Jason Fried on the business value in Web 2.0:

“It’s about value — something the new web set seems afraid to 1. create, and 2. charge for. I don’t know why people are afraid to charge for their services, but here are a few ideas: 1. they don’t think they’re good enough, 2. they are afraid to offend some people, 3. they think profit and idealism don’t mix, and 4. peer pressure (“come on, man, everyone’s doing the free”).”

Here’s the slide deck for a talk I gave on Web 2.0 for the Greater Boston Chapter of the ACM, a non-profit educational and scientific society of computer professionals in the Boston area.

Web 2.0 – Leveraging the Network (2.74 MB pdf)

In the talk I spoke about how Web 2.0 companies distinguish themselves by leveraging the network of which they are a part. Brittanica, for example, has had a web site for quite some time and were slow to leverage the network in any particular way. Wikipedia, on the other hand, exists only because they used the available network to improve their contents communally. And Wikipedia, of course, is a much, much more popular site.

Continue Reading: Web 2.0 Talk – Leveraging the Network

One lens through which to look at the recent innovation in the memetracker space is frustration. If you look at where the frustration is in how we track memes (ideas), you can get a decent picture of where the innovation is going. If you want to predict the future, find the frustration!

Like an antelope eating grass on the Kalahari, grazing is eating small quantities of food at frequent but irregular intervals (Apple Dashboard dictionary). Recently, the term grazing has been adopted to describe our efforts at finding information on the Web. The following is a very general picture of the four types of “grazing” we’ve gone through, or are going through now. Each level had it’s own share of frustration, which led (or is leading) directly to the next level.

Continue Reading: The Evolution of Information Grazing

So which do you think will be more valuable?

A) Technorati’s generic authority slider (Scoble’s coverage | Technorati)

B) Findory’s personal authority recommendations (Barnett’s coverage | Findory)

Update: Completely changed the post, so updated timestamp.

Reread Clay Shirky’s great Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality. Still as relevant today as when he wrote it:

“Inequality occurs in large and unconstrained social systems for the same reasons stop-and-go traffic occurs on busy roads, not because it is anyone’s goal, but because it is a reliable property that emerges from the normal functioning of the system.”

Lots of folks complain about the A-List bloggers and characterize them as gatekeepers. I don’t feel that the term “gatekeeper” fits. “Authority”, maybe.

But “gatekeeper”, no. What am I being kept from? Where is the gate? If the answer to the former is information and the answer to the latter is an A-lister’s web site, then I don’t buy it. I’ve got complete freedom and choice to listen to who I want to listen to. I’m the one choosing which URLs to type in. Sure, tech.memeorandum has a lot of overlapping people, but those people are talking about things I’m interested in. Tech. When it becomes less valuable to me, I’ll stop reading it. Do I like the fact that A-listers get put on it immediately while I have to work a bit harder….if I answered yes would you believe me? If the answer were yes then our system would be completely different to the extent that we wouldn’t be talking about this.

One difference between A-listers and Z-listers is that A-listers have been better writers over a longer period of time. They articulate their thoughts, build up an audience, and gain a reputation. Let them have it! And let them serve as strong examples of what you can do, if you choose to.

So this is the “that’s the way it is” reply. I can’t come up with another one, because I truly believe that this is a big insight into how humans, talent, and hard work fit together. And yes, complaining about it is a part of it. I complained for a while, and then decided that I wasn’t helping myself, read up on some network theory, and got on with my life. I’m still learning how to do it. I’ve even written some horrible crap lately that I wish I hadn’t, but I’m improving. Slowly.

I, for one, am glad to have passionate people who blog everyday and gain a reputation as an authority in their field. That’s actually what Alex Barnett and I are doing with podcasts. We’re out talking to these people, and having a great time learning from them. Want to know about this whole “attention” thing? Well, we talked to Steve Gillmor about it, certified A-list blogger. He’s the guy who you want to talk to when you start learning about attention. If you don’t like what he says, go write your own blog for 3 years about attention, start leading the discussion, and then Alex and I will come do a podcast. 🙂

I find that the harder I work, the better my future looks. Seems to be one of the few constants in this sea of change.

By the way, it could be a lot worse…

Imagine if rebels and visionaries hadn’t found the Web first.

Adam Green and Danny Ayers joined Alex Barnett and I for a podcast on OPML Reading Lists.

Reading List Podcast with Adam Green and Danny Ayers (11MB .mp3 – Alex’s notes)

We talked about reading lists, dynamic reading lists, and feed grazing. In addition, both Danny and Adam talked at length about the Semantic Web, and how we seem to be building toward it with formats like RSS and OPML.

It’s a solid introduction to this interesting development in feed reading. Enjoy!

Continue Reading: Reading Lists Podcast

Stowe Boyd:

“People are the center of the universe — People are what makes the universe worth paying attention to, not the machinery that we rely on to communicate.”

Marc Hedlund in Web Development 2.0:

“Software isn’t written for Web 2.0 companies the way it was during the bubble, nor is it written the way traditional, shipped software was. New ideas about Web applications seem to necessitate new ways of making those applications.”

simple, fast, intuitive, social, minimal, choice, useful, fun

Umair Haque:

“Getting Ninged and Flocked – things only geeks can figure out, versus things only geeks want – are the two big barriers to growth for 2.0 at the moment. They illustrate how out of touch 2.0 really is with consumer markets, which require deep understandings of consumer behaviour and how to make things if not cool, at least useful, usable, desirable, necessary, etc”

My emphasis added.