Category: Web 2.0

This weekends A-list navel gazing exercise is a subject (ironically) that has been debated before: that the blogosphere provides little original content and that most blogs don’t provide a value add in terms of analysis.

It’s true…and it’s not true.

It’s true if you only follow techmeme and a specific number of blogs, for example the space blogs like TechCrunch and Engaget (presuming both are leaders in each space) cover. There are a growing number of blogs covering this space; gadget blogs are a dime a dozen and there’s a growing number of people covering Web 2.0 as well. That they will sound like an echo chamber at times is a given, considering that there is always only going to be X amount of news to cover. This is no different to the MSM either.

But look outside the very small selection of blogs (as an overall percentage of all blogs) that people seem to be bitchmeming about and you’ll find an amazing variety of choice and opinion, with more original thought than any one could ever consume in a life time.

It comes back to stereotypes.

I thought we’d moved passed many of them. In the early days it was that blogs were nothing more than personal dairies, written by amateurs that provided no value outside of entertainment. Things changed over time, and then we had debates about whether bloggers could be or are journalists. Given that most MSM sites now have blogs that’s a debate that is mostly dead and burried. That the blogosphere lacks original thought should be another one of those stereotypes that should pass, because it’s simply not true. It’s no more true than saying all black people commit crimes just because some of them do.

Dave Winer talks about the early days of blogging, and how we were watching them, and not watching each other, and yet he links to Techmeme and mentions it as proof of the problem.; he’s doing exactly what he’s rallying against. It’s not Techmeme’s fault: what you consume is ultimately up to you. Dave, if you have an issue with the content on Techmeme: stop reading Techmeme, go out and find some new blogs. Start from scratch with your reading list. The problem isn’t the blogosphere, the problem is your personal consumption list. Change doesn’t deliver itself, change comes to those who seek it out, who act to make the change. If you feel that what you read isn’t original or doesn’t value add, go find other sites that meet your personal needs; they’re there, there’s hundreds of millions to choose from.

2Web Crew 21 is now live. And yes, I get questioned about this weeks shit storm, and no, I failed to use the c word once 🙂

Looking for a Footy tipping comp where you can compete with ppl like you? Join here. I’m a RL man by birth, but one thing I picked up from my nearly 10 years in Western Australia was footy tipping. Every job I had there had a Footy Tipping comp. It’s like religion, and it’s expected that you join. This comp is free, and you get to play with friends without the money 🙂

So I started another bush fire, at least among the growing list of self important so-called A listers who would happily crucify anyone who dare question their favorite startup of the minute.

I say A-List somewhat lightly, because the guy who’s come after me is someone who’s called Louis Gray. I’ve been blogging a bloody long time and for a lot of that time I’ve been reporting on the movers and shakers in blogging, and until a couple of months ago I’d never heard of this guy. His about page is as useful as tits on a bull: he does PR for a Silicon Valley technology company and found blogging in 2006. He’s talked about now at the same level as Calacanis, Scoble and Arrington, and yet he’s reached the lofty heights of 735 subscribers in Feedburner; probably more than this humble blog but this isn’t my main outlet.

So this Louis Gray decides that rather than attack my ideas, he needs to take me down a peg like some pious, self important c*nt.

Duncan Riley checked in with a quasi-analytic comment this morning

Notice the put down with “quasi-analytic,” lets not fight on ideas, lets denigrate the messenger.

And to put it bluntly, he missed the entire point. TechCrunch is right a lot of the time, but not today. FriendFeed is not the exact same thing as any service out there, and there’s no way that Duncan could have given the service its full due in his limited exposure to it.

That’s right, I forgot, I’m a complete retard who is completely unable to come to any conclusion unless I’ve used a service for as long as Gray has. Wanker.

Now lets get into the service: FriendFeed apparently slices, dices and cleans your kitchen:

FriendFeed has been described by different folks as a social Web lifestream, by others a Web services aggregator, or as a conversational platform. But it’s not just one of these things – it’s all of these things. There are a definitely a wide number of sites out there that let you share all your activity in one place, or to track friends’ activity, but FriendFeed is the only one that lets you share items directly to the feed, elevate discussions through comments and show “likes” to highlight individual posts.

OK, for starters a social web lifestream and web services aggregator are essentially the same thing; I think Gray says both of them for padding. “A Conversational Platform” is the key point here, because this is what Gray sees as the amazing thing about it.

Here’s where it gets completely bizarre:

Like Twitter, FriendFeed enables users to sift from the best of the blogosphere to find their friends and peers. No two individuals’ FriendFeed is exactly alike. And while I once questioned why anybody who wasn’t a Web services junkie and RSS maven would join, I’ve seen users who want to be consumers of information instead of producers of information enjoy the service, solely for communicating with friends. And while the term “friend” can vary from service to service, FriendFeed has got the formula right. I can see quickly who likes the same items I do, who contributes to FriendFeed conversations that I do, and if in need of new friends, I can use FriendFeed’s recommendation engine to suggest people my friends find interesting.

Note that in my original post I said that Twitter made up nearly half of the content in my friend feed, and yet Gray argues that FriendFeed is a tool for communicating with friends. Isn’t Twitter a tool for communicating with friends? why do I need separate tool exactly to communicate with friends about communications I’ve had, probably with those same friends on Twitter? Gray doesn’t answer the point, because there’s zero explanation.

Lets take the next source: blogs. Again, Gray talks about conversations, but we’ve seen all sorts of attempts at third party external commenting before. I can’t name the various browser plugins over the years that promised to allow visitors to chat or comment on a page. Then there was coComment and a number of clones that wanted to provided centralized comment tracking, enabling a conversation across pages and independent of the site. coComment reinvented itself into something primarily different because the idea = FAIL. So now we have a fancy RSS feed with comments. Note that the comments follow from a headline link, no content. [insert drag queen here] oh but you can have a conversation darling [/drag queen], and this appears to be the part Gray thinks I’ve missed because I haven’t participated. Here’s the thing Loiuse, if I want to participate in a conversation about a blog post or similar content, I’ll leave a comment on that blog, not a third party app, because if someone writes something worthy of conversation, they should have first call on the conversation, unless of course the topic is one that requires a blog post in itself.

Now lets get back to Mr Condescending:

Looking at Duncan’s stream on FriendFeed (http://friendfeed.com/duncanriley), I can see he imported his service and added friends, but he didn’t participate. He didn’t comment on other items. He didn’t respond to others’ comments. He didn’t “Like” anything. He took a very passive approach and it’s the interactivity of FriendFeed that sets the service apart.

Correct, I didn’t “like” anything because when I want to comment on an item, I’ll do it at the source, like the vast majority of people would. If it’s a Tweet I’ll reply on Twitter. If it’s a blog post, I’ll leave a comment. Why the fuck would I want to use a third party service? Why the fuck would I want to comment on a Tweet on FriendFeed? Or is it that I should just because he says so? Pass the bong…

He then continues to quote a couple of his mates then finishes by saying “Maybe Duncan will listen to this one.” Yep, I listened to this buzzword laden, failed to answer any of my key points and decided instead to denigrate me instead take down and personally I think it just makes him sound like a self important pious twat, but hey that’s just me. On the point of FriendFeed, the readers of TechCrunch voted very clearly, only 20% of people like FriendFeed. But hey, those people must be idiots as well, hey Loius, because you know best. FriendFeed is a decent enough service, but it’s not the second coming of christ no matter how much Gray pitches it. FriendFeed = More Hyped Yawn.

language warning

Following on from my post on TechCrunch calling out Jason “penny pincher” Calacanis for his call that people who seek balance in their lives should be fired, Robert “I’ve never done a startup of my own in my life” Scoble responds with this bullshit:

Calacanis is right: startups can?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t afford?Ǭ†slackers

Jason Calacanis has started a big argument where Duncan Riley over at TechCrunch has stood up for slackers everywhere (he couches it in language of ?¢‚Ǩ?ìpro family?¢‚Ǩ¬ù in the family/life balance). The thing is, Duncan might talk to his boss, Mike Arrington. Did Mike get to where he is by slacking off and hanging out with his friends and having a ?¢‚Ǩ?ìreal life??¢‚Ǩ¬ù No. He worked his ass off. I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve caught Mike on several occasions working until 3 a.m. or later. And he still is doing that work ethic. Of course, that hard work pays off: Mike was on the Charlie Rose show this week.

So apparently if you spend time with your family your a slacker with no work ethic. Scoble can get fucked. I work fucking hard and although I may not get the balance side right, I always try to spend time with my family. That’s balance Scoble. Oh, and taking your son out to Tech events doesn’t count as family time 🙂

No one is arguing that you shouldn’t expect people you employ to work hard. Calcanis argued that there shouldn’t be balance (balance was the word he used, until he backtracked later). You know what: if succeeding in a startup means turning into a grade A cunt by never seeing your family and treating your employees like shit, you can fuck that right over again.

You only live once. Having a balance is a good thing. You can have balance and work fucking hard, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. I know one thing for sure: no startup is worth losing my family over.

…launches an experimental satellite that will provide internet speeds upto 1.2gb/s (1200mb/s)

Via CNN

Japan launched a rocket Saturday carrying a satellite that will test new technology that promises to deliver “super high-speed Internet” service to homes and businesses around the world.

If the technology proves successful, subscribers with small dishes will connect to the Internet at speeds many times faster than what is now available over residential cable or DSL services.

The Associated Press said the satellite would offer speeds of up to 1.2 gigabytes per second.

The service initially would focus on the Asia-Pacific region close to Japan, a JAXA news release said.

“Among other uses, this will make possible great advances in telemedicine, which will bring high-quality medical treatment to remote areas, and in distance education, connecting students and teachers separated by great distances,” JAXA said.

I was asked to put this together by Brisbane based Chris Saad, head of the Data Portability Work Group. Short story I had to answer some questions and say at the end that I support Data Portability. From what I can gather Chris is asking folks with a reasonable profile to record support videos for data portability.

There’s at least one point where I make absolutely no sense, and the editing was even more fun, the amount of times in the original where I say fuck, I’ve fucked this up, try again…and sometimes worse, even made me smile as I edited it. Might make for a decent bloopers tape one day 🙂

The 3rd come back show of the 2web crew can be found here.

Our best show since we resurrected it at the beginning of the year. Great conversation, and I had to cut it off before it went over the hour.