This week: International Web 2.0, Mainstream Media Meltdown, Microsoft "Leaked" docs, Web 2.0 poster children rebel, 2.0 Post of the Week - samy conquers myspace.

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Web 2.0 - Rockin' All Over The World

This week we've seen evidence that Web 2.0 is taking over the world reaching out to other parts of the world. China Web2.0 Review is a new english language blog focused on Web 2.0 developments in China, a key market in the near and long-term future. Australians are hosting Long Tail parties, Spain recently hosted its own Web 2.0 conference, as did Britain, and the TechCrunch format is being exported to Ireland (sounds like a franchise opportunity for Mr Arrington!). Web 2.0 is happening all over the world. Stay tuned for more announcements about this on Read/WriteWeb in the near future.

Mainstream Media Meltdown

Chris Anderson from The Long Tail blog updated us on some mainstream media stats this week. They showed that sales for box office, newspaper, music (except for digital downloads), radio and books were all falling by 2-7%. There were "mixed" results for DVDs, TV, magazines and video games. The only media doing consistently well is online advertising - banners are up 10% this year and Google revenues are up 96%.

The stats were sourced from all over the place and the comments to Chris' post include some valid criticism about the accuracy of the data - e.g. the book stats Chris used were from 2004 not 2005. However, having done a research report earlier in the year on this topic, I can verify that such data is extremely difficult to come by! If nothing else, it proves that online advertising - and by extension online media - is enjoying a bumper year.

Microsoft "Leaked" Docs

This week Microsoft continued its well-publicized push into the Web 2.0 world, with the release of "leaked" documents by Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie. The leak was probably intentional, but even so they contained some useful tips about where Microsoft is at in terms of Web 2.0. IDG ran an article late this week across its publications (Computerworld, CIO, etc) under the heading Microsoft lacks Web 2.0 savvy, or variations on that. The article quoted me extensively, but I think I should point out that I don't think Microsoft lacks savvy. What they lack is products that live up to the Live announcements and accompanying memos. But I assume those are coming in 2006...

Web 2.0 Poster Children Rebel

Web 2.0 is certainly a love it or hate it affair. People like me love it because it represents an exciting new generation of the Internet and media, people like The Register and Go Flock Yourself hate it (for the same reason?). There's something about the Web 2.0 meme that drives people into either passionate, sometimes bubble-icious behavior - or enrages them into cyncial, often foul-mouthed rants. There's not much middle ground.

Anyway, my point here is that some of the Web 2.0 "poster children" have decided enough is enough and they don't want to be labelled Web 2.0 anymore. The Flock team has banned the term 'Web 2.0' from its office and del.icio.us creator Joshua Schachter is also rebelling against being "the Web 2.0 poster child". 

I only have this to say in response: The Illuminati is not impressed. (hat-tip FactoryJoe for the image!)

2.0 Post of the Week

Never let it be said that I'm not down with 'the kids'. OK, so I missed seeing this post in early October when it first came out. But it's worth highlighting now anyway, because it's a witty and well written account of how a young guy called samy conquered myspace.com with some clever javascript code. Here's an extract:

"If I can become their friend...if I can become their hero...then why can't their friends become my friend...my hero. I can propagate the program to their profile, can't I. If someone views my profile and gets this program added to their profile, that means anyone who views THEIR profile also adds me as a friend and hero, and then anyone who hits THOSE people's profiles add me as a friend and hero... So if 5 people viewed my profile, that's 5 new friends. If 5 people viewed each of their profiles, that's 25 more new friends. And after that, well, that's when things get difficult. The math, I mean.

Some people would call this a worm. I call it popularity. Regardless, I don't care about popularity, but it can't hurt, right?" 

That's a wrap for another week!