Category Archives: Web/Internet

In a move that’s being heavily questioned by folks like Mathew Ingram, Brad Feld, and Fred Wilson, Jason Calacanis went out on a limb (well, more like “walked kinda near the edge, but not too close”) and “defined” Web 3.0 last night:

Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform.

I say:

Web 3.0 is a label that will never see the light of day. Caveat: except for people who attempt to define it.   My prediction for what comes next can be found by scrolling to the bottom of this post.

Now I’ll back it up a bit. Web 2.0 is a term used by few. I’d personally put the number between 500K and 2MM people.  I made that up, but base it on TechCrunch readership and a small multiplier effect, and I can’t see it much higher.  And yes, my Valley-based brethren, we really do live in a bit of an echo-chamber.  Even if I’m wrong by 100%, it’s still a few million people at best.

Part of the problem is the ongoing debate of what Web 2.0 means.  Per Brad’s comment, it’s one of those techie labels for things that don’t truly have a definition.  It seems to be “Web companies that were launched in 2004 or later, and heavily leverage open APIs, RSS, AJAX, or something to do with Google.”

Some people are using terms like “semantic Web” (I like Brian’s post on this, although I disagree with him too), which I also think will not get mainstream.  First, most people don’t know what the word “semantic” means (I think it has something to do with Yom Kippur and bagels, but I may be wrong).  Second, like Jason’s Web 3.0 definition, it’s just not BIG enough.

The Internets are used by lots of people, including the U.S. Americans, the South Africans, and the people who don’t have maps.  Most of these people are playing games, downloading music, lingering on MySpace, and doing other massively popular activities.  By comparison, Facebook doesn’t even cause a dimple in the stats of overall international Internet use.

So let’s get all these points together:

1. We have a nebulous term for the current state of the Web, and the “sequel” term is even more nebulous.
2. We have technology that is far above the awareness and comprehension of the typical Web user.
3. The Internet works good.  Seriously – things are pretty sweet.  They were sweet before Twitter, Yelp, and the current wave of lifecasting, social networking, and other “frills” showed up.

Relative to this, the so-called Web 3.0 or semantic Web movements will be minor, if they exist at all.  The catalysts for explosive growth aren’t there.  The Internet, dialup, and Web browsers fueled the dot-com explosion (forget the collapse right now).  Broadband Internet reaching over 50% of US households is fueling Web 2.0 growth (forget the impending bubble deflation right now).The next wave to bank on is Everywhere Internet.  Truly pervasive access will cause the next batch of entrepreneurs to create amazing new services.  I don’t know which technology platform will win, nor will I predict the timing, but I wouldn’t assume any “big waves” occurring without Everywhere Internet.

In the past couple of hours, a story that originated at the WSJ has gotten the entire TechMeme-fueled blogosphere in a tizzy. The story asserts Microsoft’s interest in acquiring a stake of Facebook, which would lock in some advertising dollars and send the valuation of FB to roughly $10(ish) billion dollars (which in a completely unrelated twist is the amount of money the US government claims illegal workers somehow “cost” California each year. I’m in a little bit of a funk about the immigration process these days, so sorry for the bizarre display of cynicism). Here’s a little snapshot of TechMeme:

Now for some quotes from the article:

could value Facebook at $10 billion or more, according to people familiar with the matter.

Google Inc. has also expressed strong interest in a possible Facebook investment, said people familiar with the matter.

a stake potentially valued at roughly $300 million to $500 million, the people familiar with those talks said.

The people familiar with the matter said that the discussions are still preliminary and Facebook could wind up not taking an investment from either Microsoft or Google.

A Facebook spokeswoman and spokesmen for Microsoft and Google declined to comment.

Uh… hmm. First, maybe we can get the article’s authors a thesaurus (I hear they’re online now!) and find at least one other phrase for “people familiar with…” Second, how do we know this is news? Don’t get me wrong, I believe it’s a possibility, but I’d certainly like to get some substantiation here. I’m a little surprised that this has so much attention at this stage (from Valleywag, Mathew Ingram, TechCrunch, Scoble, Om Malik, etc).

I’m also a little surprised that there was virtually no impact to Microsoft’s stock.

ps – don’t forget, the Sony SZ-VGN460N laptop is still one of the worst laptops on the market and even though that has nothing to do with my post, I’m still so unbelievably angry at Sony that I’m keeping the theme alive. Don’t buy it!

At the time of writing, I have 85 friends on Facebook.  A good dozen or so are people I will likely never interact with again.  Another dozen are people I’ve met once, maybe twice, and unless they’re also in LinkedIn with me, I doubt I’d even have their contact information.  I’ve gotten friend requests from people I’ve truly never met, but we seem to have someone in common. So what exactly is it that makes us Friends?

A few weeks back, Dave Winer wrote a post that I very much agree with, complaining about the types of relationshps available when people befriend one another.  My complaint is at a much more basic level – I don’t really like using the term ‘friend’ so casually. 

In my world, a friend is someone I can call (or IM or text or Twitter), in times both good and bad, and know they’ll be there to lend an ear.  I mock Twitter above, and one of the reasons comes back down to my view of friendship – my friends know what I’m doing and don’t need to find out my updates from some Web site or service.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people I’m friendly with, but just because I’ve established a positive, non-stranger relationship doesn’t mean we are BFFs.

Clearly on the other side of the fence of this kind of topic is Robert Scoble, who is currently accepting friendships with anyone out there (for now).  Again, there’s nothing particularly wrong with this, but it does make me crave a new word to use for contacts, acquaintances, associates, and other people I “know”. 

I enjoy plenty of friendly relationships, and look forward to making many more in this journey called life.  I hope for everyone’s sake that twenty years from now people seek more from each other than writing on walls, tagging photos, and the occasional poke.  Well, that one’s not so bad now, is it?

Over the past few years I’ve landed onto more and more PR firms’ press lists, which generally means I get a lot of press releases I don’t really care much about. Frankly, a lot of those releases just aren’t intended for me, but it’s all a numbers game (for both sides, really, and I’m still waiting for more PR firms to act upon my blogger pr tips). Rarely do I receive releases from the government that grab my attention. Today was one of those grabs.

Headline:

United States Patent and Trademark Office Begins Pilot Program to Open Patent Examination Process for Online Public Participation

Key details:

the USPTO announced that this pilot program to test the value of public participation in the patent examination process will run for one year.

The custom-designed Web site facilitates:

• review and discussion of posted patent applications
• sharing of research to locate references to relevant earlier publications
• submission of these prior art references with an explanation of relevance
• annotating and evaluating submitted prior art
• winnowing of top ten prior art references, which, together with commentary, will be forwarded to the USPTO
• patent education to inform public participation
• forwarding of public submissions directly to the USPTO for consideration

The goal of opening up the examination process for public participation is to enable better decision making by the patent examiner and improve patent quality.

Kudos to the USPTO for taking some cues from the burgeoning citizen journalism industry.  Hm, “industry” is probably the wrong word, but that’s not important right now.

The site is fairly impressive. Lots of community features, well beyond just forums (ah yes, another online profile). After reading through a few patents and their discussions, I certainly hope that this process might help “Englishize” patents a bit more, as they are still as abstract as ever. I fear this’ll be the big obstacle to prevent more communal participation. I wonder if they too will make a Facebok plug-in? I certainly think that’s more useful than their integration with SecondLife!

There’s a ton of griping these days about how much reform is needed in the patent process. Here’s a chance for all the gripers to show their character. Get involved. Click here to share your voice in a new kind of P2P, they call it Peer to Patent (more about them here).