Web Startups and the Lying Liars that Lie About Them
Bloggers tell lies when they review startups? No, no - they just stretch the truth a little. OK, a lot. Inspired in part by Paul Kedrosky's Top Ten VC Lies , I whipped up 10 semi-truths that we tend to use on Mashable for the sake of brevity, hyperbole or just plain laziness.
Interview with Google's Matt Cutts about Next-Generation Search
Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing the head of Google's Webspam team, Matt Cutts . The topic of our conversation was Next-Generation Search . In my pitch to get an interview with someone at Google, I explained how Read/WriteWeb has been covering Next-Gen search a lot and so it would (obviously) be great to get Google's views on this topic!
Wikipedia has two problems: it's content, and it's concept.
It's content is a mess. Many of its articles remain barren, even after all these years, while others are bloated with useless information and anecdotal nonsense. Plus tons of external links and spam. Even after all that garbage is excised what's left is often inaccurate and unreliable.
The 'direct navigation' market in my opinion is a very risky one and I've seen a considerable number of highly-generic domains that don't generate nearly as much type-in traffic as you might expect.
The “direct navigation” market in my opinion is a very risky one and I've seen a considerable number of highly-generic domains that don't generate nearly as much type-in traffic as you might expect.
Bubble, Bubble, Bubble
The startup ranks are starting to thin. We've added three companies to the TechCrunch DeadPool in the last week (Raw Sugar , FilmLoop and Browster ). Even Google got into the spirit of things when they shut down Google Answers at the end of the year. And over on the Forum users are asking ' Who's Next?'
The Year of the Big Bang
In the beginning there was resistance, lots of resistance. Then after a couple of high profile sellouts their was panic, every speculator was going to be rich, quickly followed by the big bang. What a ride.
The web site that would potentially, NOT beat, but undermine Google would look like anything else BUT not search engine
The web site that would potentially, NOT beat, but undermine Google would look like anything else BUT not search engine in the traditional aspect…It should help the people find web information on demand with an ease...
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) seems to be the latest scientific approach within the search engine industry. It promises to bring more human sense to the results where the focus is over the context of the content rather than the keywords inside.
In Google We Trust or Not?
If you have been around long enough in Silicon Valley, you see this story play out again – a start-up rises out of nowhere, is championed by the technology elite, becomes a successful company, and one day becomes a market leader, a dominant force. The market reality runs smack into idealism, and what follows is disillusionment.
Why Nobody Buys Digg.com?
Here we go again with lots of speculations for one of the top and most popular web 2.0 websites: digg.com. In our understanding there must be something wrong with either Digg, its business/revenue model or the momentum is simply lost, or something else.
The internet's second wave
Seven years ago the the first internet wave finally broke, with a massive bet on fusing old and new media. Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) and AOL are still repairing the damage. Will the second (more considered) wave of internet exuberance lead to another attempt at an industry-defining deal?
Google Reader a Stealth Digg Killer?
Steve Mermelstein wisely states that Google Reader could be a digg killer. The catch is a) people need to be using Google's sharing features and b) they would need to add a feature that displays how many people have shared each post. It occurs to me the same could be said for Google displacing del.icio.us.
Linkedin gets down to business
Commentary: Business network gets noticed. You might raise an eyebrow when you hear about how venture capitalists are set to value business network Linkedin, if only because you're one of those who've wondered just how or whether this company makes money.
Time Magazine's Person of the Year: You and Web 2.0
Despite being considered so ten minutes ago in some corners of the the Internet, Time Magazine has selected Web 2.0 -- in particular those people that are directly shaping it -- as its esteemed Person of the Year. Specifically, Time Magazine has singled out you for recognition in this achievement and as the actual source of the exciting things happening on the Internet and in society today. Yes, that's you, reading this right now. At least if you've been contributing to the Web in some way using the increasingly ubiquitious tools and technologies ranging from the basic blog or wiki all the way up to video sharing platforms and social bookmarking sites.
"Bloggers are engaging in product placement advertising"
Some do it with a positive review, some weave it into blog articles that have nothing to do with the placed product and others wrip the item to shreds. I just read a blog about a PPP blogger that was ripping on PayDayLoans, and she was paid to do that by the PayDayLoan site.
My name is Joe Kraus and I was the co-founder and former CEO of JotSpot and I am now a Google employee.
Let me start out at the personal level. Simply put, it sucks to hear partners or customers say bad things about you.
Why Web 2.0 is More Than a Buzzword
Kathy Sierra just published a brilliant post entitled Why Web 2.0 is More Than a Buzzword . She takes off on the controversy about whether or not there's meat on the Web 2.0 bone with an extended rumination on the value of jargon, which she distinguishes from meaningless buzzwords:
Deep Nishar, Google's director of product management, sees mobility as the new frontier of the Internet.
Google -- the premier online company in the traditional Internet world -- has for the past year been focusing its attention on the mobile market. Google will never develop an "OS".
It only mines and captures the main informational and gestural patterns and tries to tap them to make money.
Poll: Will Google develop a GoogleOS?
Our post this week about GoogleOS led to some vigorous and fascinating discussion in Read/WriteWeb. 87 mostly thoughtful comments were left here, plus many more on Slashdot and Digg .
The Wisdom of the Crowds is a wonderful thing. However, the 'Wisdom' was already there before Web 2.0.
Collective wisdom came from the email, the telephone, postal mail, and even Avon parties. The “wisdom” in today's time, is really about the speed of “Reach,” and with Digg, it allows users (the community) to report, transmit, organize, collect, & categorize that information & reach it to the masses in vast quantities.
Forbes Video Interview With Digg CEO
Michele Steele at Forbes Video Network interviewed Digg CEO Jay Adelson to discuss site usage and acquisition rumors. The video was posted on November 22, 2006."meaning" on top of the accumulating mass of global collective intelligence that is growing by leaps and bounds every day on the Internet. Going Beyond User Generated Software: Web 2.0 and the Pragmatic Semantic Web
I was traveling most of last week and so was unable to weigh in on the Web 3.0 mini-tempest that occurred when John Markoff published his exploratory piece in the NY Times last Sunday. The premise of the article is that we are finding new ways to mine human intelligence which can be exploited by building a new layer of "meaning" on top of the accumulating mass of global collective intelligence that is growing by leaps and bounds every day on the Internet.
The Significance of Threadless.com
One of the recurring themes on the O'Reilly Radar is that of "news from the future," the idea that, as William Gibson put it, "The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet."
Don't bet against the internet
It's simply the best, argues Eric Schmid t , CEO of Google. The internet bubble of the 1990s may have been investor folly but it heralded a new era, the impact of which we are only just beginning to understand. Those years rewrote the rules of production and distribution, bringing unprecedented freedoms to millions of people worldwide--to create and communicate, to organise and influence, to speak and be heard. And while Microsoft and Google duke it out, another startup will come in and dominate over the next couple of years.
And while Microsoft and Google duke it out, another startup will come in and dominate over the next couple of years. It always happens that way - I remember when Yahoo and Ask were the two big search engines, where Yahoo was predicted to be the winner... Then the unsuspected happened - a third party entered the race (Google).
Do you really think Calacanis' WeblogsInc($25mil) +SiliconAlleyReporter($?mil) have been greater successes, in money or social/tech/business impact, than Denton's FirstTuesday (£33mil)+Moreover($30mil) +Gawker($TBDmil)?
Do you really think Calacanis' WeblogsInc($25mil)+SiliconAlleyReporter($?mil) have been greater successes, in money or social/tech/business impact, than Denton's FirstTuesday(£33mil)+Moreover($30mil)+Gawker($TBDmil)?
Denton has always played second fiddle to Jason, never quite achieving the same level of success
“Denton has always played second fiddle to Jason, never quite achieving the same level of success.” I do not think this is true at all and I have nothing agaist Jason. He seems cool. If Denton sold Gawker Media who would be the top achiever? Ask random people on the streets of NYC if they know what weblogsinc or engadget is and they will look at you like you have three heads. Ask about Gawker and you'll see who is on top. Very interesting approach. Takes a while to get used to. I'd love to see linkedwords cooperate with either http://www.answers.com or http://www.metaglossary.com . It seems their technologies complement each other well.
Very interesting approach. Takes a while to get used to. I'd love to see linkedwords cooperate with either http://www.answers.com or http://www.metaglossary.com . It seems their technologies complement each other well.
Tagging seems to be totally exploited/used up by web sites like del.icio.us, SU and thousands of small to mid-level followers
of course there is always plenty of room to improve things and it seems good enough is never enough, but a search application which needs the users to register, install, organize further and so on, seems not on the right track to become popular.
Two 20-somethings managed to, in just under two years, beat out a $150+ billion company and essentially forced it to buy them for $1.65 billion even though they hadn't generated a cent of profit
I think the fact that none of Google's products outside of search/AdWords have reached the same level of success, and many have been total flops, are indicative of this. The most obvious evidence of this is seen with the YouTube acquisition. Two 20-somethings managed to, in just under two years, beat out a $150+ billion company and essentially forced it to buy them for $1.65 billion even though they hadn't generated a cent of profit. Brad is serious about fixing Yahoo, then he MUST propose solutions and not just point out the problems.
Good points, RBA. This sounds like a lot of sabre rattling more than anything else. If Brad is serious about fixing Yahoo, then he MUST propose solutions and not just point out the problems.
I can hear the gasps of horror from early adopter Flickr fans (of which I am one)
Here's one:
If they rebrand Photos as Flickr, or even worse in my opinion, Flickr as Photos, won't this break the sense of community of Flickr? I believe so. del.icio.us. will suffer the same, in my opinion, if they force us into myweb. Better yet, the recent revamp of Photos would all go to waste and Yahoo! would eventually loose both the Mom and Pop's and the early adopters. Is text from a website raising copyright hackles?
Text from a website raising copyright hackles ? Gimme a break. I'd say YouTube's copyright challenges are just a wee tad bit more serious? And, for that matter, is this any different than any search engine scraping?
With Google seemingly intent on tracking my every move and then buying up the services
Have to say I agree with you ... which makes me a tad nervous with my life online ... but maybe that's the deal.With Google seemingly intent on tracking my every move and then buying up the services (via the company that makes that service available) I should probably just get used to my "bookmarks" (say) being branded one way or the other.
There are sort of more pragmatic contextual approaches on the web presently, one of which is http://linkedwords.com , which organizes the web in a simple contextual manner
clusters the information further and ranks results based on a social element etc, etc
Well it's nice to see that there's somebody within Yahoo willing to stand up and speak out.
Well it's nice to see that there's somebody within Yahoo willing to stand up and speak out. It's clear that Yahoo needs to do something and if the organization is smart, they'll keep this guy and get rid of Semel, who is receiving unbelievable compensation for a guy that has headed the company during this period of massive destruction of shareholder value.
The boom is back
Net companies are on fire again. Here's the smart way to invest without getting burned
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