ReadWriteWeb

Six Apart this morning launched a plugin for their MovableType blogging platform that aggregates and displays a user's activity from social web sites. Similar to FriendFeed, the Action Streams plugin displays things like, your latest posts to Twitter, images from Flickr, videos from YouTube, or events from Upcoming. The plugin is available this morning as a free download for MovableType 4.1 and currently supports 75 difference services.

Om Malik reported this evening that Automattic raised a $29.5 million Series B venture round led by Polaris Ventures, and including previous investors True Ventures and Radar Ventures. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the news is that the New York Times Company is also joining the round, making a strategic investment in Automattic, who are the creators of the widely used Wordpress blogging platform.

Today is a sad day. Plucky college kid Nick Ciarelli has agreed to close down his Apple rumor blog, Think Secret. Ciarelli has been publishing the site since he was 13, under the name Nick dePlume.

Apple filed a lawsuit in January 2005 to try and force Ciarelli to disclose his source inside the company for pre-announcement news. Think Secret disclosed the release of the Mac Mini and the iLife 05 software suite two weeks before Steve Jobs did on stage.

After my phone-throwing incident earlier this week, I think I've calmed down enough now to do the equivalent of going on the Letterman show and saying sorry to anyone I offended. My friend Mike Arrington called me a traitor and others baled me up about what I wrote. My position hasn't changed, but I think I can do a better job of explaining myself. So let me try and clarify my position on Web 2.0.

1. I won't be entering into any more debates about what is or isn't Web 2.0. It's a dead issue, as far as I'm concerned.

2. I will try my very best to refrain from using buzzwords, including the term 'Web 2.0' itself.

3. I won't throw any more phones.

Here's my main reason why:

The term has become too overblown and nebulous - and is holding us all back. We're too focused on debating its meaning and fighting off the cynics, to make real progress with the actual technologies. But to be clear, I will continue to write about the technologies and impact of this current era of the Web. I am still a card-carrying member of the Web 2.0 Workgroup. I still run a ZDNet blog called Web 2.0 Explorer. I am still writing a book about designing networked applications. The main change, which I referred to in my original post, is that my blog Read/WriteWeb will become more focused on media-related Web technologies. Nothing else has changed, except I won't be playing buzzword bingo anymore.

This isn't a 'You're either for us or against us' scenario, as Mike put it. Or me leaving the Irish Mafia for the Italians, as Ben Barren put it. There are no black and white Bushisms in my world. This is a 'What will get me writing about the value of the Web again, rather than debating schmucks and semantics?' scenario. This is my declaration that the Web 2.0 debate is dead and it's time for us all to move on.

Capiche?

Feedster has named Read/WriteWeb one of their Feeds of the Year. Their summary of my blog is pretty funny, given the controversy over the past few days. Russell Shaw, whose post was the final straw which led me to declaring myself fed up with all the Web 2.0 hype and debate, was one of the judges!

Talk about coincidence. A couple of days ago on my ZDNet blog, I wrote a post that I titled Web 2.0? It Doesn't Exist. The theme of my post was that the designation "Web 2.0" for many new Web applications is overgeneralized, implies a commonality that is not there, and is, above all, a marketing-driven contrivance. Now, coming in at #13 in our countdown is Read/Write Web- a feed by Richard MacManus, one of the popularizers of the Web 2.0 concept. Just yesterday, Richard swore off the designation after he read my post. I promise you, I judged this feed before this all went down. The main thing is, though, that Richard still believes in the underlying technologies of what some would call "Web 2.0." Guess what- I do too .-- Russ.

Dana, though, has his own take. That's totally cool. I value diversity of thought.

Judge Dana Blankenhorn-"A great blog for Web 2.0 fans, covering both tech and business issues, with good links. Well written, decently presented, highlights his own ZDNet blog Few people leave comments, though. Maybe because the feed is excellent."

Judge Betsy Richter doesn't have any comment, but if there was a "Web 1.0" and is a "Web 2.0," I'd say that Betsy, who was the founding editor of Excite.com when it was "exciting," is equally at home in both worlds.

Thanks Russ, Dana, Betsy and Feedster. I'm honoured that you chose me.

p.s. Dana brings up a good point - why don't I get more comments? Maybe it's my attitude ;-)

I've had enough of the hype. I've had enough of cynicism. I've had enough of hate blogs. The nail in the coffin was this post on ZDNet, by Russell Shaw. The thing is, I agree with Russell. The term 'Web 2.0' is distracting from the real value going on in the Web right now.

Read/WriteWeb will be focusing on more media-related web technology in 2006. Enough Web 2.0.

Joshua Porter has written a nice balanced introduction to Web 2.0 on Squidoo.

Meanwhile I'm having a running battle with some idiots on the Wikipedia Web 2.0 page. One or more of these clowns keeps deleting any and all references to my websites and articles. Now I know what Dave Winer feels like when he criticizes Wikipedia. It's a great resource, but just like anything - a few idiots always end up ruining it for the rest of us.

It's that time of year when everyone brings out their Best Of 2005 and Top Ten lists. I wrote a post this time last year entitled Best Web 2.0 Companies of 2004. It didn't get much of a response, because it was well before the Web 2.0 hype kicked in. Over the past couple of weeks Mike Arrington from TechCrunch and I have been compiling a follow-up to my inaugural Web 2.0 Best Of, which we plan to publish this week. In the meantime it looks like Dion Hinchcliffe has beaten us to the punch and released his own Best Of list. Fair play, the Web 2.0 blogging market is no longer as empty as it was last year when I posted my 2004 list :-) So go read Dion's list, but also remember to check out good old Read/WriteWeb and TechCrunch this week for our take on the year past. I'll also have a Top Ten list coming out on my ZDNet blog and perhaps a 2006 predictions post. I'm eagerly awaiting John Battelle's predictions for 2006. I recall printing them out last year, they were that good.

Oh and last year I chose Google as Best Web 2.0 Bigco of 2004, Ludicorp as Best Smallco, Feedburner as Most Promising. Things have changed a lot this year, since Web 2.0 has hit the big time (and my blog with it). There's a lot more competition, which makes for an interesting selection process. Stay tuned :-) Tis the season...

The Wall St Journal has a great write-up of Gabe Rivera's tech.memeorandum, although tragically the WSJ misspelled the link! I also enjoyed the comparison made between Mike Arrington of TechCrunch and The Great Gatsby:

"Consider a blog like TechCrunch, which chronicles the new breed of Internet start-ups known as Web 2.0 companies. The blogger behind it, Michael Arrington, is sufficiently influential that entrepreneurs in search of a write-up will make pilgrimages to his house to give product demos.

The fond hope of these entrepreneurs is that among his 12,000 readers will be a venture capitalist or (better yet) someone with a checkbook at Google or Yahoo. (Companies can be born, hire executives, unveil technology and get acquired without ever leaving this closed community.) And Mr. Arrington also has the social standing to be able to throw big Gatsby-like parties for as many of the 12,000 as were able to find out they were taking place and cared to show up."

The Great Gatbsy was one of my favorite books back in University, where I studied it in my American Literature course. The comparison is unfair in some respects, but in terms of Mike being the hub of Silicon Valley in this Web 2.0 era - as Gatsby was (fictionally) in the Jazz era - it has a certain literary appeal. Especially as I had the pleasure of being a guest in the Arrington mansion for two weeks in October.

From ch 3 of The Great Gatsby:
"There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before."

I've made some changes to my new design. Less shocking red and also a new logo (see below). A huge thanks to Ariel from mEgo, who made the logo for me and created the new color scheme. Thanks Ariel!