This Post will only make sense to Architecture Astronauts
New Zealanders and Aussies share more empathy than enmity, as well as Russell Crowe. But when The Father of Web 2.0 finds Salvation in the Valley, but arrives back and there is a battle for Middle Earth on, then I'm in, no questions asked. Strong words have been uttered by The Father : "But really, there's only so much unconstructive criticism I can bear. I'm a bit odd like that, but I hate reading cynical things - even if they're witty." Message to self do not be witty or cynical, at least together. So what has got The 2.0 Ray "McDonalds" Kroc biting at the bit... well if you cant remember how to get to tech.memeorandum i will tell you as part of my new secret alpha of a new type of self inserted rss contextual advertisement for my URL mind memory 6 syllable course : It started when I tried to remember del.icio.us but now i can remember any url and i want you to also share this power, in 6 syllables. Lets Start : Step 1 : With memeorandum; dont use the politics section. Ive told gabe to do entertainment next : techcrunch want sport. Sorry techcrunch guys, entertainment must be next. So first remember the tech sub domain - keep saying "tech dot", "tech dot" - say it five times, then you must focus on remembering the meme part...think of maming someone "mame" (possibly 'madam' will help if that is better, a short one with some booty and a mouth), Remember : "meme". Take a breath and move onto the big "O" - women will love this one even without the wit but with cynicism- this is the TRICK, remember the O and you are home. Its a long o. It's like Wednesday - Hump Day : The O which doesnt exist in the offline world, is the trick. Its the balancing syllable. You arent expecting it and once you get it, you just laugh at people who cant remember the URL. Piece of... O. Its the weekend from there : Quickly finish with "randum", which i say like random. There you go :
So the debate is to do with whether Web 2.0 is the Godfather II of the early Dot-Com Period (yahoo, ebay, amazon, netscape) or Rocky 6 sequel to the dot-bomb malaise. Now I grabbed this quote from Wikipedia as you do, because many of the arguments constructed against the 2.0 Father are based around "postmodernist" perspectives drawn especially from "architecture" :
"Postmodernity in architecture is generally thought to be heralded by the return of "wit, ornament and reference" to architecture in response to the formalism of the International Style of modernism. As with many cultural movements, one of postmodernism's most pronounced and visible ideas can be seen in architecture. The functional, and formalized, shapes and spaces of the modernist movement are replaced by unapologetically diverse aesthetics; styles collide, form is adopted for its own sake, and new ways of viewing familiar styles and space abound."
If I was at a BBQ and us Aussies love to be the one cooking, I kid you not, this is what I'd say while cooking the Surf and Turf :
1. The Web 2.0 Tim O'Reilly definition is nicely labelled by The Register as "at least a full sentence" - I totally agree. I like their pun. His map was definitely a full sentence, even without RSS included. It's not a bad definition, although I'm more in the Web 2.0 is the period that came after dotbomb, or Web 2.0 is the newer, better, cheaper internet thing. Maybe O'Reilly should have recorded his definition as a song, then it could have had more impact.
2. "Architecture Astronaut(ic)s" - I like this term mainly because of the reference to architecture which if you have sat through my wikipedia cutnpasted definition of postmodernism, architecture comes up alot, and given the totally decentralised nature of web based consumer choice + user generated content, combined with Google's deal with NASA, we are all architecture astronauts. I hope, maybe if we can get our flying license with Adam Curry :
What annoys me with this astronautical argument is that google already have the NASA deal, so the opportunity is taken. Time to move on. Adam Curry is talking about bio-diesel and thats in the right direction if you ask me. But seriously, If I was working at a hedge fund, and I was playing Nasdaq (while not messing with the federal bank of high debt 3rd world countries) I'd want to make as much money in (insert any market segment buzzword eg Web 2.0) and have as much fun with the market going down, as the market going up. The market isnt intrinsically good or bad. So why is Web 2.0 good or bad. I mean yes, the term sucks, but you dont have to put it on your business card. Compromise, put it on a blog card. But remember Hugh's gapingvoid tshirts are running out. And once they are gone, they are gone. So, you need to decide if you are a business builder, flipper or maybe just a blogger, in which case it is easy to point out the weaknesses of companies without solving problems yourself (you know this argument - its what directors say about film reviewers that bag their flick) If you're a business builder you know you need to find the right buzzword for your strategy such as the word "triangulation" and find 3 nonrelated or related variables eg i find people, technology and opportunity are good triangulating variables for executing a Web 2.0 strategy. With great timing the 4th (nda needed for Quadratic Equation). And if money is available and you need it, if your programmers like "Ajax" because they are 21 and um y'know ;) then rollup the sleeves and be prepared for at least 8 years of building, with 6 week/3 month deliverables. (how long have filo and yang been at yahoo now, a decade + ?) Also buy Jim Collins Built to Last Book, so then you can get paid to talk at closed open media conferences.
3. "Never mind, just give us the money" - If there is something I learnt (and didnt fail at btw) is raising VC isnt the destination, its the means. Its also not intellectual achievement or validation of ego. It's someone elses money, like borrowing money to play the casino from an Asian bookie, and having to give much more money back in a very short time frame. For those that havent learnt that, thats fine by me : Like I said, I view this as a hedge fund - Maybe I'll buy your servers cheap when you go bankrupt and get them over to Kevin Burton - because he'll do something useful with them. What is good is funding of the next big thing - an old school buzzword if ever there was. Finding a "killer app" - oh i cant stop. Remember always keep your buzzwords current so they dont become taxi driver conference cliche. But Dave Winer and Mark Pincus have made this point well, that at least ideas for new technologies are being funded. And to be honest, the VC rounds seem much smaller this time : Sub $10M for expansionary VC and seed rounds often self funded or couple hundred $K kicked in by founders, friends, or smart investors. The interesting topic here though is the "Features" vs "Businesses" topic. I would estimate 75% of Tech Crunch profiled companies are feature based, with only 10% becoming actual businesses. On one level of oxygen abstraction up lets compare "Businesses" vs "Gorillas" - Which of the del.icio.us, feedburner, newsgators, podshows, will become true gorillas and independently IPO and then continue to grow internationally, and through earnings, extended product lines and more employees (plus acquisitions rather than being eaten)
Mark Pincus : "I'm happy to see silicon valley getting back to its core mission, that of creating and testing lots of new ideas. I'm happy for google's success and the amount of investment that that will bring back to this very necessary american endeavor." Not just American FYI ! The best technology companies have taken global approaches from day 1.
tech dot meme O randum dot com - (t.mm-o-rndm) n. pl. tech dot meme·o·ran·dum dot com or me·mo·ran·da (-d)..
So the debate is to do with whether Web 2.0 is the Godfather II of the early Dot-Com Period (yahoo, ebay, amazon, netscape) or Rocky 6 sequel to the dot-bomb malaise. Now I grabbed this quote from Wikipedia as you do, because many of the arguments constructed against the 2.0 Father are based around "postmodernist" perspectives drawn especially from "architecture" :
"Postmodernity in architecture is generally thought to be heralded by the return of "wit, ornament and reference" to architecture in response to the formalism of the International Style of modernism. As with many cultural movements, one of postmodernism's most pronounced and visible ideas can be seen in architecture. The functional, and formalized, shapes and spaces of the modernist movement are replaced by unapologetically diverse aesthetics; styles collide, form is adopted for its own sake, and new ways of viewing familiar styles and space abound."
THE WEB 2.0 MIDDLE EARTH BATTLE-GROUND
If I was at a BBQ and us Aussies love to be the one cooking, I kid you not, this is what I'd say while cooking the Surf and Turf :
1. The Web 2.0 Tim O'Reilly definition is nicely labelled by The Register as "at least a full sentence" - I totally agree. I like their pun. His map was definitely a full sentence, even without RSS included. It's not a bad definition, although I'm more in the Web 2.0 is the period that came after dotbomb, or Web 2.0 is the newer, better, cheaper internet thing. Maybe O'Reilly should have recorded his definition as a song, then it could have had more impact.
"Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an "architecture of participation," and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences."
2. "Architecture Astronaut(ic)s" - I like this term mainly because of the reference to architecture which if you have sat through my wikipedia cutnpasted definition of postmodernism, architecture comes up alot, and given the totally decentralised nature of web based consumer choice + user generated content, combined with Google's deal with NASA, we are all architecture astronauts. I hope, maybe if we can get our flying license with Adam Curry :
"When you go too far up, abstraction - wise, you run out of oxygen. Sometimes smart thinkers just don't know when to stop, and they create these absurd, all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the universe that are all good and fine, but don't actually mean anything at all. These are the people I call Architecture Astronauts."
What annoys me with this astronautical argument is that google already have the NASA deal, so the opportunity is taken. Time to move on. Adam Curry is talking about bio-diesel and thats in the right direction if you ask me. But seriously, If I was working at a hedge fund, and I was playing Nasdaq (while not messing with the federal bank of high debt 3rd world countries) I'd want to make as much money in (insert any market segment buzzword eg Web 2.0) and have as much fun with the market going down, as the market going up. The market isnt intrinsically good or bad. So why is Web 2.0 good or bad. I mean yes, the term sucks, but you dont have to put it on your business card. Compromise, put it on a blog card. But remember Hugh's gapingvoid tshirts are running out. And once they are gone, they are gone. So, you need to decide if you are a business builder, flipper or maybe just a blogger, in which case it is easy to point out the weaknesses of companies without solving problems yourself (you know this argument - its what directors say about film reviewers that bag their flick) If you're a business builder you know you need to find the right buzzword for your strategy such as the word "triangulation" and find 3 nonrelated or related variables eg i find people, technology and opportunity are good triangulating variables for executing a Web 2.0 strategy. With great timing the 4th (nda needed for Quadratic Equation). And if money is available and you need it, if your programmers like "Ajax" because they are 21 and um y'know ;) then rollup the sleeves and be prepared for at least 8 years of building, with 6 week/3 month deliverables. (how long have filo and yang been at yahoo now, a decade + ?) Also buy Jim Collins Built to Last Book, so then you can get paid to talk at closed open media conferences.
3. "Never mind, just give us the money" - If there is something I learnt (and didnt fail at btw) is raising VC isnt the destination, its the means. Its also not intellectual achievement or validation of ego. It's someone elses money, like borrowing money to play the casino from an Asian bookie, and having to give much more money back in a very short time frame. For those that havent learnt that, thats fine by me : Like I said, I view this as a hedge fund - Maybe I'll buy your servers cheap when you go bankrupt and get them over to Kevin Burton - because he'll do something useful with them. What is good is funding of the next big thing - an old school buzzword if ever there was. Finding a "killer app" - oh i cant stop. Remember always keep your buzzwords current so they dont become taxi driver conference cliche. But Dave Winer and Mark Pincus have made this point well, that at least ideas for new technologies are being funded. And to be honest, the VC rounds seem much smaller this time : Sub $10M for expansionary VC and seed rounds often self funded or couple hundred $K kicked in by founders, friends, or smart investors. The interesting topic here though is the "Features" vs "Businesses" topic. I would estimate 75% of Tech Crunch profiled companies are feature based, with only 10% becoming actual businesses. On one level of oxygen abstraction up lets compare "Businesses" vs "Gorillas" - Which of the del.icio.us, feedburner, newsgators, podshows, will become true gorillas and independently IPO and then continue to grow internationally, and through earnings, extended product lines and more employees (plus acquisitions rather than being eaten)
Mark Pincus : "I'm happy to see silicon valley getting back to its core mission, that of creating and testing lots of new ideas. I'm happy for google's success and the amount of investment that that will bring back to this very necessary american endeavor." Not just American FYI ! The best technology companies have taken global approaches from day 1.
Griffin Mill: Can we talk about something other than Hollywood for a change? We're educated people.
posted by redbarren at 12:47 AM
2 Comments:
Whoa, it's a ben barren tour de force.
I feel like you're turning into a Memeorandum clone whose clustering algorithm has got all jumbled up. That's a good thing, BTW. :D
Yes, like Paul, I'm loving these Barren tour de force posts you're churning out! Fantastic - and a lot of great points made.
e.g. "Message to self do not be witty or cynical, at least together."
heh, point taken! :-)
cheers,
Richard
Father of the Astronauts
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