BoomTown » Tim O’Reilly

Why Robert Scoble Is Wronger About "2010 Web": A BoomTown Translation!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:37:14 +0000

Oh, Scooby-Don’t…

You could not be more wrong in your post last week–titled, “Why Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg are wrong about naming Web 3.0 ‘Web 3.0′”–about Walt and I being wrong about naming Web 3.0 “Web 3.0″ in an essay we posted at the start of our D: All Things Digital conference, which took place last week.

I know writing “Kara Swisher,” “Walt Mossberg” and “Wrong” is well-nigh irresistible, but your solution of calling the digital era we are in the “2010 Web” is equally confusing and incorrect.

So, since you know I love to do translations, let me try to take apart your entire piece paragraph by paragraph:

What Scooby-Don’t wrote: Can we just head this trend off at the pass? It seems that Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, at their “All Things D” conference announced the beginning of the Web 3.0 era.

That’s ridiculous.

And I’m not the only one to think so.

BoomTown response: Walt and I simply wrote an essay in which we said we thought mobile and smart phones were super important as the next platform and represented what we thought Web 3.0 innovations, such as social networking (which we also think is important, by the way) would pivot around.

We didn’t “announce” anything, although that does sound awfully grand.

But so what if we did, because it happens quite a lot?

Dan Gillmor, for goodness sake, declared it Web 3.0 in 2005. His take was different:

“The emerging web is one in which the machines talk as much to each other as humans talk to machines or other humans. As the net is the rough equivalent of a computer operating system, we’re learning how to program the web itself.”

And in 2007, Tim O’Reilly weighed in on it, responding to Web 3.0 theses by Jason Calacanis and Nova Spivack, and also noting Stowe Boyd’s thoughts on the subject.

You get my point, Bobby? Lots of folks have opinions about what is Web 3.0, much as they will when we start arguing over what Web 4.0 is.

At Web 5.0, of course, a self-aware Google (GOOG) will have begun its inevitable war with the human race, sending back a cyborg to terminate you before you wrote that post, thereby making this rebuttal moot.

But, I digress!

Scooby-Don’t wrote: Short aside: It’s interesting that neither Kara nor Walt show up very often on friendfeed, which is the best example of the 2010 Web right now. Kara Swisher has made a total of five comments there. Walt is even worse, doesn’t bring any items in there, and only has six comments. How can you know what the 2010 Web is, if you don’t use it and don’t participate in it?

BoomTown response: The fact of the matter is that neither Walt nor I like to use FriendFeed as much as you do. I daresay that no one likes to use FriendFeed as much as you do.

Thus, hinging a larger point to this, just because we don’t play in a particular sandbox you like to play in, feels a little too much in the digital weeds to me.

Just because you have chosen to be the unofficial spokesmodel for the very laudable service–about which I have done a very lovely reported post on complete with video–I am not clear why you need to accuse Walt Mossberg and I of not being social because we don’t use it as much.

We both just happen to prefer Twitter and blogging as our social outlets.

I have done 3,255 updates on Twitter since I started last year, for example, which is certainly not as much as your 21,224. But–and I think we can all agree–as blabby as I am, I am simply not as blabby as you.

So, let’s try to make this as clear as possible.

We. Don’t. Use. FriendFeed. Regularly.

As I said, we use Twitter, we use Facebook, we use SMS, we use blogging and we use a whole lot more. In fact, between us, we try out pretty much everything.

While I appreciate that FriendFeed seems to be your home planet of the moment, it is not the only place to realize your term, 2010 Web, and it feels very Web 1.0 to say so.

Scooby-Don’t wrote: The Web does NOT have version numbers. Naming what was going on in the last eight years “Web 2.0″ did us all a large disservice (Tim O’Reilly did that, mostly to get people to see that there was something different about the Web that was being built in 2000-2003 than what had come before).

But by naming it a number, I believe it caused a lot of people and businesses to avoid what was going on and “poo poo” it as the rantings of the new MySpace generation (which was just getting hot back then).

BoomTown response: Let me see if I can get this straight. You can call it 2010 Web, but we cannot use version numbers, such as Web 3.0?

Hey, we’ll call it Britney Spears if we want!

Actually, I like naming the next era of the Web after the always volatile entertainer. She’s mobile, ever-changing, ubiquitous and always entertaining! Also, there are several eras of Britney: Sweet, Timberlake Lady, Federline Lady, Young Mom, Nuts, Nuttier, Nuttiest, Hospitalized, Medicated.

My main point remains: Who died and made you Boss of Pointless Internet Catchphrases?

Scooby-Don’t wrote: See, the Web changes EVERY DAY and a version number just doesn’t do it justice. Think about today, we saw Microsoft (MSFT) announce a major new update to its search engine, named “Bing,” that turns on next week and is already getting TONS of kudos. Seriously, in the rental car shuttle today a guy I met said the demo he saw at Kara and Walt’s conference was “awesome.”

Also today was Google’s Wave, which caught everyone by surprise and which sucked the oxygen out of Microsoft’s search announcements. Check out all the reports that I liked from around the world this morning.

BoomTown response: The Web changes EVERY DAY? You’re kidding! We had no idea! Thanks for that critical morsel of info!

Earth to Robert: Walt has spent a large part of his life writing about the panoply of new devices that have come out in an unceasing flow and I have written at least 10,000 news stories and two books about the Web since the early 1990s.

Pretty much all we write about is how the Web changes every day. Actually, every second.

Scooby-Don’t wrote: But, back to the theme of this post. There IS something going on here. I covered it a few weeks ago.

The things that are happening are NOT just Twitter and search. Here, let me recount again what is making up the 2010 Web:

1. Real Time. Google caught the Wave of that trend today BIG TIME.

2. Mobile. Google, again, caught that wave big time Wednesday when it handed Android phones to everyone at its IO conference.

3. Decentralized. Does Microsoft or Twitter demonstrate that trend? Not really well.

4. Pre-made blocks. I call this “copy-and-paste” programming. Google nailed it with its Web Elements (I’ll add a few of those next week).

5. Social. Oh, have you noticed how much more social the web is? The next two days I’m hanging out on an aircraft carrier with a few people who do social media for the Navy.

6. Smart. Wolfram Alpha opened a lot of people’s eyes to what is possible in new smart displays of information.

7. Hybrid infrastructure. At the Twitter Conference this week lots of people were talking about how they were using both traditional servers along with cloud-based approaches from Amazon (AMZN) and Rackspace (RAX) to store, study, and process the sizeable datasets that are coming through Twitter, Facebook, and friendfeed.

BoomTown Response: We had folks on stage at our D7 conference discussing all this last week. In fact, we covered a whole lot more than that, which you can read about if you click on through.

While I think all yours are also interesting ideas, I am still not clear why you need to get your knickers in a knot, since we happened to think mobile platforms and smart phones are more important trends at this juncture.

Also, could please explain how Google “caught that wave big time Wednesday when it handed Android phones to everyone at its IO conference.” Google is innovative because they give free swag to folks?

We gave free swag to folks this week at D7, so I guess that makes Walt and I 2010-Web-worthy!

Scooby-Don’t wrote: So, why doesn’t a version number work for these changes? Because they don’t come at us all at once. A lot of these things have been cooking for years. The Internet makes iteration possible. Tomorrow will be better on the Internet than today. In the old world of software you’d have to wait for the compilers, then you’d need to distribute tons of CDs or disks. That no longer needs to be done.

The idea that we have a version for the Web is just plain ridiculous. It makes the innovations we’re implementing too easily dismissed. How many times have you heard that “Twitter is lame?” I lost count 897 days ago.

Now, is using a year number, like what I’m doing, better? Yes. It gets us out of the version lock. And it makes it clear to businesses that if you are still driving around a 1994 Web site that it’s starting to look as old and crusty as a 1994 car is about now. Executives understand this. It’s a rare executive who drives an old car around. Most like to have the latest expensive car to get to work in.

Same with the Web. Calling it the “2010 Web” puts an urgency into what’s happening. If your business isn’t considering the latest stuff it risks looking lame or, worse, leaving money on the table. Just like driving a 1994 car risks looking lame or, worse, breaking down a lot more often than a newer car.

BoomTown response: Actually, I would have to say that your year numbering system is deeply confusing and I am not sure we can treat Internet development like some auto or, even, say, fine wine.

Ah, that 1995 Web was saucy with a smooth Netscape IPO finish, while 2001 had a disappointing popped-bubble tone, due to the excessive tannins of Pets.com. Now, the 2009 is still very young, but it has a frothy Twittery taste, which goes surprisingly well with brie.

Scooby-Don’t wrote: Is the year metaphor perfect? No, I’m sure there are a few things wrong with it. For one, if you want to host a conference based on the “trend” you’ll have to change your conference name every year. That costs money, which is why conference companies like to have more stable trends that they can exploit for a few years, at least.

BoomTown response: D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7. So far, changing the number has worked out well for us that we’re going to go for D8!

Scooby-Don’t wrote: Also, there are some clear “eras” in the Web, so I could see wanting to suggest that we’re in the third era of the Web, but I’ve been studying this for the past eight years and calling the second era “Web 2′ actually held us back because mainstream users didn’t think anything was happening in the past few years and Web 2.0 became a useless phrase anyway.

BoomTown response: You must know that mainstream users don’t pay one bit of attention to any and all of the dumb terms Silicon Valley comes up with.

And, with all the obviously massive change that has happened in the past few years in tech and the Internet (iPhone, Kindle, Facebook, Twitter to name a few), it seems odd to say that anything has been held back.

Frankly, it would be nice if tech innovation took a breather once in a while.

Scooby Don’t wrote: Anyway, can we use year numbers to describe the Web now? It’ll make it easier to evangelize the modern world to businesses. We’re entering the 2010 Web, that’s what I’m exploring. Calling the Web a version number is for people who don’t really understand, or participate in, what’s going on here. Kara and Walt, you gotta do better here.

BoomTown wrote: What’s in a name?

Well, it’s dang easy to attack, of course, instead of actually discussing the actual premise that we were outlining in our essay, titled “Welcome to Web 3.0.”

As we wrote:

“So what’s the seminal development that’s ushering in the era of Web 3.0? It’s the real arrival, after years of false predictions, of the thin client, running clean, simple software, against cloud-based data and services. The poster children for this new era have been the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and iPod Touch, which have sold 37 million units in less than two years and attracted 35,000 apps and one billion app downloads in just nine months.”

So, if you want to just focus on the name, then you gotta do better here.

Until then, you say 2010 Web, we say Web 3.0 and let’s call the whole thing off.

Federated Media Will Search for New Leader Says Founder and CEO Battelle (Plus a Web Squared and Double-D Video!)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:32:20 +0000

John Battelle (pictured here), the founder, chairman and CEO of Federated Media Publishing, told his staff this morning that he will begin a search for a new top exec to take the company into its next stage of growth.

Battelle, who is apparently not leaving the San Francisco-based company, wrote that the new exec–whose title could be CEO–would report to him.

In a post on the FM site about the move called “The Start of Something, Again,” he wrote:

“It’s time to take it to the next level. FM is no longer a scrappy startup, and while its leadership team is deep and experienced, we’ve come to the conclusion that to take the company to the place we all know it can go, we need an additional leader on board. So today, I’m announcing that I’m officially launching a search for that position. It used to be you did this in private, but we live in the world of social media, and one of FM’s mores is transparency. I want to honor that value today.

So let me be clear: I am in no way leaving the business. This new leader–the title will depend on the person–will be responsible for running the business–taking all reports and managing to our plan–but he or she will be working very closely with me.”

FM, which sells online advertising for a large group of social-media sites and blogs, raised $50 million in funding a year ago from Oak Investment Partners, giving it a valuation of over $200 million.

The start-up had previously raised about $4.5 million from other investors, including the New York Times, the Omidyar Network and Panorama Capital.

FM reportedly did $40 million in revenue last year and has been cash-flow positive for many years, although the recent economic downturn has impacted its bottom line.

Here is a video interview I did last night with Battelle and others at a dinner he and Tim O’Reilly threw in San Francisco for Silicon Valley movers and shakers, related to the upcoming Web 2.0 Summit that they organize.

He did not mention the exec search at FM, though–instead he talked about the next phase of Web 2.0, which he is now calling “Web Squared.”

No kidding.

Here’s the video–which also includes CBS (CBS) Interactive exec Zander Lurie suggesting a more buxom name for D: All Things Digital:

[ See post to watch video ]

Microsoft's Stephen Elop Speaks!

Kara Swisher — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:40:29 +0000

In BoomTown’s ongoing series, “Microsofties on Parade,” I spent some time earlier this week with Stephen Elop (pictured here), president of Microsoft’s Business division.

Reporting directly to CEO Steve Ballmer, Elop is a newbie, having gotten to Microsoft (MSFT) only a year ago.

Which is why he is enthusiastic in his determination to tell the world that the software giant has gotten the open religion and is becoming “the most interoperable company in the world.”

Elop said that humdinger earlier this week, when he was in San Francisco for an onstage Q&A with Tim O’Reilly at the Web 2.0 Expo.

The statement was met by a show of “no” hands, after O’Reilly asked who in the audience thought that was true.

Still, Elop pressed on, also hinting that Microsoft’s Office products–Excel, PowerPoint, Word–could even be coming to the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.

“Not yet, keep watching,” said Elop, whose portfolio has purview over Office, as well as the Dynamics business applications division and Unified Communications products.

I suppose Elop can be that cheeky, after a lot of Silicon Valley experience as COO of Juniper Networks (JNPR) and CEO of Macromedia, which was acquired under his tenure by Adobe (ADBE).

Or, it could be that he knows from having five kids–including triplet 10-year-olds–that patience is a virtue and that there might be a day when more hands might shoot up.

In any case, here is a video interview I did with Elop, where he talks about making Microsoft a more open and innovative place, the changing business model of software and more:

[ See post to watch video ]

The "Billionaires' Dinner" at TED: Readjusted for the 2009 Econalyspe

Kara Swisher — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 10:13:43 +0000

Many years ago in the midst of the Web 1.0 boom, when working as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, BoomTown redubbed an annual dinner that book agent John Brockman threw at the TED conference.

It was jokingly called the “Millionaires’ Dinner,” but I renamed it the “Billionaires’ Dinner.”

That was due to the frothy fortunes that had been made at the time by the Internet pioneers, from Amazon to AOL to eBay. Get it?!?

Well, despite the economic meltdown, there were still a lot of billionaires in attendance at Brockman’s most recent dinner last Thursday in Long Beach. But he recounted to me that the proceedings were a lot more focused on the serious times we are in, as was the whole digerati-packed conference held last week.

Indeed, Brockman now calls the event the “Edge Dinner,” after his lively Edge Web site, where he presides over a variety of eclectic online debates and discussions (in January, for example, the topic was: “DOES THE EMPIRICAL NATURE OF SCIENCE CONTRADICT THE REVELATORY NATURE OF FAITH?”).

Since I managed to miss the fete entirely (embarrassing confession: I fell dead asleep at 7 p.m. and did not wake until the next morning) and could not chronicle it, Brockman allowed me to post some photos from the event taken by him and by former Microsoft research guru and current intellectual property mogul Nathan Myhrvold.

Here are some, and you can see the rest here (click on the images to make them larger):

Google co-founder Larry Page and Applied Minds’ Danny Hillis

Former AOL kingpin and Revolution Health’s Steve Case and Jean Case, Case Foundation

Twitter CEO Evan Williams and Neoteny’s Joi Ito

Nathan Myhrvold, Google’s Marissa Mayer and Nathan Wolfe of Stanford University

Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos

Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates and DEKA’s Dean Kamen

New Media Nabobs Tim O’Reilly and Arianna Huffington

The Video I Forgot to Post From the Web 2.0 Summit Last Week

Kara Swisher — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:26:22 +0000

I blame post-election exhaustion for rendering me comatose after Tuesday, which is how this video I did at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last week got stuck in my to-do-later pile.

(I did manage to get the MySpace Music party video up though, but that was because it was more fun!)

Well, it has since been fished out, including interviews with conference organizers John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly, as well as Demand Media’s Richard Rosenblatt (who is apparently scared of me, which is just the way I like it) and Microsoft’s man-in-Silicon-Valley Dan’l Lewin.

The overall message of the Web 2.0 Summit: Batten down the hatches, except tech always rises to the surface like some kind of econalypse-fighting styrofoam.

Well, we will see about that particular miracle, but here is the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Web 2.0 Conference This Week–Lance Armstrong, Al Gore, Jerry Yang, Mark Zuckerberg…and Lionel Richie?

Kara Swisher — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:00:53 +0000

On Wednesday, an always worthwhile Internet-focused conference, the annual Web 2.0 Summit, kicks off in San Francisco.

The lineup for the three-day event is particularly good this year and it is also a perfect time to take the temperature of the Internet’s movers and shakers, given all the hubbub of late with the weak economy. (BoomTown will thus be there with the trusty–and shaky–Flip video, chronicling it all for future generations.)

Speakers will include bicycle champ Lance Armstrong, Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang, former VP Al Gore, Google.org head Larry Brilliant, Paul Otellini of Intel (INTC) and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, among others, chattering away on a wide range of topics. (You can see the full schedule here.)

There’s also, of course, a passel of parties, including one on Thursday night thrown by MySpace Music. And it will–shades of Web 1.0!–feature an exclusive performance by Lionel Richie (and also DJ AM).

I am, I shall admit it and without irony, a closet fan of Richie. And why not, with so much infectious fluff to choose: “Hello,” “Say You, Say Me,” “Three Times a Lady.”

Most importantly, I will be curious to see if there will be “Dancing on the Ceiling” among the beaten-down start-up crowd. (See that music video below and ponder exactly why you know you know each and every word to that funkadelic song.)

Hosted by Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle, the Web 2.0 Summit is called “Web Mets World” this year. By that, BoomTown is inferring that its organizers think it is time for the Internet to grow up. But why don’t we let them speak:

The commercial web is now a teenager—it’s been fifteen short years since Marc Andreessen released the Mosaic browser. To put this in perspective, television as a commercial medium reached its fifteenth birthday in 1956—the year Elvis Presley made his first appearance on national TV…as we pondered the theme for this year, one clear signal has emerged: our conversation is no longer just about the Web. Now is the time to ask how the Web—its technologies, its values, and its culture—might be tapped to address the world’s most pressing limits. Or put another way—and in the true spirit of the Internet entrepreneur—its most pressing opportunities.”

And, of course, here’s Lionel:

Dinner and Chatting with Rupe (aka BoomTown's New Boss)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:57:51 +0000

Did I wangle a seat right next to soon-to-be Dow Jones owner Rupert Murdoch last night at the Web 2.0 Summit dinner?

Of course I did, continuing in the shameless BoomTown tradition of trying to get gratis meals with moguls (like our ongoing efforts to raise money for DonorsChoose.org and get a free lunch with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang).

(Here’s a picture above that I nicked from Valleywag, as they called me “abrasive” in their post and said I was carrying water for News Corp.-owned MySpace with my incessant questions about rival Facebook’s business model and insane valuation. To the first, I say that’s like a commercial sander calling Comet abrasive and, to the second, I obviously now have to start slapping MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe’s handsome face around to maintain my scratchy cred.)

In any case, the News Corp. chairman and CEO could Web 2.0 it up with the rest of the geeks, as it turned out, and managed to touch on topics ranging from the Facebook valuation to the state of the media industry to the need for even more digitization across the landscape.

If you want to see Murdoch in action, here’s some snippets of his onstage interview, along with MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe with conference co-host John Battelle. It’s a little hard to hear, but worth the watch.

He talks about such topics as his love of Silicon Valley, the future of MySpace (owned by News Corp.), the renewal of DeWolfe’s contract, Google, Facebook, his hope for the New York Times (Would he like to kill it? “That’d be nice,” he answered.), the “half-dead” CNBC (the main competitor of his new Fox Business channel) and, of course, his plans for his newest shiny toy, The Wall Street Journal (more culture!).

I asked him, no surprise, about the $15 billion Facebook valuation, which prompted Murdoch to say News Corp. was drastically undervalued. That’s cheeky!

Thanks also to the other Web 2.0 Co-Host Tim O’Reilly for asking Murdoch when he was going to fire BoomTown! Job security? Nope! Rupe’s answer: “There’s still time!” (Hopefully, after he shivs the Times and CNBC.)

Here the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Web 2.0 Dinner and Schmoozefest

Kara Swisher — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:27:38 +0000

I went to a dinner last night hosted by John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly of the Web 2.0 Summit, and it was one of the more schmoozy events I have been to in a while.

The event–this year at Foreign Cinema in the Mission District of San Francisco–is held to elicit feedback from the Internet’s movers and shakers about the new directions the conference, set to take place in San Francisco in mid-October, should head in.

Except Battelle and O’Reilly already came up with a theme: “The Web’s Edge.”

I am not entirely sure what that means. Is it that it is at an edge? Or that we need to look at the edge? Or just that things just feel all pointy lately? Big thoughts all!

In any case, the party was a lot of fun and filled with digital personalities, like Mitch Kapor and Ann Winblad, as well as a few folks I interviewed like ex-AOLer Jon Miller, ex-Fox exec Ross Levinsohn, VC David Sze, Tina Sharkey of BabyCenter and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Air Larry

Kara Swisher — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 07:29:07 +0000

Can I resist?

Nope!

So here’s a link to a lovely movie of Google founder Larry Page arrving at Foo Camp this weekend via helicopter. The video and also these photos of the helicopter and Page (and former Googler and Blogger founder Evan Williams) were taken by Scott Beale of Laughing Squid (how does a squid laugh?), a site that says it is dedicated to “art, culture and technology from San Francisco and beyond.”

I wrote a post and did a video yesterday about the annual alpha-geek confab, run by tech publisher Tim O’Reilly, where hundreds come to kibitz about the outer reaches of the future of technology and also, well, camp in tents.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Foo Camp: Alpha-Geeks Gone Wild

Kara Swisher — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:52:22 +0000

Sadly, I was not there to see Google’s Larry Page land a helicopter on the lawn up at Tim O’Reilly’s annual geekfest called Foo Camp, so I could mock him to his face.

(Note to Larry: That better be an awfully big solar footprint you’re building at the Googleplex in Silicon Valley to replace all the carbon emissions your various flying machines spew.)

Since I had to trade kid duty, I could only get up there Friday night for the opening festivities, which are held annually at the Sebastopol headquarters of O’Reilly Media.

Still, it was well worth the trek north of San Francisco to get a short glimpse of some new and sometimes quite wacky ideas about the future of digital development.

The conference is almost entirely user-generated, as people sign up to lead sessions on a variety of sometimes esoteric topics in rooms scattered all through the facility.

While most conferences look at the here and now, Foo Camp is aggressive in its quest to get people to think outside the box.

In fact, if there were a box, the brainy denizens of Foo Camp would probably turn it into a time machine/beer dispenser/robot ninja warrior.

It could happen.

Many big wheels and many more big brains were there to figure it all out. Indeed, as you will see from this video, there is still a very pure and very infectious enthusiasm after many years at Foo Camp, even though some have complained about its ever-larger size.

So, for those who wanted to go and could not get in, here is a rather long glimpse at the first night of Foo Camp, including campers trying unsuccessfully to introduce themselves with only three words, a look at the tents, a talk with Tim O’Reilly and some in attendance explaining why they come:

[ See post to watch video ]