It's so hard to reach out to people these days. How can I connect? I only have a cell phone, email, gchat, AIM, a personal website, Facebook and MySpace. But good news: Facebook is launching FBChat in two weeks. Finally, another medium for witty inside jokes! If you Facebook messages are primarily for getting laid,…
This post is about comments. Consider that your invitation to tell me I have it all wrong. To be honest, I don't know that much about the commenting scene. I'm not above making anonymous judgments or being bored at work, I just never understand the motivation of blog commenters. Is it winning a commie? Being quoted in…
"The 250" (pronounced "two-fifty") is the derogatory term used in real-life conversations — never online! — to describe the self-promoting cloud of Web 2.0 popular kids who seem to be constantly typing but rarely building value. In short, The 250 only matter to The 250. I've collected and anonymized some real-life…
Not every conversation happens online. A phrase you won't find on Twitter or Technorati is The 250 — pronounced "two-fifty" — a cruelly sarcastic euphemism used in real-life conversations for the small, cliquey group of self-appointed Web 2.0 insiders who seem to spend their days blogging and Twittering about one…
OMG, you can't even go to college any more without people talking about your sex life or saying mean things about you, and it's all because of the internet and this thing called JuicyCampus. You already knew that, but did you know about some of the specific awful things being revealed about college students on…
It seems obvious that Web 2.0 is not as citizen-generated as people would like to believe. So obvious that Slate's recent article, "The Wisdom of the Chaperones," seems too mainstream for the usually contrarian site. Writer Chris Wilson imagines that Digg and Wikipedia are still seen as radical examples of the wisdom…
Whatever you do, don't try to boost BusinessWeek's web traffic! Turns out they don't want your stinking clickthroughs. As a recent story subject discovered, should you be inclined to push traffic their way via a direct "deep link" to a story, the McGraw-Hill magazine will even go so far as to ask you not to link to…
It's hard to recruit the software engineers of tomorrow when your corporate image elicits visions of pocket protectors and blue screens of death, not rooftop foam parties and drunken nights aboard a corporate jet. To stop trendy Web 2.0 startups from stealing its best minds, Microsoft is pretending its the hip…
Kleiner Perkins partner Randy Komisar freaked you out a little when he said the firm was done with Web 2.0, didn't he? ""We have absolutely no interest in funding Web 2.0 companies," he told Silicon Valley Watcher. Well, don't worry. Kleiner Perkins, which backed Amazon.com, Google, AOL, and, um, Friendster, remains…
Does Web 2.0 commodify the work of artists? Yes, if it makes them create silly projects like this "Are You Social?" shirt. "The owner of the T-shirt is expected to mark the services he uses with a pen and to wear it in public. What happens when users start wearing their network identities openly in public?" Then…
"... Kleiner Perkins has halted investments in Web 2.0. This would mean a lot more to me if I knew exactly what Web 2.0 was — I've been reading about it for years now, have co-organized two conferences on it, and I still don't know." — Canadian lawyer Rob Hyndman, who hasn't read Valleywag's Web 2.0 crib sheet. [Rob…
In response to my Web 2.0 for Idiots PowerPoint slide, commentarian nealsid writes: "How about the part where 'you help make it' but 'they make the money?'"
A reader emails in response to our Web 2.0 to English series, "I fail to see the problem with Tim O'Reilly's primer. Anyone who's not an idiot needs no further explanation." As a Reader's Digest contributor, here's the condensed version of your email: Fail. For the rest of us idiots, I've whipped up a chart.
I found the October 2003 Microsoft Word file in which O'Reilly editor Dale Dougherty proposed a new series of "Web 2.0" conferences. The one surprise is that the idea was originally much more machine-oriented.
Always willing to lend a helping hand, Gadget Lab's Rob Beschizza created a Web 2.0 startup and press release generator. You know, so if your first Red Bull-fueled pitch crashes and burns, you can quickly con your way into a second audience with that VC. Sure, the idea may not be original — Web 2.0 generators are…
As the Web 2.0 phenomenon grows long in the tooth — some might say this year's TechCrunch40 conference was its official jumping of the shark — its most venerable proponents are struggling to create a sense of excitement around it. But for this year's Web 2.0 Summit, organizers John Battelle and O'Reilly Media are…
Bruce Judson, the Internet pioneer, is taking a turn at pretending to be a Web 2.0 expert, blogging on Henry Blodget's Silicon Alley Insider. Yes, the very same Bruce Judson, Time Warner Internet vet turned hawker of free crap we wrote about a week ago, who's pawning his reputation as a marketer and business leader…
Social news filter Digg has spawned imitators, including Reddit and Slashdot's Firehose. Oh, and the late, unlamented Netscape. "Ripping off" is practically a core tenet of Web 2.0, though we suppose it sounds nicer if you call it "iteratively evolving industrywide best practices." One creative Web designer and Xbox…
The dreaded marketing doublespeak so freely strewn across the Web is now invading your videogame consoles. Game developers are eyeing the market for cheap, fun "casual" games — the kind you play on a Nintendo Wii, as opposed to the graphics-laden shoot-'em-ups favored on Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation. To…
T-Pain, the R&B singer known for his robotic voice, is, according to Slate, the "perfect Web 2.0 pop star." [Slate]
