Jeremy Toeman’s LIVEdigitally

As I write this, Comcast is worth 67 billion dollars.  Their stock has split 4 times in 20 years, and has grown massively over that time.  They have over 24 million subscribers.  They are one of several US cable companies, who take on the 2 satellite service providers as the main players in the TV space for the US.  And startup Sezmi was labeled today as a cable killer, with TV 2.0, whose advanced set-top box apparently blows away the TV.  Wow.  That’s quite a strong billing, don’t you think. The last device I recall with this type of hype was supposed to transform the way we build cities.

This isn’t just David vs Goliath by the way, this is David the little tiny ant versus Goliath the elephant.  Not only does Sezmi have to compete against huge players, they are doing it in a massively entrenched industry that spends ridiculous amounts of money advertising their own services.  And let’s think about that advertising for a second - where exactly is Sezmi going to run their ads?  Are they going to pay the very networks they need to compete with?

Now I do need to make a very clear disclaimer here: I have not used their product, nor even seen a demo.  I will go on the leap of faith that they have built the very best darn box ever built (even better than the ones I’ve built!).  I’m going to assume it’s utterly amazing, and the content quality is stellar, it’s really usable, etc.  I’ve only seen one such demo in recent months, but that’s another story for another time.  Let’s assume that in the world of “terrible Internet set-top boxes” they’ve built the iPhone of the batch.   I still think they have a huge challenge ahead.

First, they need to market the heck out of this thing.  I’ve watched MovieBeam try and fail, ReplayTV is gone, Akimbo is a service now, and even everybody’s favorite TiVo isn’t exactly a commonly owned product (somewhere around 5ish million homes is the latest I’ve heard).  Each of these companies have spent millions of dollars trying.  And I can name a dozen others who’ve tried.  Even Apple can’t really move the AppleTV in massive quantities.  And massive quantities is the only way to be successful as a startup in this space.

Beyond just “extremely good” marketing,  it’s a big uphill battle for Sezmi.  Both PaidContent and Engadget refer to the company as confusing.  In the articles I’ve read the company’s advantages seem to lie in (1) price, and (2) Internet services.  I don’t believe these to be true competitive differentiators in the “taking on the cable industry” space.  The players that be have effectively infinite dollars to throw at the problem, and we know they are all working on introducing Internet-enabled devices themselves.

Having spent most of the past 10 years of my career attempting to introduce products just like these, with variations here and there, I do wish the founders the best of luck with the effort.  I would love to try the box out, see if it’s exceeding expectations and get a sense of how they plan to accomplish their arduous task.  I think the visions of wanting to “change television” are noble, but unrealistics.  Just because we have deregulation and things like OpenCable doesn’t mean the window of opportunity is open.

I do believe we’ll see additional interesting new media concepts for digital devices and platforms, but I don’t believe going after the big guys is the way to be successful.   It isn’t about a “better than your cablebox” or a “more channels than you have now” or even a “get the Internets on the teevees” kind of play.  It’s about counterprogramming against the TV itself.  It’s about innovating on other, existing platforms.  It’s about moving around the concept of the cablebox and cable company completely.  Is Sezmi here with that new Innovator’s solution?  We’ll find out soon enough.

Dave Winer believes the end is near for blogging as we know it (or knew it?  sorry if I’ve misinterpreted, Dave), and Mark Evans feels there isn’t much original thought out there. These are two people I know, like, and respect, and two people I’m in complete disagreement with.  First of all, there’s tons of good, nay, great blogging out there.  A small fraction of it makes it to TechMeme. By the way, I’d recommend reading Ed Bott’s thoughts on the blogosphere, which seems to have kicked this whole thread off (good on ya, Ed!).

If I can make the analogy, think of the movie industry.  There’s a lot of creative, original movies being made every year.  Most of them don’t air at the uberplex, and the typical Blockbuster employee won’t recommend them to you.  Sometimes they “bubble up” like Little Miss Sunshine did last year (overrated by the way, but that’s not the point), or Sideways a few years back.  But if you read the mainstream reviews and movie sites, you have to deal with the Stiller-Wilson-Vaughn Theory (a modernization of the classic Caine-Hackman Theory).

TechMeme tracks “the conversation” and therefore is the worst agent possible for finding distinct, outlying content.  This isn’t saying TechMeme is bad, it’s not, it’s very good at what it does.  But now we are seeing a certain lament for the so-called 250, who appear to blog about an insular set of topics.  Well, let’s face it, a certain percentage of the incentive to blog is ego-driven, and it ranges from individual to individual.  The more one wants power or fame, the more one is likely to want to be found on TechMeme.  The more one wants to express individual, distinct thought, the less likely TechMeme acts as a motivator.  Ask Robin Williams why he did Good Will Hunting, my hunch is it’ll help clarify things.

Several months ago I made the decision to rarely get involved with TechMeme topics (which this post is most clearly defying, ain’t it ironic?).  It’s my feeling that there are enough other intelligent people out there getting into those “conversations” but the truth is, I started getting the feeling that they weren’t really conversations, they were more like discordant shouting matches (albeit occasionally polite ones).  I feel it’s unlikely that I have many readers (other than my family) who follow my blog but are completely in the dark on these other “popular” topics.  But more importantly, I just felt I wasn’t really blogging about things that inspired me as much as others.

I may not be in the 250.  I may not have hundreds of thousands of readers subscribing to my feed.  I don’t really know anymore, since I turned off all stats anyway.   Want to find some different voices?  Look for the bloggers who rarely make TechMeme, and subscribe to them, and take the time to read them regularly (here’s four to get you started:  Frank Piller, Shawn Morton, Umair Haque, Tom Evslin - no offense to my other friends, I just wanted to pick some that don’t fall into the mainstream as often!) .  Unsubscribe from “TechMeme Regulars” since it’s pretty likely you don’t need to read all their posts anyway.  In other words, if you really want to find the indie films, you’re going to have to stop renting from Blockbuster.

Ten years ago individuals seeking a form of online self-expression typically ended up at Geocities (or a similar site) and built a “home page”. It was typically gaudy, unreadable, and used some combination of the flash and marquee tag. Many of them linked to a Turkish(?) guy named Mahir. The Home Page fad went on through the 90s, then went fairly underground. Traffic remained high, but universally it seemed clear that home pages were (1) ugly, (2) boring, and (3) a frivolity at best.

But just as the Wii revived a dormant Nintendo, the 2000s rolled around and blogging “appeared” (and I know there are folks such as Dave Winer who’ve been blogging longer than that, but the main trend emerged a few years ago). Wordpress (my blogging technology of choice - open source, extensible, free - what’s not to like?) has dropped the barrier to entry so low that I can start a blog in minutes and yet not have to sacrifice any form or function. Blogging got so big and exciting that Engadget got acquired by AOL, blogging networks such as b5media emerged, and blog tracking from startups like Technorati spread to the giant Google.

At the same time as “us older folks” got really into and excited about blogging, another world was experiencing unbelievable growth: social networks. Popularized by Friendster, then capitalized upon by MySpace and now Facebook (and even good ol bebo), there are hundreds of millions of users of social networks today. In a Geocitiesesque fashion, people again are flocking to the opportunity to create a distinct slice of themselves on the Internet, only this time not only are they creating ugly annoying pages, they are also finding new ways of embarrassing themselves long into the future.

But neither blogging nor social networking was really “enough” to last. 2007 saw massive changes in behaviors in both arenas. As blogging got bigger, our focus drifted. Where we used to read individual blogs to read individuals’ opinions, a massive shift to all-encompassing feed readers occurred. It’s become less about the ‘whose opinion do I want’ and more about ‘what’s an interesting headline?’. Blog aggregators such as TechMeme have also improved our ability to find trends (memes) in blog-to-blog “conversations” but yet have de-emphasized the importance of writing quality articles instead of just linkbaiting headlines.

Also, microblogs like Twitter gained popularity, giving writers the benefit of a limited structure (140 character entries), and again, distributed focus away from the individual and into the crowd. Social networking sites, led by Facebook, implemented platforms for building applications, most of which seem to involve being bitten by zombies and/or having a sheep (or worse, poop) thrown at one’s eye.

Next up are the layers on top of all these building blocks, and 2008 will be a big year for them. FriendFeed launched (as did SocialThing and Plaxo Pulse and others) as an aggregator of all of your online activities (other than social networking sites, which already do this independently). Louis Gray did a phenomenal job recruiting/inviting/involving the “a-list” bloggers (which I most certainly don’t belong in, but others like Scoble and Dave Winer do), though Mark Evans and Brian Solis have a lot more to say on that topic. I’m still not sure why/if I need FriendFeed (nor is Duncan Riley), nor if I plan to use it in the future (although I did sign up here), but at least I’m not judging from afar this time (as opposed to Twitter, which I still refuse to use).

By now I hope it’s clear why I regard this as both evolution and de-evolution. We have more flexibility, more control, more features, more zombies, but we also have less focus, less clarity, more clutter, and much much more confusion. Each new addition brings not just the functionality, but requires basic comprehension of the building block. Adam Ostrow yesterday blogged that FriendFeed “crossed the chasm” (a term implying moving from early adopters to the masses) but I couldn’t disagree more. My parents, as an example of “mass Internet users” are still barely comfortable taking pictures from Flickr and printing them at Shutterly or in a local store. The masses don’t know from Twitter, and are still just finding out that there are a lot of cats who have appetites for cheeseburgers and ride invisible bicycles.

One thing that these technologies seem to expose is humanity’s obsessions with other people. Never before has it been so easy to virtually stalk someone online (and by the way, it’s only a matter of time before some uber-lifestreamer experiences a home robbery by making their personal travel plans so easy to access). Never before has our work/life balance been so ridiculously far out of whack (and I’m not the only one who feels this way). Never before have we seen the individual have the opportunity to have microcircles of fame (or should that be microfame?), nor the obsessive-like compulsions to follow.

I think the part that concerns me the most is the extreme levels of digital divide that are emerging. It’s not just the technology barriers, it’s the inevitable social barriers that come along with it. The divide is growing, even amongst those who have access to the technology. And it’s going to get a lot worse for a lot of people, especially inside families (”mom, I so totally twittered that I was gonna be streaming live from the mall today, u r so lame!”).

There are times when I feel technology evolution is outpacing humanity’s ability to absorb, react, and evolve as a society. We are probably closer to being “one world” than ever before, yet we are also probably closer to being “six billion individuals” than ever before.

God knows I’m not a big believer in all things 2.0, in fact, I’m not much of a believer in anything 2.0. However, amidst the muck and dreck there are some winners, and more importantly, underlying all the new rounded corners fanciness it’s become clear that the future of the Web is about open platforms and data sources all able to talk to each other. Flickr is better than Kodak Photo Gallery because they made it so easy for me to get to my photos through not only their site, but on my blog, Facebook, etc etc.

Before there was 2.0, in fact, before there was really dot-com, there was IMDB, the Internet-hosted paradise for film geeks.  I won’t see a movie without checking it’s IMDB score, and upon seeing one I’ll instantly dash off to read the trivia, and give it a rating myself.  At a dinner party if a movie gets mentioned and a debate about some actor starts, the laptop comes out, and off to IMDB we go (at a friends’ house I’ll usually just kwiry the movie instead, since they seem to find it rude if I go get their laptop just to prove them wrong).  It’s been that way for a decade or more, and unfortunately, nothing much has changed.

Amazon bought IMDB some years back, integrated shopping in a not-so-bad way too.  IMDB launched “pro” but it’s really for people in the movie business.  So rather than involve the community and become the de facto source for all movie data across all Web sites, IMDB sits on their closed, controlled, protected database, and sits on the sidelines as competitors emerge.

Want to build a movie app using their data?  No problem, you can license it here (and here’s their data format, mercifully updated from CSV into XML in the past few years).  There are discussion forums, but no RSS feeds to get the conversation elsewhere.  There is a “my movies” feature, but if you want it integrated into your blog, you have to use their widget (preview it here) which allows for zero customization.  There is an unbelievable wealth of data, a literal treasure trove of it, and it’s all locked away in their proprietary site.

Part of me thinks that after Amazon bought them they reduced the technical staff down to one or two people, who spend their time making sure the site works in new browsers (see? just like 1997!).  Part of me thinks there’s some crazy person in charge who believes keeping things status quo is the way to win.  I’d like to think there’s some big plan on opening up the platform (remember: open beats closed!), enabling richer applictions to emerge, and IMDB will escape its position as film nerd haven.

But most of me thinks the whole darn thing is locked in some server farm somewhere and nobody can figure out the captcha to get back in.

Been a while since I’ve blogged, I know, a little too much travel, not enough interesting new tech for me.  So I could weigh in on the mysterious undersea cable cutting conspiracy, but, just like all the other bloggers who’ve commented, I really have no clue about it.  Instead, I’ve got some simple tips to improve some web sites I use a lot.

1. Evite
   Somehow even with all the froobooloo.com, sqzzzr’s, and other Web 2.0 sites, nobody’s managed to beat up on Evite.  Which is stunning considering it’s really the same site it was back in 1999.  No Plaxo integration.  No custom template editing.  No useful host tools.  The only new features I’ve seen are about sending my evite to my mobile device.  So how about just giving the host the ability to review the guest list from within the site (the CSV export is ridiculous)?  Just showing me the email addresses of my invitees would make a world of difference.  My estimated difficulty to integrate (on a 1-10, where 10 is really hard): 1.5.
2. Google Calendar
   This one’s short and sweet: when an all-day event is booked, it should “block off” the whole day!  See Outlook 2003 calendering for reference.  JT’s Difficulty-o-Meter: 2.
3. IMDB
   Again, ANY new features would be nice.  But I’ll settle for some basic improvements in the “My Movies” features.  Don’t double entries just because I put them in multiple categories.  Also, let me export the list.  Also, let me share the list (in a “real” way, the current method is bogus).  Bottom line is I have no real use for this feature as it currently stands, so any features are better features.  JT’s Difficultizer: 3.
4. CNET (and many many others, but I care more about you!)
   Don’t require login to comment on blogs.  It’s only reducing the likelihood that people will converse, yet not increasing the quality of content.  JT’s Dffclty–mtr: 1.
5. Facebook
   Make groups useful already! Right now, the entire usefulness of a group is the process of adding it to your profile so your friends can see you added it.  They, in turn, may add it as well.  This cycle continues until you notice the group is either (a) spamming you, (b) entirely useless, or (c) overwhelmed with marketing pitches, at which point you leave the group.  Soon, your friends follow.  The JT challenge: 7
6. YouTube
   Copy (literally) the Flickr style of sharing private photos.  Allow me to mark a video private, then get a hidden URL I can email to people.  Like it or not, not everybody plans to become a YouTube user, and I’d rather not burden my parents with such a chore just to see my baby videos (which are, of course, the cutest videos on YouTube).  JTdiff: 4.
7. Xbox Live website
   Two features this time.  One, allow me to search for friends’ gamertags using their email addresses and other piece of info (or just do a Plaxo integration).  Second, and more interesting, is building in some “group game scheduling” feature where I can tell my friends I plan to play a certain game (say, COD4) at a certain time (say, this weekend, probably Saturday night or Sunday), and they can sign up to play.  Then we all get reminders from within the Xbox Dashboard.  Or on Facebook, whatever…  JT difficulterer: 6.5.
8. Flickr
   First, you have to go fix the really broken version of the Mac uploader, but that’s a bug, not an improvement.  How about allowing us to customize our pages?  I’d like to have more than the few meager options I have today for default layouts.  ytluciffid TJ: 3.
9. Ustream.tv and hockeybuzz.com and anyone else who automatically plays video when you come to their home page
   Stop it.  Now.
10. Amazon.com
    Integrate the wiki and community with the rest of the product pages.  It’s so completely disjointed and looks so out of place.  Also, give us more control over search filters, I hate the options you’ve preselected for me (hint: not everybody is comparing 40-49″ flatscreens, sometimes we look for 46-52″ displays…).  JT’s diff: 4.
11. Bonus: LIVEdigitally.com
    First, how the heck do you pronounce this site, and why is the “live” capitalized?  Also, get the content flowing a little more regularly.  10.

I’ve seen lots of Top 10 lists on the subject, and I’ve decided to try a different format for my own prognostications. Instead of by rank, I’ll do a list by industry.  Also, I have way more than 10 predictions to make.

TV Technology

• Every major cable company will increase it’s rates by more than 3%. Nobody will complain, and our government will (again) fail to protect us from them.
• A resolution above 1080p starts appearing in demos and labs, I’d predict a bump up into the 4000 vertical lines space.
• Bluray and HD-DVD continue to duke it out while consumers continue to not care.
• One of Hulu, Joost, etc get integrated into the Xbox 360 and/or PS3.
• Google launches “Android for Set-Top Boxes” but gains little traction in the foreseeable future.
• Anyone who is not a telephone company that tries to launch an IP-streaming set top device has a very rough year.
• Despite near-constant predictions of their demise, TiVo makes it through another year, possibly getting acquired (by DirecTV, Comcast, Netflix, Blockbuster, or someone out of the blue like Amazon or eBay).

Portable Devices That Are Not Cell Phones

• Zune 3.0 launches. It’s very very good. Further, iPod’s market share dips, although they still have an increase in overall unit sales (in other words: the pie gets bigger faster than their sales do). That said, a new iPod is even more betterer than all previous versions, making everyone who recently bought a prior generation a wee bit annoyed, but gosh that Steve Jobs is so charming they just don’t care. After all, that’s technology!
• At least two major camera vendors introduce integrated wifi cameras, but no more than one uses an open service, the rest have some proprietary, closed, annoying-to-use system. Ideally one of them buys Eye-fi.
• Digital picture frames continue to grow in market share, but still don’t “tip” into the mainstream.
• More companies introduce e-book readers despite general malaise in the category. Kindle II is launched with mild improvements.

Enterprise Services

• I have no clue, I don’t follow the space. Hello, this is a consumer tech blog!

Computers

• Apple’s new laptops will include an ultramobile, a tablet, and a “desktop replacement” OR a “gaming model” (they may combine the first two). Enhancements will include a card reader, 3G access as a built-in option, and new gestures. Market share continues to climb.
• Microsoft continues to spin about how amazing Vista is. Michael Gartenberg’s observations are probably the most poignant as to why it isn’t.
• Asus or Dell acquires or merges with one of HP, Acer, Toshiba, or other “meh” PC maker.
• Sony continues to make subpar Vaio laptops. And for the last time (I think) in 2007: don’t buy the Sony Vaio VGN-SZ4xx series laptops, they are just plain terrible. I’ve now had the chance to voice my discontent directly to the Vaio PR team (at Ruder Finn) who have yet to write me back on the topic.
• Nobody makes my awesome dual-screen laptop concept, thus leaving me the opportunity to make zillions one day.

Social Networking

• Facebook continues to get backlash from the media and tech community, meanwhile its user base continues to skyrocket. Further, they hire another 1000 people, yet only make modest improvements to the site itself. I’d add a 33% chance that they “pull a Netscape” and go after the desktop or the browser or some other place they really don’t belong.
• Randomly pick some names from the huge list of other social networking sites and some of them merge.
• Adults who didn’t grow up with social networking services experience burnout of being bitten by zombies after a few months, and many stop checking in four times per day. Those who went to school during the Facebook era continue to complain about all the old fogies (like me) polluting their sacred resting ground. They also continue to put radically inappropriate pictures of themselves online, blissfully unaware of the interviewing process.

Mobile Tech

• A few Android-powered phones ship, but not as many as the tech community would like to see. Again showing why the Razr can utterly dominate the market despite a closed architecture and terrible user interface.
• Apple launches the iPhone 3G, the iPhone nano, and the iPhonePro. Ok, I’m not 100% sure on the third, but I am betting on the first two. Also, one of these new phones comes unlocked OR on a carrier other than AT&T.
• Some major lawsuit occurs between a carrier and either a cable company or a broadcaster, all about mobile video rights. All parties involved appear as nothing but greedy to outsiders.
• Something new comes out in the phone space that’s more astounding than the iPhone. It’s possibly: uber-small, has a radically better battery life, does something funky like synchs with the Wii, or works with all US carriers.

Gaming

• With lots of stealth, a new console comes to market. It might only be a moderate shift from a prior model, or possibly be a whole new entrant.
• Rock Band 2 and 3, and Guitar Heros 4, 5, 6, and “Eddie Van Halen” editions come out, however nobody licenses the Harmonix engine to make “Jazz Trio”.
• Someone comes up with a really impressively new concept for the Wii. Good odds, however, that they wrap it inside a crappy game.
• More really amazing HD gaming occurs, continuing to drive HD adoption faster than the meager channels the cable companies try to placate us with, despite the fact that they raise prices again. Did I already say that?

Web Services/Misc

• A wide swath of “Web 2.0″ companies will go dark, primarily out of an inability to either figure out a business model for their product, or an inability to successfully market their service outside of the Bay Area.  They will quickly be forgotten and replaced by new ones with even goofier sounding names like Froobooloo.com.
• No major Wimax deployments occur.
• The digital transition date looms, starts creating a lot of media hype a la Year2000 mania.
• RFID continues to be a fun topic for the media, but all that happens is Walmart continues to make small vendors spend loads of money for the privelege of selling there.
• Bloggers fret about not being recognized as “press”, yet continue to spend too much time/energy gossiping about other bloggers, an activity the general public remains disinterested in and doesn’t give extra respect/credibility for.  This circular logic is baffling, I know.
• We lose even more rights to big media, because few Americans are willing to take even the tiniest steps to do anything about it.  PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG (start here)!
• I still don’t Twitter.

See you in 366 days to see how I scored!

Was just looking at some of my photos and watched them practically disappear before my eyes. After a mini panic attack, I found out I was not alone. I’m assuming it’s just a bug, and the photos themselves are a-okay.  But it did make me think a bit about my personal reliance on Flickr.  I use it as…

• a backup for all my photos
• a way to share with friends and family
• a host for photos for all of my blogses (4 of em)

Regarding losing the backup - not a big deal, since I have TRIPLE backups of my photos (portable HDD in my laptop bag, Drobo in my office, Maxtor NAS in my home).  There’s no question that multiple backups of digital photos are essential.  If you don’t have a backup solution that has some form of offsite redundancy, find one immediately - it’s much more important than debating opensocial and facebook.

Regarding losing the sharing - not a terribly big deal, since I can easily re-upload elsewhere.  I would be a bit annoyed at having to re-tag things that I’ve organized, but I’d assume the entire process would be less than a day’s work.
Regarding the hosting part - this is actually the biggest pain.  Sure I can reupload, but I’d then have to go back to literally every single blog post I’ve written and redirect the links.  This would be so time-consuming I can say right now - I ain’t doing it.

In the time it’s taken me to discover the problem and write the post, the Flickr guys have fixed the bug.  But in a way I’m glad it’s happened as it gives me a bit of perspective on how much I should rely on any single technology/platform/service.

I received an email (well, 6 emails to be precise) last night with the subject line “Malware notification regarding livedigitally.com.” My first assumption was that it was my old friend Samuel Eze up to his crazy hijinks, but alas, it was from Google.  The letter continues…

We recently discovered that some of your pages can cause users to be
infected with malicious software. We have begun showing a warning page
to users who visit these pages by clicking a search result on Google.com.
Below are some example URLs on your site which can cause users to be
infected (space inserted to prevent accidental clicking in case your
mail client auto-links URLs):

http://www.livedigitally .com/
http://www.livedigitally .com/category/gaming/
http://www.livedigitally .com/category/convergence/

Here is a link to a sample warning page:
http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http%3A//www.livedigitally.com/

…

It proceeds to tell me how I can apply to get my site restored, via a site called StopBadware.org.   I’ve gone through all the HTML and links in the site, all looks pretty darn safe.  Here’s part of the automated response I got upon submission of the form:

Thank you for contacting StopBadware.org.  We are currently re-reviewing a number of websites via our request for review process, and we have added your site to that testing queue.

I must say, while it’s good there’s a way to apply to get out here, it’s pretty frustrating that I was not given more specific information as to the problem.  Feels very… witchhuntish.  Is that a word?   Considering I still believe Google is singlehandedly responsible for the growing amount of spam and fake Web sites, I hope this is a sign of good things to come.  Somehow, I doubt it, since most of the “bad” sites are contributing directly to Google’s soaring market cap.

I guess it comes down to whether or not they are “maybe just a teensy bit evil” or not…

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!

I started using Plaxo years ago as a mechanism to “safeguard” my contacts. In the marketing field, my network (”rolodex”) is one of my more important assets, so having an online service to help me migrate the database from computer to computer is wonderful. I think this is now my 5th or 6th laptop owned since originally signing up to Plaxo, and each migration has gone fairly smoothly. Even to my Sony Vaio SZ-VGN460N, the worst computer I have ever owned in my life.

Now there’s always been a little rivalry of sorts with LinkedIn, even though they both have distinct value propositions (Plaxo being slightly more useful in my eyes). But with rapid onslaught of Facebook in the post-collegiate world this year, it seems like everybody even tangentially related to the social networking space is either jumping on board with a Facebook App (shameless plug - rate Facebook applications here!!!) or trying to compete with a similar styled offering.

Unfortunately, from all outward appearances, Plaxo is taking the “slightly more evil” route of diong business. Plaxo seems to be going down the route of near-invasion of privacy combined with phishing-style email updates. Today I received an email entitled “What’s happening in your Pulse”:

As you can see from the screenshot, I have a few updates from some colleagues. Now first off, I never asked for said updates, which puts this into the spam category of email. Secondly, I am pretty sure nobody on the list has opted in to having Plaxo track and share this information with me, which is a privacy invasion (yes, I know that these are all publicly accessible things, but without the opt-in, it’s dubious).  Thirdly, it is absolutely ridiculous that these aren’t active links to the activity updates!  I’m supposed to go to Plaxo Pulse just to get the links I want.

In my eyes, this is a shameful betrayal of users on Plaxo’s part.  They have created a “service” designed without any consent on anyone’s behalf.  In doing so, they have most certainly lost me as an evangelist, and have opened the door for any competitor with a similar offering to rapidly snatch me up.  What a terrible business, product, and marketing decision they have made.  I wonder how many people it took to make it?

Saw Ryan’s two-part anti-IntelliTXT rant, and I have to say I’m in 100% agreement with him. Now I’m going to go one step further. I want a full-on end-user-configurable WidgetBlocker. Widgets are unquestionably slowing down page loading, so if how about putting the control in my hands? Here’s my note to my blogging friends:

I, for one, don’t much care who your recent readers were, or what you are listening to on Last.FM (don’t take it personally - it’s just not why I visit your blog). If I want to see your photos, I’ll go to Flickr. I don’t need to see the latest cartoon from GapingVoid (though they are hilarious - but I’ll go there when I want to see them). I don’t care how many feedburner subscribers you have. I don’t really mind your most recent microblog/tweet entry, but do you need it to be in a 250px tall box?

For those of you who need to make money of your blog, fine, show the ads, I understand. But if you are just doing it to get an extra $50 bucks a month, maybe you should think about decluttering a little. At the very least, how about just cleaning up the layout enough that you don’t show ads that look like regular content?

There is a reason for services like My.Yahoo, PageFlakes and NetVibes.  Maybe we can shift the widgetworld into letting people publish to each others’ pages, rather than slow down my ability to read your blog.  So, I’ve gone ahead and registered widgetblocker.com.  Anyone want to build the plugin with me?