Will Pate's blog

Mark Cuban, Reed Hastings, Michael Powell, Evan Williams

When will we see iTunes for Video?

• Forces of control (traditional media companies) want closed, proprietary system
• Even strategically aligned groups can't get access to the content
• They are worried about eyeballs and time moving to the internet, want to slow it as much as possible
• Broadband needs to get better, getting Netflix to deliver a DVD is still often more convenient than downloading a movie

Will the producers of good creative content be able to make money without singing with major companies?

• The mechanisms already exist, need to get more people using them
• Quality levels that people accept change: VHS - > DVD -> HDTV next?

Why is Korea ahead

• 80% of the population lives in a high rise
• Deployment has to be built around geography and politics
• Broadband policy is still treated like it's not a socio-economic driver

Content media companies suing customers

• #1 job of a general manager is not to win a championship, its to keep their job
• Need a bogeyman, if they don't hit their numbers its someone else's fault
• Hiring lawyers is easier for most companies that being creative
• Asking 16-18 year olds to spend $15 on a CD with maybe one good song doesn't make sense
• Attempt to buy time

Quality

• 12 hours for a movie download is better than 24 hours for a DVD delivery
• People don't listen to music much in rich environment, lots of little headphones, cars, etc
• Consumers will spend a lot on big televisions, DVD players, etc

What should be done?

• Communication policy in the US is based on premise of natural monopolies based on efficiency
• Law builds silos between delivery methods that are now arbitrary
• Government should stay out because the technology is in the innovation phase

Consumer generated media and access to remixable content

• Talent is being restricted
• In other countries the restrictions don't apply, or aren't followed
• Don't always need base of media to remix

What's old media's place?

• Consumer generated media don't replace traditional media, they extend it
• They want to sell other people's work
• New distribution systems and lower cost of entry for media creators

Technorati Tags: evanwilliams, markcuban, michaelpowell, reedhastings, web 2.0, web2con

Socialtext

• Socialtext is the first wiki company
• Make wikis for enterprises
• 200+ customers
• Built for collaboration, unlike email
• Wiki came from open source - Wikipedia, etc
• Socialtext going open open source
• Starting with rich text editor for wikis, being used for other applications people are developing
• Next is real-time collaborative editing of documents on thee web
• Web 2.0 is made of people (cheers)

Rollyo

• Been blogging and investing for 8 years
• Search engine that lets people organize their searches by source
• Find search engines created by others
• Can also search the whole web
• Engine powered by Yahoo
• Allows people with domain expertise to create custom searches and get credit

Joyent

• Mail, calendar, contacts, files, binders
• Tagging, smart filters
• XML-RPC, RSS, ICS, vCard, vCal, WebDAV support
• Shared calendars

Bunchball

• Doing things with people you know
• Social applications currently don#039t match what people do in the real world, there are gaps
• Replication of social network each time a new one launches
• Social infrastructure for developers
• Many applications and one social network for users

Realtravel

• Travel information site that combines user-written blogs and social networking
• Internet primary channel for travel
• Focus on price is commoditizing travel
• Google maps integration

Zimbra

• Open source collaboration suite
• Support standards
• Compatible with legacy systems
• Mobil: Blackberry, Windows Mobile, etc
• Allows for developers to integrate with third party applications
• Crowd very impressed with integration between applications, third party applications
• Good use of AJAX
• Easy to find information inside the system
• Conversation grouping like Gmail
• Big applause

Zvents

• Local event search and web service
• Running in Bay Area right now
• Has 3x the events for that area of anyone else
• What-where-when search
• Search results as list, map & calendar
• Makes it easy for bloggers to post calendars of events on their blogs

KnowNow

• RSS notification service
• Hosted service for enterprises
• Open, anonymous access
• Internet Explorer browser plugin

Orb

• Desktop computer software, windows only right now
• Streams your media from home to anywhere you want
• Used it to control lights in someone#039s home, watching from live streaming webcam
• Access filesystem on home computer from anywhere

Wink

• Aggregate tags from across the web, analyze and rank relevance for search results
• Users can create personal search sets

AllPeers

• Development platform built on Firefox
• Metadata via tags, ad hoc protocols like XML, decentralization of data and asynchronousness
• Adding extensible profiles, peer-to-peer data transfer, data storage and resource replication
• AllPeers MediaCentre allows import, tagging, organization, sharing of data + media files into Firefox
• Web Page Sharing allows annotation, with sharing, of web pages
• Third party apps coming soon

Flock

• Building tools to help people do the things they do already, better and faster
• Dozen folks in a garage in Palo Alto
• Built on open source - Firefox browser
• Alpha release coming in a few weeks, beta in a few months
• Focusing right now on favorites and history, integrating blogging features
• Making subscribing to feeds, favorites the same
• Reading RSS in the browser
• Blogging topbar - new interface element
• Blog editor with rich text editing
• Flickr topbar browser in blog editor

PubSub

• Structured blogging - structuring blog posts so that machines can read and aggregate similar content (ex. movie reviews)

Technorati Tags: allpeers, bunchball, flock, joyent, knownow, orb, pubsub, realtravel, rollyo, socialtext, web 2.0, web2con, wink, zimbra, zvents

So the conversation continues around the definition of Web 2.0. There's been some backlash from the web geek community about the high price of the Web 2.0 conference, so there are already two concurrent un-conferences

My buddy (and gracious host while I'm in San Francisco) Chris Heuer is throwing a Web 2.1 BrainJam, based on the model of Bar Camp - which rocked. Hopefully some cool people will show up and demo some neat stuff, make informal presentations or spark interesting conversations. Oh Chris, tempting me to skip a session or two of the conference I'm supposed to be in town for!

Plucky Merlin Mann is throwing a Web 1.0 event where people come and pitch their 1999 era business plans.
Mine: an entirely Flash-based travel magazine running on an Oracle database that pays writers nothing and has large ad accounts with Fortune 500 companies as the only revenue stream. Somehow, we need to get local delivery of goods factored in there too. Awareness will be built on TV ads during sweeps week and the Superbowl, celebrity endorsements, some full airplane branding paintjobs, a fleet of H2's, glitzy parties in world class cities (Tokyo, Paris, London, New York, LA) and ads beamed by laser onto the moon. We'll steer it with a brand name CEO with no relevant industry experience, at the end of his career and looking to slack off before he retires. We'll go public six months after the first record-breaking round of VC funding. (No resemblance to any failed dot bomb company implied, accidentally or otherwise)

Technorati Tags: brainjam, chrisheuer, merlinmann, sanfrancisco, web1.0, web2.1

Mark Cuban, Reed Hastings, Michael Powell, Evan Williams

When will we see iTunes for Video?

• Forces of control (traditional media companies) want closed, proprietary system
• Even strategically aligned groups can't get access to the content
• They are worried about eyeballs and time moving to the internet, want to slow it as much as possible
• Broadband needs to get better, getting Netflix to deliver a DVD is still often more convenient than downloading a movie

Will the producers of good creative content be able to make money without singing with major companies?

• The mechanisms already exist, need to get more people using them
• Quality levels that people accept change: VHS - > DVD -> HDTV next?

Why is Korea ahead

• 80% of the population lives in a high rise
• Deployment has to be built around geography and politics
• Broadband policy is still treated like it's not a socio-economic driver

Content media companies suing customers

• #1 job of a general manager is not to win a championship, its to keep their job
• Need a bogeyman, if they don't hit their numbers its someone else's fault
• Hiring lawyers is easier for most companies that being creative
• Asking 16-18 year olds to spend $15 on a CD with maybe one good song doesn't make sense
• Attempt to buy time

Quality

• 12 hours for a movie download is better than 24 hours for a DVD delivery
• People don't listen to music much in rich environment, lots of little headphones, cars, etc
• Consumers will spend a lot on big televisions, DVD players, etc

What should be done?

• Communication policy in the US is based on premise of natural monopolies based on efficiency
• Law builds silos between delivery methods that are now arbitrary
• Government should stay out because the technology is in the innovation phase

Consumer generated media and access to remixable content

• Talent is being restricted
• In other countries the restrictions don't apply, or aren't followed
• Don't always need base of media to remix

What's old media's place?

• Consumer generated media don't replace traditional media, they extend it
• They want to sell other people's work
• New distribution systems and lower cost of entry for media creators

Technorati Tags: evanwilliams, markcuban, michaelpowell, reedhastings, web 2.0, web2con

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are an important pillar of Web 2.0. An API is a defined list of ways that one piece of software (or web service - they are one in the same) can interact with another. Confused? Think of APIs like super diplomats - they use defined protocols to allow separate systems to work together to do something new. If only international geopolitics was that simple, or effective.

For instance, Housingmaps pulls housing listings from Craigslist and dynamically puts them on top of a Google Map - it does this by using both of their APIs. Neato, huh?

So how do you get into this exciting world of APIs?

Let's say you're a developer, looking for a weekend project or something to make you name with. Maybe you even know a company like Google or Yahoo that you want to work for, and they have an API (both do). What should you do? Why make something cool with their API! The best way to get their attention is to show them you've got "mad skills son", as the kids say. Some even have contests where you enter your work for prizes and notoriety. Check out Chris Campbell's API roundup and the API wiki page to get started. The del.icio.us API tag will keep you chock full of resources and examples to learn from.

Or maybe you're a businessman or investor looking to find your next cool web service to develop that will change the world. Problem is, all your ideas involve the suicidal premise of competing with Ebay or some other benevolent goliath. Or they mean you would need to combine capabilities of two or more of them. Don't compete, build on top of them and take advantage of their existing user base and brand reach. Make their service better, if it's that great they may make you an offer for it.

If you own or work at a web service company and you dont' have an API yet, get on it pronto. APIs allow people to build things on top of your service that make it more valuable to your customers. You can't buy enough developers to dream up and make all the cool things your web service could do, even Google and Yahoo with their large numbers have figured that out. Tim O'Reilly has a great guide to rolling out an open API.

Technorati Tags: api, business, craigslist, ebay, google, internet, raincitystudios, web 2.0, yahoo

One of my favorite venture capital bloggers, Fred Wilson, was featured in Business 2.0 recently. I've read Fred since he started blogging and the guy is quite sharp. He talked about his investment thesis, and where the technology industry is heading - Web services (aka Web 2.0) by his estimation.

"So what's the next wave? The next wave is what we're calling applied technology. The Internet is a computing platform built on top of core technology. Applied technology is what gets built on top of that: It's Web services."

Wilson recognizes that the web is capturing an increasing amount of consumers' attention, and bets that is going to grow.

"The Web is going to capture an increasing share of people's attention, and billions of dollars are going to flow in," Wilson says. "What Web 2.0 is about is harnessing those dollars in highly leverageable ways." Pointing to Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO) as examples, he says, "The potential profitability here is simply amazing."

Technorati Tags: fredwilson, venturecapital, web 2.0

Some really smart web people have recently launched a new site called Microformats.org. It has a group blog (much like What's Web 2.0?), a gorgeous design thanks to Dan Cederholm, some of the smartest geeks on the web as contributors, a wiki for collaborative documentation, a code repository, and a suite of discussion resources.

If you're unfamiliar with what a microformats are, the site has a good description:

Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards. Instead of throwing away what works today, microformats intend to solve simpler problems first by adapting to current behaviors and usage patterns (e.g. XHTML, blogging).

If you're not a geek, this may not make a lot of sense or seem very important. But microformats are important because they involve all the same sorts of principles that make up Web 2.0 and are also directly related to it.

For instance: if every web publishing tool wrapped reviews of books with certain kind of information explaining that they were, people could build new tools that aggregate and provide information based on all the book reviews on the web. Imagine Amazon reviews pulled in and sorted from all over the internet. Or imagine being able to easily download any event on a website to your own calendar. Microformats open up opportunity for publicly displayed information to get into the places where it can do the most good for end users.

So if you're interested in Web 2.0 or microformats, subscribe to their RSS feed.

Technorati Tags: microformats, web 2.0

If you're looking for a good web geek conference to go to on the west coast in July, check out WebVisions in Portland. I can't make it myself, but you should check it out.

The theme is how web services are integrating with digital devices like iPods, PDAs and cell phones sounds cool. The keynote will be delivered by Stewart Butterfield of Flickr. Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path and Cameron Moll will be speaking too.

It seems like we're further along in the discussion about making data easy to get in and out of sites than in and out of devices. Don't discount devices though, look how iPods have driven Apple's iTunes store to be the largest retailer of music online.

Technorati Tags: portland, webvisions, web2.0

First there was Jason Kottke's Design for Web 2.0, where he asked his readers 15 questions and let them answer.

Then Richard MacManus and Joshua Porter wrote Web 2.0 for Desingers, summarizing six trends that are characterizing the new kind of challenges designers face.

Last week D. Keith Robinson wrote about Web 2.0 and linked back to us. A really good discussion ensued with some other web designers and Keith did a great job explaining why designers need to talk about Web 2.0 more - something we agree on.

If you have other examples of designers talking about Web 2.0, please feel free to add them in the comments.
Technorati Tags: webdesign, design, web2.0

John Battelle is asking for input on the second Web 2.0 conference this year. John is chairing for the second year in a row and said that the input he got last year when asked the same was great.

...this year it's all about showing what can be done on that platform, and uncovering the innovative companies, ideas, and models from which all of us can learn. I'm (loosley) focusing on three areas that are truly taking off in 2005: Media & Entertainment, Communications (ie, the Web goes mobile and swallows telecom along the way), and the Web as OS.

Sounds like the program is going to go from theory to example - excellent. This is one of the exciting things about working on the web for geeks - within just one year between conferences there will be a decent number of neat new toys already.

If you have yourself or have seen any of the following, get in touch with John Battelle:

• A new product or company that you want to introduce
• Examples of cool things you have seen that will change how we use or understand the web
• Jaw dropping user interfaces hacks that have a Web 2.0 application
• A workshop that you would like to see or do

Oh boy, this is going to be a web geek's playground.
Technorati Tags: web2.0