Richard MacManus gives a great overview of the biggest Web 2.0 events of 2005.

I’ll add two more:

1. iTunes supporting podcasts
2. Housingmaps.com igniting a mapping revolution

Hey Richard, let’s have an even dozen!

Steve Gillmor:

On the Net, word of mouth is driven by attention.

Seth Godin interview with e-consultancy

Q: “Interruptive online ads are thought to damage brands, yet we still see an awful lot of advertising clutter on the major publishing sites. What would you say to these publishers and advertisers?”

A: They’re not listening, so I can’t say much of anything.”

Also:

“There’s zero evidence that you can build a brand with interruptions online that don’t lead to action. Zero.”

David Newberger’s interview with Doc Searls:

“One of the main points we made in The Cluetrain Manifesto, way back in 1999, was that the real revolution with the Net was not an increase in the power of supply, but an increase in the power of demand. Customers were no longer mere “consumers”, and not only graced with far more choice –the power to pick and choose among vendors’ products and services. Thanks to the Net, and to features such as blogging, the demand side now had the power also to *supply*. This is what’s so disruptive.”

and

“Blogging is also disruptive because it violates the whole notion of mediation — of a “medium” serving as a conduit between producers and consumers. Blogs speak directly to readers. They don’t have “consumers”, or an “audience”. What’s more, many of those readers are also writers, are also producers. The *unmediated* nature of blogs is very strange for those whose minds remain framed by traditional media notions.”

also

“To me blogging is about rolling snowballs. Whether I start a snowball rolling, or add mass to one that rolls by, I have no sense that it’s ‘mine’ in either case. I do, however, have a sense, quite often, of what works and what doesn’t, what’s interesting and what isn’t.”

and the best for last:

“I can’t think of anything that demonstrates the sovereign nature of the self better than a blog.”

Lots of people ask me this question. I used to say that we help make web sites easier to use. Now, I can simply point to this:

What UIE is all about

On our Brain Sparks blog, UIE founder Jared M. Spool explains in detail what we do, outlining our biggest themes in the process:

• The Scent of Information
• The Goldilocks Content Framework
• New testing methods like the 5 Second Test
• Challenging widely held assumptions like the Three Click Rule
• And our ever-expanding library of research

Ryan Carson is excited about his Web 2.0 workshop in the UK that he’s holding on February 8, 2006. Judging from the lineup, it looks like it will be a great show. He’s got the Tags guy, the Rails guy, the Flickr guy, the Feedburner guy, the Mint guy, the Dropsend guy, and the Yahoo guy. He definitely found the right group of folks to share their experiences.

Also, Doug Martin sends word that his new product is ready for tire kicking. It’s called LookLater, and is a bookmarking tool. He’s currently trying to get the word out, so I’m helping him along a bit. Looks interesting.

Pieter Overbeeke wants folks to check out OPMLManager.com, a tool to help you maintain your OPML file. I’m not quite there yet, but you early adopters might find something useful.

Finally, Alex Bard says that his company, Goowy, is growing fast. They provide traditional web services including web mail, contacts, calendar, games, widgets and more. Looks like another player in the Web-based Office space…

BTW: I don’t normally advertise for free. And since I’m getting more and more requests it’s getting hard to keep up. If you are interested in advertising for pennies in the burgeoning Bokardosphere, let me know. I’ve got some ideas about that…

In his Marketing 2.0, Noah Brier further riffs on Terry Heaton’s unbundled media idea.

“The effect of unbundling is being felt far and wide, both inside advertising and out. With the help of blogs, the fundamental unit of the web has officially moved to the article/entry, passing both “the individual page” as well as “the site” in terms of importance. The permalinks of blogs have created an atmosphere where it’s completely possible to bypass homepages all together, connecting directly with the desired content. Throw in RSS feeds and the whole idea of a website changes from destination to syndication.”

“from destination to syndication”. I like that.

Do not come to me. Take away with you what you will and be happy.

It’s a good read, full of Web 2.0 topics and transitions. He’s also taken an article I wrote last year a few steps further. For those new to the Bokardosphere (sorry, I couldn’t resist), here it is: Home Alone? How Content Aggregators Change Navigation and Control of Content

The Web 2.0 Workgroup has added its 20th blog. This collection of Web 2.0-related web sites was started a couple months ago by Richard MacManus, Michael Arrington, and Frederico Oliveira, whose vision was to provide a list of high quality blogs that are writing about recent trends on the web together. Bokardo is happy to be a part of this growing community.

In addition to visiting the highly-recommended blogs below, you can get crazy and subscribe to them all at once with the OPML feed. Enjoy!

I love reading Robert Cringely’s column over at PBS. He’s always got some amazingly interesting conspiracy or takeover theory that gets you thinking way beyond where you currently are.

Here I was imagining that Google would try to create a content platform with Google Base. Cringely, on the other hand, thinks Google is planting 20ft hardware boxes at 4.5 petabytes each at locations all along the Internet, to co-opt everyone’s data and put every other company on a platform below it, effectively taking over the Web. How do they do this? With their black fiber, of course!

That whole Google Office thing? That’s a laugh. It will be a small piece of their world-dominating technology. And he’s got links to get you thinking that he may just be onto something. I would love to be there when Larry or Sergei (the Google Guys) read this.

Cringely is either crazy, brilliant, or both. Whatever he is, he’s fun to read.

Jonathan Bouttelle has an insightful post about the question that will only be asked more and more:

Flash or Ajax?