Will the geeks really rule the world?
Paul Graham, one of the founders of web incubator Y Combinator, says we’re not in a bubble, and he’s right. There’s way too much talk about this mythical bubble. It ain’t a bubble, folks.
However, I think Paul is wide of the mark on a number of his assertions made when interviewed by Ian Delaney, who is currently writing a book on Web 2.0. Paul says he has spotted “a social trend that will last”, namely: “the startup world will increasingly be ruled by technical people rather than business people”.
God forbid!
I’m amazed that a savvy investor would think that way. Paul is a hacker himself of course, and a successful entrepreneur to boot, so I could be wildly out on this one. It just seems… wrong… on… so… many… levels…
Free Web 2.0 software doesn’t mean better…
TechCrunch posts a heads up on ActiveCollab, a new open source alternative to popular online project management tool Basecamp, by Web 2.0 poster children 37Signals, and talks about the possible threat to current monopoly and current business model if the software is of high quality.
Dell leads the way with blogging
Recently Dell launched a blog where their “intention is to address issues that are important to use and our customers”, and at present I feel that can only be a good thing, so long as Dell are committed to listening and acting on what they’ve already stated.
Five hot new visual metrics make analytics for humans
E-consultancy analyst Linus Gregoriadis last week solicited suggestions on a
sexier name
for "web analytics". But five new Web 2.0 services currently brewing in beta are threatening to take the whole online marketing measuring practice into a more sexy paradigm entirely.
All these new products ask is that you place some Javascript in your header - but they promise to serve up juicy thermal imaging, in-page indicators or movable feasts that produce easy-to-use visual metrics for left-brain webmasters.
So what are these new tools? Let's take a look...
Offertrax raises funds, launch set for August
Congratulations are in order for Ron and Ben at Boston-based Offertrax, who have raised an initial round of funding to help them launch their first product in August.
The company has raised “less than $1m - for now” according to CEO Ronald Pruett, who told me that he secured the funds from “private investors from the Boston area with high tech backgrounds and understanding”.
Offertrax is a social shopping site based around RSS technologies. The founders (Ronald Pruett and Ben Carcio) hope that the service will help join up the gap between consumers and merchants, via targeted alerts delivered by RSS. “It is time to put consumers back in the driving seat,” says Ron.
BT denies Bebo approach, Web 2.0 shark not yet jumped
TechCrunch reports that Bebo has spurned the advances of UK telecoms behemoth BT, which is rumoured to have offered more than £300m ($552m) for the social networking site.
However, a senior BT executive told E-consultancy that this is nonsense.
Our BT source said: “We can state categorically that BT has not had any discussions with, or made any approach to, Bebo. We're not sure where this rumour came from.”
UPDATE: Bebo's Xochi Birch also emailed me to say: "BT has not approached us and we currently have no contact with anyone at BT." She also has no clue about where the rumour came from.
Web 2.0 needs to be agile to be successful
I’ve been dealing with a few clients of late, most of which have heard the ruckus around this newfangled Web 2.0 thing, and most of which want to do something Web 2.0 with their projects. Some want to implement blogs, others are interested in Wiki’s and podcasting, and surprisingly most of them want some Ajax features. The list goes on.
That’s really good because I’m always happy to talk to people about getting more out of the web, specifically around creating better and more valuable user experiences, but the problem I have (and which I communicate) is that Web 2.0 doesn’t just stop at implementing a blog engine, podcasts, a Wiki or Ajax.
Valleyschwag for July 2006
As a non-coder I've never felt 100% geek, despite what some of my Luddite friends think. However, as this picture shows, I am getting ever-closer to that magical figure (and to inheriting the earth, which would fulfil a small ambition).
Yes, I've received this month's geek merchandise from Valleyschwag!
The 12 reasons why UK businesses don't blog
How many companies in the UK are blogging? Not many, it seems, according to a list compiled by Suw Charman . Not many at all. The list isn’t fully comprehensive, but it highlights the dearth of business blogs in the UK, compared to US.
So why is it that UK and European marketers / business folk are ignoring blogs? I reckon it comes down to one of the following reasons…
Blogging almost going mainstream?
If you’ve been blogging for any length of time, you’ll probably feel that it’s old hat. The principle is simple – you talk about something that you’re interested and/or passionate about, and through that you find people that are interested in the same sort of things that you are.
Over time if you’re a good write or really passionate or you simply create / get hold of good content, you’ll rise to the top of that niche vertical interest, which in turn will result in more readers.
The problem is that until very recently blogging was kind of hard to do – you have to be at least a little technically literate to be able to use the blog software interfaces. The result being that until recently blogging definitely wasn’t part of the mainstream consciousness.
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
