<![CDATA[Gawker: Web 2.0]]> http://cache.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: Web 2.0]]> http://gawker.com/tag/web 2.0 http://gawker.com/tag/web 2.0 <![CDATA[This Is How Tim O'Reilly Monetizes Free]]> Ever wonder how much computer-book publisher Tim O'Reilly gets to flap his mouth at conferences about how everything should be free? His flack revealed it to the world last night via Twitter (of course). More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5213302&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Tumblr Raises $5M, To Start Selling 'Sexy' Things]]> The economy might be imploding, but Tumblr is RICH! The microblogging service/hipster nerve center raised $4.5 million in a round led by Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital, which means the company is worth $15 million, on paper, even though it doesn't make any money, at all. But next year it's going to start selling some "really sexy" add-on features, founder David Karp told All Things Digital. Oddly, Karp's friend/ex-girlfriend Caroline McCarthy hasn't posted this news to her CNET social-network-news blog yet. So we guess the breakup wasn't amicable? More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5107202&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The bubble that wasn't]]> Jason Calacanis, the mop-haired founder of Mahalo, an overfunded Web directory, is musing on Twitter about "tickers and rallies past" — a Proustian substitution of stock markets for madeleines. But what, exactly, does he have to be nostalgic for? More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5100925&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[IE 8: Melts in your PC, not in your glass]]> "It pretty much is a perfect analogy. It's functional, rational and logical. But it looks like shit and I don't get it." So says photographer eyeliam of the carved-ice vodka tap at Microsoft's Web 2.0 Expo party last night. Care to improve the headline? Write a new one in the comments and we'll replace it with our arbitrarily-determined winner. TimsBoot won yesterday with "Who do I have to 'tweet' to get a free drink around here?" (Photo by eyeliam) More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5051804&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Who do I have to "tweet" to get a free drink around here?]]> Putting the "social" in "social media" are Tacit Knowledge VP Oz Sultan, left and Yerba Buena Center Webmaster James Im, right — with both mauling online marketeer and TechSet party cohost Stephanie Agresta, center. They were probably trying to kiss their way to free drinks, since the cash bar was charging $9 for beers and $13 for mixed drinks. But hey, there were free fried cheese sticks! Can you come up with a more compelling caption? Kiss one up in the comments and we may just kiss you back by making it the new headline. Cheers to TheChris2.0 who won yesterday with "Loopt encourages New Yorkers to walk." (Photo by Brian Solis, bub.blicio.us) More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5051445&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Venture capitalists, they're just like us]]> Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures carrying his own lunch order from Shake Shack in Manhattan's Madison Square to a group of tables where he was entertaining wantrepreneurs in New York for the O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo. Not pictured: Lane Becker, president of online customer-service startup Get Satisfaction, who kept his distance from the assembled nerds, pacing around a tree and chatting on his cell phone. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5051229&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Ignite provides a sweetly earnest kickoff to Web 2.0 Expo]]> O'Reilly publishing has set up the company's annual bazaar of of bizarre business models at the Javitz Center in Manhattan, but the festivities truly kicked off with last night's Ignite PowerPoint presentation spectacular hosted by O'Reilly Radar's Brady Forrest and Etsy's Bre Pettis. Pettis and friends used fourteen pounds of butter to bake 300 cupcakes and tubs of frosting, which partygoers were invited to decorate as part of a contest — the winners, Nick and Danielle Bilton, crafted the iPhone application icon cupcakes pictured here. Deb Schultz, a Six Apart veteran, did an Alley vs. Valley routine, noting that while in the Valley code is king, in the Alley folks know how to dress. For fellow Alley expats in the Valley, "You know you've gone native when you're wearing a sweater with flip flops." Case in point? Flickr developer Cal "Don Juan 2.0" Henderson wasn't wearing a sweater, but he did look to be wearing the same cargo shorts and flip flops that he was last spotted in. (Photo by Dan Lurie) More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5050394&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[How to sell your software for $20,000 a pop]]> Weary of the ad-supported world of Web 2.0? Outside the echo chamber of Silicon Valley, there are software developers who write code that won't change the world, but that customers will pay real, five-figure license fees for — enough to sustain a growing, private business. It's all about finding a market that works and copying the competition. Call it anti-innovation. To explain how to do it, an entrepreneur named Bill wrote a blog post called "How to sell your software for $20,000." We've edited it down to a reasonable length below. Give the hoodie to Goodwill, say goodbye to your IPO dreams, and prepare to write the world's next great automated parking garage software. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5020804&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[MTV: A Safe Space For Meandering Opinions]]> MTV has decided to try the novel strategy of actually running some music videos on their network, something that hasn't been seen there since the inception of The Real World. But they've added an annoying, faux-modern twist in their new show FNMTV (ha): not only will they show music videos, they'll provide a place for homemade insta-response videos made by you, the viewer. Sound asinine? Oh, it is. But everybody has something to say and deserves to say it momentarily on MTV. And it has great interactive appeal, especially if you're interested in talking burritos, dimly lit karaoke clips, and an earnest analysis of the Pussycat Dolls by some dude with a beard: More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5017641&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[What If Websites Were Realistic?]]> What if Facebook let you properly express your rage against the tool who just added you to the "Buying and Selling Friends" app? What if Netflix knew you'd skip to the dirty bits? I paid Jay Hathaway a slave's wage to draw up what this would look like. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=393804&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Should We Just Decide Every Single Thing By Online Vote Now?]]> Country music singer (and former Renee Zellweger husband) Kenny Chesney was "honored but upset" to win the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year Award for the fourth time. Why? Because this year, it was someone's idea to decide the thing by a freaking online vote, instead of by Academy members. That's country music's version of the Oscars being decided by the clicks of AOL users. Chesney told the AP that the process was "disrespectful" and turned the awards "into a sweepstakes to see who can push people's buttons the hardest on the Internet." God, it's almost like being paid in pageviews. Sure, this is the age of 2.0, and it's not 2.0 without "audience participation," but just because the Person of the Year is You does not mean we need to turn every single event into the Teen Choice Awards in a desperate attempt to shore up interest and make people feel included. [NYT] More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=392017&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The index to Sarah Lacy's Web 2.0 book, revealed]]> In Silicon Valley, it's all about keeping score. The question entrepreneurs are asking about Sarah Lacy's Web 2.0 book: Am I in it? And how many pages? Michael Wolff's chronicle of the first Web bubble, Burn Rate, had a clever conceit: The index was published online at burnrate.com, driving people online to see if they were included in the tell-all, and then to the bookstores to see what Wolff had to say about them. (Too clever by half: The website is now abandoned, and there's no trace of the online-only index.) Lacy's instant history of this frothy time, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, could benefit from having its index published. The book is coming out a week from tomorrow, but it's already in the hands of most of the people she wrote about. Don't you think the likes of Kevin Rose, Max Levchin, and Mark Zuckerberg are counting the number of pages Lacy devoted to them? Soon you can, too. I'll be running all the pages from the index here over the next few days. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=388248&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Amanda Congdon Would Like to Mutter At You]]> Remember Amanda "Rocketboom" Congdon, that thing with boobs that did stuff on the internet and parlayed her success into a job at ABC News? Yeah neither do I. Well, whoever she is she lost her job at ABC because nobody cared and she's now returned, sad little pink hat in hand, to the internet. She's launching a new blog news internet website called Sometimes Daily. And she would like to market it to you! Mostly via a completely nonsensical video featuring her brother (?), a strange park bench, and a dildo with little fans attached to it. If someone could please explain to me what is going on in the video, it would be greatly appreciated. I think it has something to do with Amanda Congdon? Maybe? Please watch, after the jump, and elucidate. [Thanks Jossip!] More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=387134&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Five words or phrases to short on the slang stock exchange]]> CollegeHumor cofounder Ricky Van Veen has decided to short the word "douche."
After a strong resurgence in 2005 and showing strong staying power through 2007, lately most of the people I've seen use it fit into two categories: 1) people over 40 who have finally had the word passed down the cool chain from their younger friends and coworkers. 2) the "douches" originally being described themselves.
We second this call. In fact, our own very special correspondent banned douche not long ago. Below, five more words we'd like to see tank. State your portfolio position and suggest other picks in the comments. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=384943&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Last call at Web 2.0?]]> "It's like the bar after 3 a.m. Nobody left over is all that exciting, the desperate women and men are trying to get one last shot at a hookup." — Via instant messenger, an entrepreneur who skipped this week's Web 2.0 Expo, on the conference scene. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=384097&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Dilbert buys into Web 2.0, now fully buzzword compliant]]> Cube-dwelling funny pages favorite "Dilbert" from Scott Adams has a redesigned website, sporting the now-ubiquitous "beta" label, offering widgets and buying into the user-generated content fad — you can now create "mashups" and work out your own corporate-minion frustrations within the confines of speech bubbles. [CNET] More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=382614&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Simple is the new complicated for hipster Web apps]]> It's starting to feel like 1988 around here, and not just because Rick Astley is back in the news. No, it's because old analog-like tech is making a virtual comeback online. Muxtape, the latest project from Vimeo's Justin Ouellette, allows aging alt-rockers and hip-hoppers to create mix tapes for their crushes like we used to with cassettes. And that's just one example. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=372214&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA["The Internet Is Full Of Words Written For No Money At All"]]> "And you make money for that?" is the first question I get when I tell my extended family about my life as a professional sweatpants-wearer. I'm not too good on the numbers, but some bloggers do get paid and apparently quite well. I think it has something to do with page views? This amazing AP clip about bloggers who are "happy to serve as ultra low cost freelancers" can teach you about how the internet thing sustains itself. Click through and judge this dumbed down explanation of Web 2.0 economics! More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=371567&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Who You Are, Why You Are So Mad]]> Yesterday, I very earnestly asked who you commenters are and what you get out of the whole commenting experience. Except for a few people who fairly criticized me for just trying to drum up comments, almost everyone responded with equal earnestness. For the most part, people seem to just enjoy the community in the comments. For some, it's a distraction from work, when YouTube is blocked. For others, it's a distraction from the people at work, where everyone is old and no one gets Breakfast Club references. Prolific commenters claim to get laid through Gawker. I find that both depressing and inspiring, since actually writing for the site hasn't done the same for me, though I wouldn't want it to, either. Jenniferhdaniel said that if I write an essay commenting on the commenters, I would be the lamest of the lame-os. Harsh. Well, how lame would I be if I wrote about the comment reading experience? More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=369836&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Web 2.0 Etymology]]> I've never used, or even felt anything approaching ZOMG until I heard that Facebook was launching a chat program. According to Wiktionary, ZOMG is an "overzealous typo of OMG, resulting from the proximity of z to the shift key." That sort of reminds me of the Facebook group, "I Prematurely Release The Shift Key!!1", whose members are "interested in earning big $$4." More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=369687&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ZOMG! Facebook Launches FBChat]]> 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, FBChat has the potential to spread crabs through UC Davis like whoa. Video demonstration after the jump. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=369659&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Who Are You People, and Why Are You So Mad?]]> 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 New York Times public editor's column? I get that being anonymous makes people more free to revert to their Lord of The Flies side, but why is everyone always so rude? And is that rudeness destroying society? More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=368912&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Proper use of "The 250"]]> "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 sentences from the field to help you use The 250 authentically. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=368691&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The 250]]> 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 another. The gist is that The 250 are the 250 people who matter to The 250. None of the other 6 billion people on Earth care which of The 250 are dating each other or got onto a panel at South By Southwest. I'm loathe to name names other than Valleywag editor Owen Thomas, whose site the other 249 check obsessively for mentions of themselves. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=368529&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Gay Porno Actor Unable To Attend College In Peace, Surprisingly]]> 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 JuicyCampus, sometimes making them cry? These terrible things will make you want to change the internet laws and make our universities pure again: More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5003899&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Wikipedia And Digg Are Exactly As They Seem, Damn It]]> 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 of the crowds, and reveals that they're run by a small base of power users. Of course, Slate is wrong. Call it banal, but the user-written news site and encyclopedia really are the work of thousands, even millions of casual users. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=360052&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA['BusinessWeek' Doesn't Want Your Stinking Page Views]]> 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 their site, and point you to their snooty user agreement. This is pretty much the dumbest thing we've heard in the last, oh, two hours or so, and after the jump, we'll tell you why. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5002579&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[It's just like working at a hip new startup, pinky swear]]> 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 company we all know it's not. Its Hey-Genius campaign, awash with hipster kitsch and perpetual MIDI noise generation, invites young geeks to tour "the-not-so-little startup company up here in the great Northwest." More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=333216&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Kleiner Perkins still investing in Web, lackeys]]> 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 in the game. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=320888&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[You're with Stupid]]> 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 users start getting drinks thrown in their faces, that's what happens. Take off the shirt* and have a real conversation. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=319532&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[ "... Kleiner Perkins has halted investments...]]> "... 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 Hyndman] More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=319228&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Web 2.0 definitely for idiots]]> 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?'" More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=318268&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Web 2.0 for Idiots]]> 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. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=317835&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The original definition of Web 2.0]]> 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.
The first wave of the web was closely tied to the browser. The second wave extends the applications built on the web server and it will enable a new generation of specialized clients and automated web applications. (Emphasis added)
Four years later, as the saying goes: Web 2.0 is made of people. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=312241&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Web 2.0 pitch generator — just add elevator]]> 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 all the rage: A sales pitch, slogan, name, logo and website can all be yours at the click of a button. On the other hand, it's hard not to applaud an attempt to remind the world of irrational exuberance. And if you really want to have fun? Send the nonsense to Valleywag's Paul Boutin and watch him contort himself into knots trying to translate it into English. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=311725&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Overstimulation at the Web 2.0 Summit]]> 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 trying, perhaps, a bit too ... hard. Get an eyeful of the slogan. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=304018&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Bruce Judson puts the "bull" in "bully pulpit"]]> 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 from the first Web boom to pitch his new venture, Free for Today. Why, oh, why, is Blodget handing Judson a megaphone? The fallen star's ruminations on Web 2.0 are obvious and boring, and a thinly veiled pitch for his free-crap website. Ah, yes, this is the real Web 2.0: Garnering attention through self-promotion, no matter how spurious your ideas or transparent your motives. Maybe Judson gets it after all. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=297614&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Imitation is not always flattery]]> 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 fanboy, though, decided the Internet needed a Digg dedicated to Microsoft's Xbox consoles, so he created Diggxbox. As you might imagine, it uses its own version of Digg's user-driven filtering to sort the day's Xbox-related news. It's even adopted cute videogame touches like the Xbox's "red ring of death" as the "bury" button (as Digg's mechanism for voting "no" on a story is known). Cloning Digg is easy, but attracting a fanatical userbase like Digg's is another thing altogether. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=297550&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Web 2.0 invades your living room, too]]> 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 tap into that market, they're becoming fully buzzword compliant: "social networks," "crowdsourcing" and "user-generated content" are just some of the meaningless shibboleths that have jumped from the Web to the gaming world. BusinessWeek dubs it "Game 2.0." Please, somebody, frag me now. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=289438&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[T-Pain, the R&B singer known for his robotic...]]> T-Pain, the R&B singer known for his robotic voice, is, according to Slate, the "perfect Web 2.0 pop star." [Slate] More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=282999&view=rss&microfeed=true