Category: Web 2.0

Makes sense really, massive user base, many non-blogging users. Steve Rubel reports that eBay is to launch user blogs powered by SixApart’s TypePad. I’m not aware of any great success from other ecommerce firms in providing blogs to users, but if anyone is going to do it, it will be eBay.

Tags: eBay, blogs

Just went to view a video at YouTube, and got this screen:

There also appears to be music playing at the site as well.Not sure of the extent of it, whether accounts have been compromised or not, but certainly someone must be asleep at YouTube HQ at the moment.

Tags: YouTube, YouTube hacked

Update: the music was on another page, not YouTube.

Further Update: it looks as though the hacking was a very poor attempt at humour by the YouTube team with this being posted:

UPDATE: No, we haven’t been hacked. Get a sense of humor.

UPDATE 2: Apparently we can’t spel.

UPDATE 3: Please stop calling the office, we’re trying to work in here

That’s the way to keep yourself onside with your users, put up a spoof hack attack. Any one for Yahoo Video??

Ive never been a huge fan of buzzwords, but Cameron Reilly has introduced a new buzz word that I think has very, very long legs (potential): Nanomedia:

What is “nanomedia”? It is media that is produced for a niche audience, often on a low cost basis, either for the love of it or for commercial profit and I suspect the vast majority of nanomedia will be produced for the former reason. Nanomedia will mostly be copyright free or produced under a fairly open Creative Commons license. Nanomedia will be play on iPods, portable media devices like PSPs, mobile phones, computers or TVs and will increasingly start to consume higher and higher percentages of the average person’s entertainment time.

The long post is worth a read in terms of Cam’s suggestion on the death of old media. You’d note from the comment that I don’t totally agree with his suggestion that old media is dead, but I do agree over time that it will be replaced by consumer friendly (ie push/ lazy) nanomedia.

Tags: nanomedia

Digital Journal reports on rumours that Microsoft has been in talks for several weeks about a possible acquisition of eBay.

If Microsoft did buy eBay, it would deliver Paypal and Skype to Microsoft as well, two of my favourite apps.

eBay has done a lot with both companies that has been positive, but I can’t imagine anything Microsoft would do with them could be seen positively. The very fact that Skype and Paypal are platform independent has seen their rapid rise, and Microsoft isn’t really known as being a fan of providing multi-platform support. Indeed, I’d suggest that Microsoft owning both would only provide one benefit, and that’s in helping Paypal and Skype competitors increase marketshare as people leave the service due to Microsoft’s ownership….and they will, because Microsoft’s hardly known as a champion of privacy rights either. The last thing I’d want is Microsoft monitoring my Skype calls and Paypal payments, and I’d suggest that neither would a whole pile of consumers and merchants who also utilise these services.

Tags: Microsoft, eBay, Skype, Paypal

Australia’s answer to Technorati, Gnoos.com.au is live. I had a chance to play with it prior to my recent holiday but didn’t get the chance to review it at the time. It’s first rate, super quick, and we’ll worth a look. It indexes international blogs as well…I’m not sure how many blogs they are tracking at this stage, but I’m liking the results I’m getting from searches.

Amazing figures from a booming industry. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report that Internet advertising revenues reached a new record of $3.9 billion for the first quarter of 2006. The 2006 first quarter revenues represent a 38 percent increase over Q1 2005 at $2.8 billion and a 6 percent increase over Q4 2005 total at $3.6 billion.

Feedblitz, a Web 2.0 startup that converts RSS into email alerts, has announced they’ve take Angel Investment from Tom Evslin.

To quote Evslin on Feedblitz:

In business terms, what FeedBlitz does is make the content of RSS feeds accessible to the great mass of web users who have no idea what RSS is and couldn’t care less about the technology but do want to receive content they care about in a form they do understand – email. Most real people don’t know what a feed reader is. In fact, not many people have a clear idea what a blog is (although almost every web user has heard of blogs).

It’s a sound business proposition, because in reality most people still have no idea what RSS is. Best of luck to them.

Tags: Feeblitz, Tom Evslin

Tim O’Reilly responds to the criticism over the C&D to a not for profit organisation daring to use Web 2.0 in their name.

I won’t repeat what he says, but there was one point which I found amazing:

At O’Reilly, we’ve even had to send a cease-and-desist letter once, to a company that was publishing technical books with the picture of an animal on the cover.

That’s right. Apparently now you can’t put an animal on the cover of your tech book! Doesn’t matter if it’s a picture of your pet dog, apparently O’Reilly has a Trade Mark that covers all animals.

Sorry Tim, you wonder why people get upset! This is trade mark law gone mad.

Tags: Web 2.0, O’Reilly

A fair bit of controversy about over allegations that Mike Arrington of Tech Chruch fame takes kick backs for favourable reviews.

I don’t know the basis for these rumours, and I’m only an occasional Tech Chrunch reader, mainly because I personally find that Mike Arrington’s reviews tend to (usually) be nothing more than blind cheering for Web 2.0 startups without any objective analysis of whether these startups actually have depth in terms of a business plan and potential, literally the issue of solutions without problems.

Having said all of that though, Mike Arrington has become a poster boy for the Web 2.0 movement with Tech Chrunch, and there is little doubt that the site has been highly successful.

And with success comes the knockers, the tall poppy syndrome. I personally experienced it at times whilst writing at The Blog Herald, and I even occasionally get it now with b5media, although less so now personally as I’ve taken a more behind the scenes role (one could argue that the target has become smaller in terms of public perception).

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What a brilliant idea, from ISP Planet:

M2Z’s goal is ?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?Ǭ¶ provide free high speed connections to 95 percent of U.S. consumers without any recurring fees. This is a grand undertaking.”
-M2Z FCC request

Kleiner Perkins, history’s most successful venture capital firm, is backing John Muleta and Milo Medin’s offer to unwire the entire United States. 384/128 will be free while they’ll sell higher speeds, ads, voice and much else. In return for 20 megahertz of spectrum, M2Z will pay a 5 percent royalty to the U.S.

It will be interesting to see if the US Government backs the proposal. Could it ever happen in Australia? Not while the Government still owns Telstra, but imagine it, free wireless over 95% of the population of Australia…you could take your laptop anywhere (with a half decent population centre) and get online….ok, I’m dreaming, it will never happen here as long as both Political parties remain the lapdogs of big media.