Marc Andreesen: 'Web 2.0' is an Empty Buzzword

Netscape founder Marc Andreesen, an investor in startups such as Meebo, thinks "Web 2.0" has become a meaningless term that makes dumb investors bankroll dumb companies:

As a result of the widespread adoption of language like "Web 2.0 companies" and the "Web 2.0 space" -- and startups referring to themselves as such, most of which will fail -- you get a predictably cynical backlash from people who then dismiss the whole category as trendy marketing hype full of me-too wannabes and in the process throw out the baby with the bathwater and dismiss all the legitimately new and exciting products and companies that are being created all around us.

As an entrepeneur, I am frankly torn as to whether or not to even post this piece.

It may be in my best interest to have more of my fellow entrepreneurs off chasing trends and pitching their "Web 2.0 startups" to the latest enterprise software VC who is now "doing Web 2.0 deals" instead of building real products that might compete with one of my companies.

Business · 2007/06/05 · Comment · Link

Buying a Dot-Com Domain for the RSS Board

I acquired the domain name rssboard.com this past weekend for the RSS Advisory Board, which publishes its site at an .org domain.

The owner put the domain up for sale on Sedo for $250, which was a reasonable expense to avoid losing type-in visitors who think the site address ends in .com.

Sedo handled the payment escrow and domain transfer process pretty well, calling me on the phone several times to help move things along. From start to finish, it took 16 days. The board operates with a $0 budget and expenditures like this are rare. Web hosting costs are negligible since I'm operating four servers for my various sites and they're not close to capacity in traffic, database access or CPU usage.

Rss · 2007/06/04 · 1 COMMENT · Link

Apple Commercials Make Microsoft Lovable

At the D: All Things Digital conference Wednesday, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates appeared onstage together for the first time in 20 years. One of the topics they discussed was Apple's series of Mac Dude and Windows Dork commercials:

Here in the present, while discussing some recent Apple commercials in which an Apple hipster out-talks a nerdy Windows guy, it seemed almost as if Jobs and Gates were acting in starring roles in the same ads. Jobs, in his black turtleneck and jeans and stubbled beard, looked ready for a night on the town, while Gates, in his striped, button-down shirt and slacks and black shoes, looked ready to get down to business.

And when Jobs tried selling Gates on the appeal of the new Apple ads, Gates wasn't buying.

"Part of those commercials is not to be mean, but the guys like each other," Jobs said.

Gates scratched his chin skeptically. Jobs laughed nervously. "PC guy is great," Jobs said. "He's got a big heart."

Gates added, "His mother loves him."

I think a lot more people love the Windows dork played by John Hodgman than just his mother.

I'd like to see The Ad Whisperers take on those commercials, because I think they're a huge misfire on Apple's part. The Mac hipster played by Justin Long is insufferably smug compared to his problem-plagued comic foil, who ends up looking like a well-intentioned underdog unruffled by adversity. He's like Charlie Brown, falling over and over for Lucy's promise to let him kick the football.

When I spot one of those commercials as I'm blipping through Tivo, I stop to see how Hodgman fares. Like ad critic Seth Stevenson in Slate, I'm completely rooting for him:

The ads pose a seemingly obvious question -- would you rather be the laid-back young dude or the portly old dweeb? -- but I found myself consistently giving the "wrong" answer: I'd much sooner associate myself with Hodgman than with Long.

Hodgman, a Mac devotee since 1984, thinks his PC Guy conveys arrogance:

Mac has always gotten the design and the interface down pat. They just know it. PC's efforts to emulate this, and its constant failing, and its self-satisfied arrogance about it being the most used platform in the world, all of that made it very easy to craft a character who, while he is a boob, and often concerned about how he comes off, at his core really feels bad for the Mac. Is really so delusional to believe he’s much cooler than the Mac. The whole reason they're standing in that white room is because he’s trying to help the Mac out.

I'm not seeing that at all. At a time when the "Wow is Now" campaign for Windows Vista is laying an egg and Gates' exit leaves the company with a huge hole in the evangelism department, Apple has put the most sympathetic face on Microsoft in years.

Microsoft · Apple · Television · 2007/05/31 · 6 COMMENTS · Link

Clarifying the RSS 2.0 Specification

I voted for the proposal to clarify the RSS 2.0 specification this morning. I think it's the proper interpretation of what the spec means regarding namespace support, and the board's the proper place to address it.

This is, of course, a controversial position. I have never found a non-controversial position involving RSS, other than "escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed."

The political debate between advocates of the board and RSS 2.0 lead author Dave Winer boils down to two positions:

1. Nobody should speak with authority on the RSS spec.
2. Somebody should.

The board's been that somebody for four years, though we've used the ability sparingly. I think we should decide what we think the spec means, edit accordingly and take our lumps.

Rss · 2007/05/29 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Dave Winer and the RSS Advisory Board

The current proposal to clarify the RSS 2.0 specification has drawn a response from Dave Winer:

Every so often I get an email asking what's up with the RSS Advisory Board.

Here's what I thought in May 2004: "This group is not a standards organization. It does not own RSS, or the spec, it has no more or less authority than any other group of people who wish to promote RSS."

Today I think it's even less than that. It basically stopped functioning later in 2004. The people involved went on to do other things. In the meantime RSS kept growing and growing.

Did RSS actually need an "advisory board?" No, it didn't.

I think it's great that people care about RSS. Keep supporting it, and if you want to help people use it, great. Just don't pretend there's any official board or body or whatever behind it, because there isn't.

Oh and by the way this is where the RSS 2.0 spec is and always will be. (Modulo redirects and Acts of Murphy.)

Winer wishes the board he founded in 2003 didn't exist, so he's rewriting history to claim it folded up shop after he resigned. But if you go back and read his resignation, you'll find that he encouraged us to keep working on the spec and help developers:

After giving it much thought, I've decided to resign from the RSS Advisory Board, effective July 1. I feel that the process for clarifying the spec is now well-understood by the existing members, and we have started a positive working relationship with several leading aggregator developers. ... I wish the continuing members of the board the very best, and of course I will continue to be a huge booster of RSS and syndication technology, and I will offer my opinion, through this blog, naturally, as always.

The board's serving a useful purpose, as demonstrated by the 1,300 posts on the RSS-Public mailing list and a best-practices profile for RSS that's nearing completion after 14 months of development.

As the lead author of RSS 2.0, Winer continues to be the most respected voice on matters related to the format. But he refuses to say anything that would help developers resolve points of confusion in the spec, such as the issue of namespace attributes.

Until he does, the board will do its best to address them. Our vote on revising the spec begins in five days.

Rss · 2007/05/24 · 15 COMMENTS · Link

Clarifying Namespace Support in RSS 2.0

Randy Charles Morin has proposed the addition of four words to the RSS 2.0 specification (emphasis added):

In the section Extending RSS, we propose that the following sentence be changed:

"A RSS feed may contain elements not described on this page, only if those elements are defined in a namespace."

It should be revised to read as follows:

"A RSS feed may contain elements and attributes not described on this page, only if those elements and attributes are defined in a namespace."

This proposal was the subject of a pre-emptive strike Monday by Sam Ruby, who regards it as "positively breathtaking" that I would reach this conclusion after examining the issue in October and again this month on RSS-Public, the board's mailing list.

I respect Ruby's knowledge of XML and syndication formats, but this is one of the rare instances where I have the pleasure of saying that he's completely wrong. The RSS 2.0 spec does not forbid namespace attributes to core elements. There was never any expressed intent to do that back in 2002, and if they were forbidden, every RSS feed that declares a namespace in the rss element would be invalid. (We're talking millions of feeds.)

As Ruby points out, I thought otherwise the first time we hashed out this issue back in October. I was wrong.

Rss · 2007/05/22 · 6 COMMENTS · Link

Conservative: A Journalist Who Got Mugged

What Toronto journalist Jessica Hume, 25, thought about muggers last week:

... I would have seen the attackers as possible victims of our society. I'd have assumed they were alienated youths, disconnected from their neighbours, teachers, peers -- people who don't feel represented by their politicians. I would even have felt sorry for them to some degree.

What she thinks of them now after getting mugged:

I don't feel any sympathy now, not for the people who come equipped with weapons, waiting in the dark for unsuspecting passersby making their way home. That is a choice they made. No one forced them to make that choice.

Crime · 2007/05/20 · 12 COMMENTS · Link

Read More Entries