and in many ways it pays not to fix 'what ain't broke'. It may be an ugly UI, but it's still fast and stable. I was told that in terms of user requests, #1 was search (done now) and #2 was new UI. They're apparently testing a lot of new UI ideas, but I wasn't told how long that will take.
Overall, this is a great move by Ask.com to integrate the Ask.com technology with the Bloglines subscription user base. To be honest, well overdue - but I'm glad the blog search part is here now. It remains to be seen whether it'll offer enough desirable functionality to seriously challenge Technorati, which has a lot of unique features and has become relatively stable over the past 6 months or so. But Ask.com is now in the blog search game - which is the main thing.
Business 2.0 has an interesting
write-up today on contenders in the mobile phone search industry. They point out that
the Mobile Web is still a nascent technology. Well, to be frank it's in the middle of a
power struggle between telcos and standards bodies - which doesn't help us users very
much in the short-term. But on the other hand, growing markets like China and Japan have
a relatively high mobile-to-PC ratio. So the Mobile Web is going to be huge,
therefore it makes sense that we'll need search engines specifically for mobile.
According to Jaimee Minney from research firm M:Metric, "pure plays" will be a real challenge to the big Internet guns like Google and Yahoo. In other words, this market is wide open and a dark horse could gallop off with the dominant product - just like Google did with the PC Web 5-6 years ago.
Answers and not links are the key requirement, says Business 2.0:
"While Google and Yahoo are trying to extend their Web search engines into the wireless world, mobile search startups like 4Info and Promptu are trying to make the most of what people use cell phones for today -- voice calls and text messages.
4Info, a Palo Alto, Calif. startup, is aiming to popularize text messaging as a way to search the Web, presuming that cell-phone users want quick answers rather than page after page of search results. By sending text messages to 4Info's designated shortcode -- an abbreviated phone number used for information services -- users can receive sports scores, weather reports, flight information, and even package-tracking data. 4Info plans to sell keyword-related advertising, and has struck a deal with Gannett (Research) to promote its text-message services in the pages of USA Today."
However VCs seem skeptical and are still waiting for the "killer app in mobile search".
Meanwhile Google has its own Google Mobile product - and Yahoo and MSN have theirs too. Even Nokia has mobile search. Microsoft also has Windows Live Search beta for mobile devices, but the number 1 use case is: "Search the Web just like you would on a PC". And that's the point - all of these bigco services just bring up results from mobile versions of websites and services. There's not a lot of innovation going on with the big Internet companies. Just as you couldn't just copy desktop apps to the Web and expect them to succeed, you can't just transfer Web search to mobile devices. So in that sense, I feel there is an opportunity for small mobile search startups to do something different - really capture the essence of the Mobile Web (whatever that happens to be!).
What are some of the innovative mobile search startups that you're aware of?
Photo: dmc500hats
Spotted on the blogosphere (via Ryan Stewart): Macromedia's The Kiwi Project, which is about creating read/write web components for Flex.
From the intro post:
"With the rising interest in AJAX and RIAs, it became important for us to understand how to empower our Flex environment to create read/write web applications. This means developing Flex components that understand specific Web 2.0 technologies such as RSS, blogging, tagging, and microformats. [...] Thus the Kiwi Project was born. The team is comprised of engineers who have been involved with the development of both Dreamweaver and Contribute, who are intimitely familiar with the challenges of read/write web applications."
Curious about the use of the terms "kiwi" and "Read/Write Web", I emailed Deeje Cooley from Macromedia to enquire as to the origins of the project name. I was somewhat crestfallen by the reply:
"The name is a play on the letters "wiki"... sorry, no national connection"
Hmmm, I think I'll still claim myself as the inspiration :-) It's not every day you get a project named after you (even if it's not). Incidentally, Fred Oliveira once called me a wiki...
According to the Miniwatts Marketing Group's Internet Usage and World Population Statistics (last updated March 31, 2006), worldwide Internet penetration is only 15.7%! So much for the World Wide Web... this is indeed sobering stuff for those of us obsessed with 'web 2.0' technology. Here's the main table of stats:
|
WORLD INTERNET USAGE AND POPULATION STATISTICS |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
World Regions |
Population |
%
Population |
Usage |
Usage
Growth |
|
14.1 % |
2.6 % |
2.3 % |
423.9 % |
|
|
56.4 % |
9.9 % |
35.6 % |
218.7 % |
|
|
12.4 % |
36.1 % |
28.5 % |
177.5 % |
|
|
2.9 % |
9.6 % |
1.8 % |
454.2 % |
|
|
5.1 % |
68.6 % |
22.2 % |
110.3 % |
|
|
8.5 % |
14.4 % |
7.8 % |
342.5 % |
|
|
0.5 % |
52.6 % |
1.7 % |
134.6 % |
|
|
WORLD TOTAL |
100.0 % |
15.7 % |
100.0 % |
183.4 % |
Source: World Internet Usage Statistics and Population Stats (nb: removed two columns to make it fit)
In North America, where most Web innovations still come from, the penetration figure is 68.6%. However in Africa it's just 2.6%, Asia 9.9% and the Middle East 9.6%. Together Africa, Asia and Middle East make up 73.4% of the world's population. So that basically means 3/4 of the world has extremely low Internet penetration. The one positive note is that usage growth rates are encouraging (see column on the right).
Interesting to note that China, seen by most analysts as a big growth market for Web technologies, has an Internet penetration of only 8.5%. Considering that great parts of China are rural, this isn't overly surprising. Also mobile technologies have a much bigger impact in China, than the PC.
Still, these figures put things into perspective. I feel very lucky to live in a country (New Zealand) that has 76.3% penetration - even if the broadband is slow and expensive!
p.s. amazing how in these circumstances Pete
Cashmore has managed to get 5 billion RSS subscribers ;-)
I've come across two nifty apps recently that demonstrate a couple of neat things: 1) mobile web utility, and 2) integration with other web services. Both of those things are becoming increasingly important on the Web.
The first app is called Bitty Browser and you may've come across it recently on
other blogs. It's described by developer Scott Matthews as being "a little browser that
you can add to most any Web page". I must admit at first I didn't get why one
would want a mini browser inside your main browser. Scott explained:
"Bitty is based on two principles: 1) that conventional page-to-page navigation is useful, and, 2) that people like to build Web documents out of discrete blocks (an ad, a calendar, a list of links, etc.). So, my suggestion is that navigation *within* a page can be useful too."
So he's suggesting that Bitty can be used as a way to navigate a discrete content block, as a mini app within the main browser. In a way, it sounds like Ajax - in that it enables you to modify only one part of your page. But Bitty goes further, because it offers browser navigation. The use cases for this include adding a bitty browser to your 'personalized start page' (live.com, netvibes, pageflakes, etc), so you can view Bloglines or another web app inside that mini browser. The advantage? You can navigate Bloglines (or another web app), just as you would if it was a separate tab on your main browser. Of course to optimize the experience, the mini app should be a mobile version. Bloglines, to continue with that example, has a mobile version. Which brings me to the second app in this post - Wampad.
Wampad
is a mobile web service that is much like a 'personalized start page' for your mobile
phone. It has a drop-down list of web services like Google, MySpace, Shopping, Flickr,
Technorati, etc - all optimized for the mobile browser. Now to be honest if that was all
Wampad had to offer, it'd be little different from most other mobile web 'portals'. But
Wampad developer Shawn McCollum told me it has a bit more 'web 2.0' magic:
"I'm also taking a slightly different approach to Web 2.0 content on the mobile then other services. Most are focusing on allowing you to maintain your own Web 2.0 content, I think a more explosive segment is keeping up with and viewing friends content and content from people you've just met from your mobile browser. One feature i'm hoping to put in place soon is a way for users to put up a "Mobile Pad" where they can list their content for others to view. It allows your friends a single place to access your content rather then having to remember your flickr and Myspace id. If you couldn't get the same id on both sites, your friends may not be viewing your content."
So Shawn has the social angle covered as well. The WAP Review blog has a comprehensive review of Wampad, if you're interested in knowing more. Shawn also mentioned to me a new, somewhat geeky, feature called del.icio.us Formpad (formally known as Dynamic Links) - more details here.
If you want to check out both Bitty Browser and Wampad on the same site, see http://wampad.com/full.asp. This URL enables you to test Wampad as if on a mobile phone - and it uses (you guessed it) Bitty Browser as the test browser. And if you want to test out Bitty Browser in your personalized start page, try out this Technorati example. Wampad also has similar plans, including for a Vista sidebar.
Overall, it's good to see mobile and microcontent apps that integrate with themselves - and personalized start pages too. I like to see web services using each other as a platform and connecting!
Well not really, but it seems you can't get much attention these days without using a controversial headline :-) Yesterday I live-blogged the Webstock conference speeches of Ben Goodger (Lead Engineer on Firefox who also works for Google) and Tony Chor (Group Program Manager of Microsoft's Internet Explorer team). I published them on my ZDNet blog, thinking my browser-obsessed readers over there would appreciate my efforts. But all I got was accusations of writing a puff piece :-( Duh, I was live-blogging a conference!
Anyway, if you want to get away from all the mob justice of the O'Reilly Web 2.0 trademark kerfuffle, you may enjoy what the lead developers of Firefox and IE have to say about their products.
From Ben Goodger speech:
Managing growth: "Netscape in 1994 looks pretty similar to us" - will Firefox's fate be similar? Ben doesn't think so, but doesn't want them to become complacent. They'll continued to focus on their ideals, not be distracted by what the competition is doing. They don't have closed decisions and want to encourage 'lurkers' - make it easy for them to contribute if they want to.
Read more...
From Tony Chor speech:
Now talks about designing and developing for IE - "we know it can be a little frustrating" [little bit of frustrated-sounding laughter from the mainly designer and developer audience here]. Discusses CSS issues and shows that IE7 has fixed all but one of the 25 bugs they identified "that drive developers crazy".
Read more...
Photo: Rinabee
Today I had the pleasure
of attending a web conference in my own hometown, Wellington. The conference is the
fantastically named Webstock, a
two-day show finishing tomorrow. The Webstock organizers managed to secure some great
talent from the other side of the world - including Joel Spolsky, Doug Bowman, Dori
Smith, Kelly Goto and others. I'm particularly looking forward to tomorrow's sessions,
featuring separate presentations by Ben Goodger (who works for Google and is lead
engineer on Firefox) and Tony Chor (Group Program Manager of Microsoft's Internet
Explorer team). Talk about two sides of the coin - Microsoft v Google, open source v
proprietary, browser innovation v browser market leader.
Today's most enjoyable
presentation for me was Joel Spolsky's on the topic of Blue Chip Products. Before I get
into that, let me set the scene with a few quick comments about Webstock itself. The
setting of Wellington Town Hall is gorgeous and the black/dark red design theme is
distinctively kiwi - reminiscent of the Fly My Pretties
CD/DVD (an essential collection of New Zealand pop/alt music and multimedia, if you're
interested!). Other highlights from today included an intro video message delivered by
Tim Berners-Lee (looking very Max Headroom-ish I must say), free coffees thanks to the
good folk at Provoke (visitors, ask for a "flat white"), some nice Microsoft shwag, the
Freedom Is exhibit, and a
song performed by 'Bob' - a web-themed version of Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A
Changin' (yes, Web 2.0 was in the lyrics!).
Blue Chip Products
But onto the business of this post, Spolsky's presentation was entitled Blue Chip Products. He is a funny man and his talk came across as very witty, especially the spoof on upgrading Microsoft Windows. Essentially the topic of his talk was that great products go well beyond usability - there's an ineffable X-factor quality to them. The main example he used was the Apple iPod, which is a great product - whereas the "Creative blahbla" (a competitor) is merely a good product, despite being more usable and having better features. The iPod is blue chip, whereas the Creative products are "off brand".
Spolsky's presentation was actually an extension of a draft article on his website entitled What Makes It Great? (First Draft). As in that article, he used the Brad Pitt example. In the presentation he compared Pitt's blue chip qualities to an equally handsome - but far less famous - actor named Ian Somerhalder. The iPod vs Creative contrast personified.
So why is Blue Chip Design relevant to Read/WriteWeb? Well in my current focus on Web 2.0 market segments and products, one of the things I'm looking for is why certain products become best-in-breed. Spolsky noted in his article:
"How do you get to be #1? That's the mystery here. And since certain markets (graphical operating systems, online auctions, and apparently MP3 players) seem to be winner-take-all markets, being #2 or #3 may not be good enough.
Herman Miller Aeron ChairSo this is what I'm talking about when I say "Great Design." It's that ineffable quality that certain incredibly successful products have that makes people fall in love with them despite their flaws. It's extremely hard to pull off."
In his Webstock presentation, Spolsky produced "The Formula" for great products:
In summary, Spolsky thinks "the world is monumentally superficial", which is reflected as much in Web products as in Hollywood celebrities. He said that if products are usable/useful and reveal true functionality, then they are "honest". However in web design and products we're not yet at that point.
Photos: 1) Simon Lieschke 2) kiwikeith
NB: Big thanks to Idealog Magazine, for my press pass into Webstock. I'll be doing a write-up for them too.
Recently I posted a meta-list of Web 2.0 lists. My current favorite list is the eConsultant's Web 2.0 Directory. It has "1007 Web 2.0 sites/services/links in 50+ categories". Sacred Cow Dung's is another easily-scannable catagorized list. As I scrolled through these lists today, I wondered which categories are currently underserved by products/services... We all know there are tons of social networking sites, photo services, online calendars, etc - a new contender in any of those popular categories seems to come into my inbox every second day. Frankly the world probably doesn't need yet another blog search or photo-sharing service.
So what market segments are in need of more products to fill them out? Here are ten I identified from eConsultant's list, but I'm keen to get your feedback on this. Of course I chose ten because that gives me the chance to do a 'top ten' post, a la Guy Kawasaki ;-) In no particular order, here they are:
Those are my initial selections, but interested to hear some feedback about what web 2.0 markets you think are underserved - and perhaps under-hyped (yes there is such a thing).
The Microsoft VC Summit
2006 happened a week or two ago, but I've only just had a chance to review the posts that
came out of it. If you're interested in where Microsoft is headed with its product range
and general Web strategy, there are some nuggets in the coverage. Don Dodge from the
Microsoft Emerging Business Team covered
the acquisitions part of the Summit. He noted that Microsoft has made 22 acquisitions
totaling nearly $1B over the past 12 months, compared to just 9 acquisitions the previous
year. What's more, "the acquisition pace is likely to accelerate." Given that Microsoft
acquisitions "typically fill in holes in our product roadmap" and are usually
technology-focused rather than business-focused (i.e. revenue/profits), it's interesting
to note what market segments Microsoft has been buying into. Don listed them:
10 of the 22 acquisitions were for MSN and Windows Live (which can in essence be viewed as one and the same, considering content and services overlap so much these days). Also while Don notes that many of the above are consumer-facing services, a lot of consumer technologies are seeping into the enterprise market - as businesses take advantage of the hybrid, collaborative and 'best of breed' nature of web 2.0 consumer products. I also note the multi-device and multimedia nature of Microsoft's 22 acquisitions - two mobile, two VoIP acquisitions, two video gaming, three mapping/imaging, and an "Application Transfer" company.
I'm probably reading a bit much into the acquisitions, because who really knows what Microsoft has managed to build in-house and so didn't need to acquire. But if anything the acquisitions do confirm that Microsoft is very much focused on 'media' and consumer technologies, under the MSN and Live umbrellas. Steve Ballmer himself said, when adCenter was released at the beginning of May 2006, that Microsoft wants to be a media company. So the list of acquisitions sheds a little more light on that.
In other coverage of the MS VC Summit, Jeff Clavier made some excellent notes. He confirms that "Windows: The Live Software Ecosystem" is a major target of investment for Microsoft. He also noted yet another web 2.0 definition, but very appropriate for Microsoft (and Apple, Yahoo, Google for that matter): "Web 2.0 = Intelligence in all devices, and communication between all devices." Jeff had some great comments about the consumer/enterprise mashup too, including quoting Ballmer as saying that "Microsoft will deliver SN [social networking] functionality in their products for the enterprise."
EdSim also posted about the event and I particularly took note of his observation that communications and collaboration are key in Office 2007. In another post, VC Rick Segal wrote that Office 2007 will continue to be a leading software platform:
"...my suggestion to you when looking for a place to innovate and ride some of the MSFT coattail is to dig into Office, Sharepoint, Live Communications Server, and all of the developer opportunities contained within these products."
So all in all, nothing too surprising in all this. But it puts some more product context around Microsoft's well-documented move to be a 'software as a service' and media company.
Photo: nilssons -- "Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, throws a Windows 1.0 floppy disk in his office soon after the product's release. 1985 Bellevue, Washington, USA."
You know when Gartner and IBM pontificate on Web 2.0, that we've reached a point where the term has become generally acceptable - mainstream even. Well-known research firm Gartner has drunk the kool aid:
"While Web 2.0 offers many new opportunities for companies to grow their business, few enterprises realize how to implement the full range of capabilities to succeed. By 2008, the majority of Global 1000 companies will quickly adopt several technology-related aspects of Web 2.0, but will be slow to adopt the aspects of Web 2.0 that have a social dimension, and the result will be a slow impact on business, according to Gartner, Inc."
...and David Boloker, CTO of IBM’s emerging internet technology software group, is also bullish on Web 2.0:
“Web 2.0 is a new class of affordable apps [that] are becoming do-able, delivering instantaneous value such as mash-ups and programmable web,” says Boloker. “Web 2.0 is comprised of everything from Ajax to social software, for example blogs and wikis; to a focus on simplicity, to microformats.”
I even have a personal example of how Web 2.0 has gone mainstream. I was at a New Zealand government strategy workgroup today and the term 'Web 2.0' was used profusely (and appropriately, I might add).
Now -- I've had an interesting and also bumpy ride with the term. I was the first blogger to focus on Web 2.0, starting back in 2004 soon after O'Reilly Media coined it. Indeed you could say that my blog has always been about Web 2.0 (read/write web, two-way web, etc). During 2005 my blog became very popular because of its focus on Web 2.0. My blog was the resource for Web 2.0, because I was one of the only blogs at that time writing about it. This was back in the days when Mike Arrington of Techcrunch fame kidded me about how many RSS subscribers I had - and that he'd some day overtake me. Which of course he did, I think starting from the moment I stepped into the Techcrunch ranch in Atherton in October 2005 :-) Now of course Techcrunch is number 1 amongst not only web 2.0 blogs, but arguably tech blogs in general - and deservedly so IMO. Techcrunch has simply become a must-read resource. Susan Mernit accurately described Techcrunch recently as the leading daily covering web 2.0 and startup land.
So what has happened to Read/WriteWeb? Well I've still been growing at a decent clip and I've gotten a lot of work via my blog. I've nothing to complain about reputation-wise. But in terms of Web 2.0, quite simply I got engulfed by the hype. You know that popular tech cliche: let a thousand flowers bloom? Well that describes Web 2.0 definitions by the end of 2005 - thousands of definitions "bloomed" in the second half of 2005, with the help of a lot of fertilizer from hypesters and naysayers alike.
Then on 18 December 2005 I made the infamous declaration that "Web 2.0 is dead. R.I.P.". Ever wish you hadn't pressed the 'publish' button? Well that was one of those times for me. Boy did that post cause some ructions. I tried to explain myself more coherently in a follow-up post - that defining Web 2.0 had become too distracting and I just wanted to focus on the the technologies and products. But no amount of explanation could get around that sensationalistic header I used.
So what's 2006 brought? Believe it or not, I think it's brought acceptance of the term 'Web 2.0'. That's actually caught me by surprise - I got it wrong. Web 2.0 hasn't died, it's actually morphed into a mainstream term that Gartner and IBM use. I still think it means everything -- and nothing -- at the same time. But in a weird way this has meant Web 2.0 has become the kind of umbrella term and catch-phrase that people identify with. From the 100 or so new and varied definitions of Web 2.0 you read every week (increasingly from mainstream media), to Dion Hinchcliffe's relentless pursuit of defining Web 2.0 for the enterprise, to VCs using the term to connote 'the period after dot com', to TechCrunch profiling the products of Web 2.0 and itself becoming a Web 2.0 success story, to Microsoft adopting Web 2.0 but re-naming it to The Live Web, to Yahoo continuing to put theory into practice and not naming it anything, to Google just doing it's own thing and being damn successful, to Valleywag rising up and creating a hilarious snark blog about the current boom (well, it'll be hilarious up to the point I get linked to), to 'old school' techs like Marc Canter and Dave Winer thriving in this new era, to Gen Y kids creating multi-million dollar businesses like YouTube and Facebook, yada yada.
And now Gartner and IBM 'get it'. Get what? Web 2.0 of course. But what does it mean? Everything and anything you want. You mean the architecture of participation? Sure I do. What about Ajax? Yeh, why not. What about Flash then? I guess... Does Web 2.0 mean social networking? You betcha. APIs? Dude... Collective intelligence? Of course. Perpetual betas? Now you're talking...
Look: Web 2.0 is made of people (heh).
So I've come to terms with Web 2.0. Well I had to, because I sure as heck am not going to let Gartner and IBM get all the credit! :-)
