The campaign, started by three advertising creatives, will recognize the state of Kentucky as the birthplace of the Happy Birthday song among other feel-good homages to the Bluegrass State.

They have a ways to go, but that has not diminished Hiler's enthusiasm. "We're going rogue with it," he jokes. "The idea would be to have millions of Kentuckians invested in this project. This is about shedding light to the world that Kentucky is awesome and it kicks ass."

Kentucky, like other states facing fiscal pressures, could use the tourism boost, too.

We'll be tracking this project, and if you feel like getting a T-shirt in exchange for a few greenbacks to the Kentucky cause - and another possible proof of Kickstarter's successful crowdfunding concept - you can head on over.

The purchases initially baffled users and analysts both. Flancastr is a podcasting host devoted to food shows and Drizzlr is a glazing app, both of which made sense for the company. But Logbundler was a forestry database company; Satanax, a one-click website evilizer; iFeebl, a chat client for dimwits; and 4waybudeBooth, a social network for exhibitionists.

"The rounded button at the side of each page that takes users back to the About page was almost salmon-colored. People were mistaking it for a veal medallion. Delicious, but misleading. With the combined programming talents of our acquisitions - the hot-link know-how of Logbundler's Dr. Timothy Arnold, the XML skills of Drizzlr's Dr. Gerold Schartz, the Java chops of Flancastr's Dr. Kelvin Holland - we were able to affect the transition of this vital part of our company's public-facing UI to a more pleasant seafoam green."

The greening of the button puts the company in line for both federal and Charcuterie County tax breaks, as well qualifying it for the generous Chazz Buildington Socks-With-Sandals grant program.

More to the point, it makes the tool, both in its online and app iterations, imminently more usable, according to Dr. Steve Quickly, head of R&D for Chiliphone. Not so, said Dr. Bob Folder, program manager in charge of Chiliphone's Button Coloration Transition Program (BUTTCOTPRO).

"No. It just doesn't matter. Not one tiny bit under any circumstances. I have no idea why we did this in the first place, but to make a big deal out of it is just stone cold stupid."

The company could not have made the transition without the hard work of everyone at Chiliphone, as well as their new subsidiaries, said Dr. Bill Schwing, who took over program management duties when Folder resigned four lines ago to spend more time with his family.

But the most important aspect of this news, as both Chiliphone executives and tech news consumers have acknowledged, is that ReadWriteWeb published it first.

Das Chili portrait by Joachim Fenkes | Savoy photo by John Kratz

See the live video player embedded below and watch this space for coverage of the first few speakers: Tim O'Reilly, John Battelle and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. With a line-up like that for the first hour, there's sure to be fireworks.

First story: Google Aims to Replace Credit Cards & More With the Addition of Near Field Communications to Android

Unified communications is the convergence of voice, data, instant messaging and presence technologies. It is one of the broadest terms that we come across but it is providing context as collaboration services and mobile technologies leverage the social Web.

HP is seeking to gain on Cisco in the networking market by focusing on unified communications through interoperability efforts and alliances. It sees Web 2.0 technologies as messaging systems that can go to any device through any network.

In terms of alliances, HP and Avaya have entered into a three-year partnership. HP will sell Avaya's Unffied Communications solutions, including Avaya's Aura plarform. Avaya is the leading vendor in the VOIP market. Avaya Aura launched last year. it provides the control of voice, video, messaging, presence and Web applications.

HP also has partnerships with Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft to provide networking and unified communications.

HP's is forming these alliances with multiple partners as the enterprise market opens and the capabilities for using Facebook, Twitter and other services become ways to communicate through voice networks.

That is coupled with the deeper use of collaboration and mobile technologies.

According to IDC, the number of mobile workers worldwide will reach almost 1.2 billion. That's in large part due to the migration to unified communications.

The collaboration space is also expected to boom. But there's a catch. There are few, if any, collaboration standards. That can make any integration a process that requires matching vendors capabilities. Plug and play is still pretty much a concept.

As Mike Vizard points out:

"Right now, the few standards that exist in the collaboration space are built mostly around existing messaging protocols and growing industry support for SIP. But not all vendors implement even these standards equally well, and the providers of online services are notorious for providing APIs with limited data-sharing capabilities. That means that IT services companies in this space such as IBM, Avaya and Siemens, which will shortly demonstrate some interoperability between its unified communications platform and Twitter, are being asked to do the heavy lifting by building custom connectors between services."

That's in large part why a company like HP needs to form alliances. Customers need to know the networking vendors they pick can make the connection to Web 2.0 services.

Instead of just watching "live updates on every topic you care about, simultaneously," the site is now the "super-lazy way to blog about everything you love".

Lazyfeed's biggest emphasis in this redesign is social network integration. Now, users can log in using their Facebook and Twitter accounts in order to post content to those sites, as well as connect with friends they already have on those networks. (On another note, how long will it be until we can stop mentioning this as a new feature and simply say "so-and-so finally caught on to the whole social networking thing"?)

In addition to social network integration, the redesign incorporates a cleaner stream of updates much like any number of other sites we've become accustomed to. No longer will content categories appear in a static position on the page, intermittently showing the word "update" and new content. Instead, the categories will stream down the center of the page, much like on Facebook, Twitter or FriendFeed. Or, as the company's About page states, "Lazyfeed turns the Web into a stream of everything you love, and lets you enjoy 'fishing'."

The primary difference compared to the old site, however, is that as content streams down the center of the page and you read along, you can also write about what you're reading in a left-hand column. The site has also gone real-time social, as is the general trend these days, allowing you to comment on posts and receive notifications when others reply. As the new new tagline says: "Lazyfeed lets you endlessly talk about your favorite topics, without even trying."

In essence, the redesign seems like a Facebook-esque feed reader - much like what Facebook might be hoping to achieve in some ways. With its increasingly social features, Lazyfeed lets you get content recommendations from friends, interact with those bits of content socially, and immediately share them and comment on them with other friends. It does all of this while maintaining the topical categorization you would find in a feed reader, rather than being based solely on social connections.

Another common theme in these videos is introducing non-Twitters users to the Twittosphere. David Lettermen makes great fun of the all too common question, "What is Twitter?" Twitter in HD, featuring Marina Orlova from HotForWords, covers the early days, as well as the creators of Twitter. If you'd like to know more about ReadWriteWeb follow us on Twitter @rww.

2,154,303 views

Update: Apologies for identifying Miley Cyrus as a "group of teenage girls."

While we did consider the number of views in our selection, we primarily focused on videos that illustrate all the ways Facebook has changed our lives. From Farmville, to warnings about losing privacy to what people don't like about Facebook, this list of videos shows society's reaction to Facebook's sudden rise in popularity. Also included are two 60 Minutes interviews with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. They're from 2008, back when Facebook only had 10% of the users they have today.

The fast paced growth of the Web too often keeps us focused on the latest and greatest, to the point were we lose perspective for how the Web has changed over time. So let's take a step back and get a more culturally-oriented overview of the Web. From a 1969 film about an internet that didn't have a name, to the most recent video on the Future of Publishing - as both nostalgia and analysis, we offer you these videos to help you reflect.

3,316,195 views

The study, which shows primary security and privacy concerns of U.S. government IT leaders, is making the rounds among military and government bloggers. Policy makers are being told that the applications we know and love are dangerous and pose gaping security loopholes for cyberterrorism. Is a Big Brother overprotective meltdown? Or are our advances really causing greater risks for all users?

1. 79% Unstructured data
2. 71% Cyber terrorism
3. 63% Mobility
4. 52% Web 2.0
5. 44% Virtualization

Some of these trends are quite longstanding; however, they still cause a great deal of concern among our friends in infosec. Data breach (40%), cyber crime (40%), cloud computing (39%), outsourcing (34%) and open source applications (18%) also top the study's list of security vulnerabilities as seen through the eyes of government IT pros.

However, Vivek Kundra, a 2.0 champion and federal CIO, said in a recent post, "Our policies lag behind new trends, causing unnecessary restrictions on the use of new technology...

'This technology supports every mission our government performs - from defending our borders to protecting the environment. IT is essential for the government to do its work, and it is essential that we have access to the latest and most innovative technologies."

It's sad and frightening to see mobile tech, social networks, and cloud computing called out alongside cyber crime and cyberterrorism as perceived threats to data security. But how much validity do U.S. leaders' fears carry?

The Ponemon Institute reports, "IT operations and IT security professionals identified cloud computing, outsourcing of sensitive information to third parties, external threat of
organized cyber criminal syndicates, cyber terrorism, and a mobile workforce... We believe the findings from this study provide government organizations with guidance on which threats are more critical than others to address."

What do you think about the assessment of these high-profile and popular trends being identified as threats by IT execs in government? Is this a case of out-of-touch government bigwigs cracking down on the social web when black hat hackers are truly to blame? Or are so-called social media experts remiss in their duties to ensure that any products they roll out are secure enough for across-the-board use?

Or is it a little bit of both?

Most importantly, how do we solve the problem of ensuring that government and corporate sensitive information remains secure while users get to enjoy the benefits of Internet-based applications?

We welcome your comments below.

I've always been a big believer in learning from history as we look to the future. So let's re-visit this interview from five years ago and see how prescient the father of Web 2.0 was.

In 2004 the leading Web 2.0 companies were Google, Yahoo! and Amazon. But what of the dominant software company of the previous generation, Microsoft? I asked Tim O'Reilly back in November 2004 whether Microsoft's core strategy of software lock-in would survive in web 2.0?

O'Reilly argued that Microsoft would have to change: "I think that the business of Microsoft, the company of Microsoft, is going to continue to succeed. But I think the business model of Microsoft is going to have to change."

This has turned out to be the case. Over the past 5 years, Microsoft has slowly rolled out a "software plus services" strategy under the catch-all phrase 'Live.' While the Windows OS and desktop software such as Office continue to be Microsoft's mainstay products, some of the functionality gradually moved into the cloud - e.g. syncing over devices. Vista, the current generation of Windows, began that transition. In 2009, Microsoft is even taking steps to put Office online.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think O'Reilly nailed it in 2004 with this statement: "Microsoft will continue to dominate on the PC, but the PC is going to be a smaller and smaller part of the entire business."

The Mobile Web, for one, has taken attention away from Microsoft. Which is where Apple comes in...

Apple and Web 2.0

At the inaugural 2004 Web 2.0 Conference, Apple was a no-show. In talking about Apple's position in the Web industry back then, O'Reilly said that "Apple is in a position they've been in a lot of times before. They're like Moses showing the way to the promised land, but they don't actually go there."

Although Apple never did open up, as O'Reilly foresaw, nevertheless they went on to create the most successful new gadget of the past decade: the iPhone. Apple also created a thriving iPhone app ecosystem.

So in the case of the Mobile Web, Moses (a.k.a. Steve Jobs) actually did lead us to the promised land!

Facebook and Data Lock-in

In 2004 I noted that "a lot of what Web 2.0 is about is users producing content and not just consuming it." I pointed to O'Reilly's own example at the time: Amazon compared to the Barnes & Noble website. However, I said that "the other side of that coin [...] is the 'data lock-in' of users, where users may not necessarily have control over their content." I asked O'Reilly if that was something for users to be concerned about?

O'Reilly replied, in November 2004, that "there are companies that are trying to use data lock-in as a competitive tool - and there will eventually be a recognition that this is a problem."

This has indeed happened - and data lock-in is nowhere more of a problem than on the world's most popular social network circa 2009, Facebook. Over the past few years we at ReadWriteWeb have written many articles about Facebook's 'walled garden' approach to user data. Users can't take their personal data elsewhere. What's more, there have been bungled attempts to use that data for commercial means.

Remember that Facebook had just launched in February 2004 and was confined to some selected American Universities (Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Yale). It had yet to reach the 1 million users mark. While O'Reilly couldn't have known that Facebook would turn into the juggernaut it now is, he did accurately predict that data lock-in would become a major issue:

"I believe that data lock-in of various kinds is going to be one of the key tools of business advantage in the internet era. I think that as companies realize this, they will figure out how to be evil - so to speak (to use Google's terminology) - and I predict that we will in fact have some major battles in that area."

Conclusion

It is remarkable how much can change in the Web industry in five years. Back in 2004, Facebook was a baby and Twitter wasn't even a glint in the milkman's eye. Among the big companies of that time, Apple hadn't yet given birth to the revolutionary iPhone and Microsoft was entering its mid-life crisis.

On reflection, Tim O'Reilly did extremely well in his 2004 predictions - considering how fast the Internet evolves. And I'm still grateful to him for giving an interview to an unknown New Zealand blogger. How times change...

Image credits: Niall Kennedy; Shht!; Alex Eckford

We go gaga over great mashups, we drool over high-powered hardware, and we lust for private beta invitations to Google's latest whatever-the-hell-it-is. But none of these would be possible without machines to blast steam through finely ground coffee beans, and baristas with the skill to pull a perfect espresso shot.

So, the next time you start your day with a smashing cup of coffee, look your barista in the eye and say, "Thank you. Thank you for fueling the social media revolution. And - yes, I know people are behind me, but this is important - thank you for the example you set with your attention to detail. Thank you for - no, there's no need to call security. I'm just saying a simple thank-you for everything you're doing for Web 2.0 and - fine, FINE, I'll go."

So where does coffee fit into your dev process? Are you in more of a spiritually grounded green-tea kind of office? Or have you managed to kick the caffeine habit altogether?

More Noise to Signal.

I discerned three important nuggets from Roberts:

• Comcast will continue to invest in higher-bandwidth connections into homes.
• Comcast will invest in content more aggressively.
• Comcast will officially launch Hulu-competing Fancast.com by the year's end.

The first two points make a ton a sense. The third point is... well, miscalculated.

I am convinced Brian Roberts understands the challenges ahead. This is why Comcast and Time Warner (which also clearly "gets" it) have been aggressively pursuing a "TV Everywhere" model, which promises to give their subscribers exactly what they want: anytime, anywhere access to any TV content. They have to do this to keep their customer bases.

But in a TV Everywhere world, the role of the multi-system operator is diminished. Your cable or satellite TV provider will no longer be your only (legal) means of watching the current episode of HBO's Entourage. In a TV Everywhere world, Entourage will be available on literally thousands of websites and mobile apps, as long as you can authenticate yourself as a paying cable or satellite subscriber with the HBO package.

In this world, the value of Comcast as a content distributor is eroded. Comcast risks becoming a "dumb pipe," providing little more than bandwidth. To avoid that fate, Comcast recognizes that it needs to move upstream and own or control the content itself. This is why it will buy NBC in the next few months.

Moving upstream and investing in content is a smart move for Comcast.

Moving downstream and competing with Hulu via Fancast.com is a bad move. Here's why:

• Hulu already has a huge lead, having aggressively grown its audience for more than a year now.
• Hulu would be the ideal launching pad for TV Everywhere, because of its mega-loyal and passionate audience.
• Comcast is about to own a third of Hulu. Ad revenue from Hulu will ultimately end up back in Comcast's coffers.
• In a TV Everywhere world, thousands of websites will likely present the same TV content as Fancast.com. It will be a terribly crowded space, with a ton of noise. The sites that perform best will be the ones that create the best user experience for viewing TV content.
• Comcast has a poor track record with UI and user experience design. Need I compare more than Comcast DVR's UI to TiVo's UI?
• Strong consumer brands drive website traffic. Comcast has a horrendous consumer brand. Comcast users generally do not like being Comcast users.
• Comcast's interest is in the broadest distribution of TV content, not exclusive distribution. Locking up certain content for Fancast.com alone would be a mistake. Consumers would see it as a violation of their rights, akin to the Net Neutrality debate.

Comcast can survive (and perhaps prosper) through the death of cable-based TV, if it makes smart strategic decisions. That means focusing on where it provides the most value in the TV supply chain: Internet connectivity and content investment. Creating a content website that competes with its distributors is not a smart move.

Comcast should pull the plug on Fancast.com or simply use it as a TV Everywhere authentication testing site.

Guest author: Mike Berkley served as CEO of SplashCast Media from 2006 to 2009, pioneering the concept of social TV in partnership with Hulu. Berkley is currently involved in the TV Everywhere initiative, consults on product strategy for online media companies, and maintains the TV News Stream blog covering all things related to online premium video.

Once again mobile is a big trend this year, with Apple's market share expected to "Surprise on Upside Near-Term."

Overall the key message was that financial markets have rebounded now; and that technology is "relatively impressive."

O'Reilly remarked that we're seeing "what may be the next wave of internet business models." Speaking about the evolution of both the conference and the web 2.0 trend, he noted that the "revolution we're seeing today is as great as the one we saw five years ago."

Last month we ran a series of posts outlining the 5 biggest Internet trends of this year: Structured Data, Real-Time Web, Personalization, Mobile Web / Augmented Reality, Internet of Things. Effectively this was ReadWriteWeb's State of the Web 2009.

We compiled the main points into a single presentation, available on Slideshare and embedded below. We think these trends show that we are indeed at an inflexion point of the Web, as Tim O'Reilly noted at the Web 2.0 Summit today. We'll be exploring more of these and other cutting edge Web trends over the coming months on ReadWriteWeb.

1. Structured Data
2. The Real-Time Web
3. Personalization
4. Mobile Web & Augmented Reality
5. Internet of Things

For those who are widely loved, you'll see this as a blessing. For those who are widely loathed, you'll see the full wrath of the internet in colorful cross-platform commentary. Echo further transcends existing commenting systems with the incorporation of HTML, photo and video. This appears to be a truly amazing tool for mash up contests, political debates and global events.

Loux said, "When Robert Scoble saw this his response was, 'blogging is back'." Scoble's own Building 43 project aggregates comments into the Community 43 page from various social media sources using hashtags. However, where Scoble's community dialogue gets buried as new media comes in, Echo produces a live feed that stays visible with the source material. Chris Saad, VP of Product Strategy and Community, said,"We look for links back to the source page inside tweets/FriendFeed etc and bring in the related conversation - in real time."

This evolving stream of truth (good and bad) is about to stare us in the face every time we visit our pages. It will be interesting to see how this will affect blogging as we know it. Do you think bloggers will elevate their game to gain accolades or simply become gratuitously extreme in order to stir conversation? To reserve an Echo subscription, visit the JS-Kit site.