Rumble in the Jungle 2.0

catboxing Now that Lee Gomes has taken the WBS (World Blogging Slugfest) belt away from Chris Anderson in convincing fashion (it’s really not about whether the book moved up the top seller list) we have another heavyweight bout brewing.

Mike Arrington, fresh from his all too brief stint as the blog rage eradicator, and having turned in his badge to rejoin the Gillmor Gang (hopefully with Nick Carr) at the behest of the most enraged of all bloggers (more on that below), takes on Nick Douglas of Valleywag fame over some emails Nick Douglas allegedly sent around inquiring if Mike is an investor in some startups, presumably to see if Mike has any secret investments in the companies he writes about.

I don’t know Mike, and I have been critical in the past of what I perceived at the time as a rock star attitude. But I have read enough of his posts to be very surprised if he invested in a company and then wrote about it without disclosing the investment. For one thing, Mike strikes me as an honest guy who, at least most of the time, can still remember what life was like before TechCrunch. I also know that Mike is an attorney – and I know that for him to do something like that would put his law license at risk. Whether he needs it to make a living or not, he probably isn’t keen on having it publicly jerked away from him.

So I would put the odds of Mike investing in a company and then writing about it without disclosing that fact at about zero.

And I suspect that Nick Douglas knows this as well. Which means that he either wrote these emails just to stir the pot a little (one of the many things to love about Valleywag is that it occasionally makes great fun of the so-called blogging elite) or for some other reason.

It’s the possibility of another reason that I find interesting.

Mike believes that Nick may be taking some preemptive shots in the face of greater competition from the TechCrunch family of blogs. Mike seems pretty angry about the whole thing and even tosses out the L-word (libel).

But there could be more to it. Nick told me tonight that Steve Gillmor called him and “advised” him to stop writing about Mike. Nick tells me that when he told Steve he was going to continue to look into these TechCrunch issues, Steve got huffy and ended the conversation by telling Nick he wouldn’t talk to him anymore.

Note to Mike: As stated, I don’t believe for a second that you secretly invested in any companies. But you can certainly find a better ambassador than your once and future podcast mate, Steve Gillmor.

This could get very interesting.

Update: Nick posts some thoughts at Valleywag.

Flickr TagFight

[App & Photo Repository Joined the Deadpool- too bad, it was a glorious victory]

Well, OK. So my long lost cousin Bunny had a little somthing to do with it. Maybe no one will notice the fact that almost all of the Rubel photos are him and none of the Newsome photos are me.

A pretty cool little application. Go pick a fight!

Longtail – The Movie

Link for feeds.

Davis Freeberg TKO's Real Networks

Davis Freeberg, who shares my dislike of anything connected to Real Networks, lands some well deserved blows in this very interesting post.

He correctly points out the absurdity of Real’s obsession with Microsoft’s not even released yet Zune player and then sums up his version of what I have called the Real Player Syndrome in this flurry to the jaw:

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to uninstall their software from my computer. Everytime I swear off their Real player, some clip comes along which I need their proprietary software to use. It’s neat that Real wants to put an end to DRM that locks consumers into proprietary systems, but I’d like to see them address their own service before they complain about big bad Microsoft.”

Amen brother.

That’s why I will forego watching something rather than install what is, in my opinion, computer-hijacking bloatware.

The Real Beneficiaries of the Web 2.0 Craze

web20 Donna Bogatin at ZDNet has an interesting article today asking who’s making the real money in Web 2.0.

Is it really the application developers who spend countless hours and piles of money creating occasionally amazing products that they turn around and give us for free? No, at least not yet.

Or is it the VC community with a ton of money that needs to be invested somewhere, who are trying and mostly failing to recreate the once lucrative greater fool pipeline to sell these free products to rich fools like Yahoo or poor IPO-happy fools like you and me? No, at least not yet.

Or is it the thoughtful user who takes a free product, mixes in some hard work and self-promotion and becomes a new media star? Yep, at least so far.

If you don’t agree, ask yourself this: would you rather be a fledgling Web 2.0 developer, which is the functional equivalent of being in a pick-up basketball game and hoping to make it to the NBA, or would you rather be Mike Arrington or the guys at Techdirt, which is like being Bob Costas?

Would you rather be working on the 5,913th free online calendar application, or would you rather be the woman known as “Forbidden” on MySpace?

One more. Would you rather develop a YouTube clone, or be a film maker growing an audience and a reputation on YouTube’s nickel?

The real winners are the people who use the free infrastructure provided by these so-called businesses to create something that is both valuable and portable- a brand. If someone builds a freeway that leads to fame and fortune, it’s not the builder who makes the real money, it’s the people who ride that freeway as far as it will take them.

It’s almost like Web 2.0 has turned business theory upside down. It’s not the author of the book that gets the run in Web 2.0, it’s the company that binds the book. Maybe that’s the price they charge for giving everything away.

If so, that’s OK.

Forbidden and others will laugh their way to the bank, while the Web 2.0 companies sit and wait for the next AdSense check to arrive.

Knowing in the back of their minds that the next one might be the last one.

Washington Post on the Crack in the IM Wall

Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post has an article about the crack that has developed in the IM wall thanks to the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo to allow their IM clients to cross proprietary borders and communicate with each other.

In addition to pointing out the fact that users have to have the latest version of each application to speak cross-network and outlining some some hiccups that have occurred thanks to the lack of an open standard and the resulting difficulty in erecting a bridge between two walled-in networks, Rob also describes the main reason my use of IM clients is very limited:

“Unfortunately, both program’s installers are as pushy as ever about adding browser toolbars, loading extra start-up software, and changing your home-page and Web-search preferences; choose custom-install to opt out of those intrusions.”

I call this the Real Player Syndrome. It’s the genesis of my intense dislike of everything Real- well, that and the fact they make you call them to unsubscribe to things you subscribed to online.

In the race to add features, the IM applications have become bloated caricatures of their former selves. People don’t want to use IM applications as browser-substitutes. They just want to be able to chat with other people, without network limitations.

And what about AOL? Rob says that AOL may be tiptoeing in the right direction:

“AOL is no longer reflexively hostile to letting outsiders hook into its system, having stopped trying to block AIM-compatible third-party software. But the company has only tiptoed toward interoperability, opening its network strictly to far smaller competitors. For instance, users of Apple’s .Mac service have been able to tie into AIM since 2002, and AOL says that by the end of the year, the Google Talk network will also connect to AIM.”

It’s a risky business for the IM applications with the biggest market share to knock down the walls and allow cross-network communication. But it’s inevitable and it will happen.

There’s a crack in the wall. Let’s sit back and watch it grow.

My Favorite Records:The Guess Who – Canned Wheat

This is the another installment in my series of favorite records.

In yesterday’s podcast I talked about the Guess Who, and how I believe they are greatly underappreciated, given the incredible amounts of great music (not to mention big hits) they generated in the 60s and 70s. And as luck would have it, we’re to the end of the G’s in my Top 50 Album series.

The Guess Who made 4 excellent records in a row between 1968 and 1970, starting with Wheatfield Soul (hard to find, except on an oddly paired double album CD) and ending with Share the Land. Any of them could be on this list, but I’m going to settle on just one- Canned Wheat from 1969.

cannedwheat Canned Wheat is the best place to start for those who remember the Guess Who only for their long string of radio hits. This is an excellent rock record that features some fine Guitar work from Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings’ great voice.

No Time, the first track, is a classic rock standard, that you’ve heard before. Minstel Boy is a beautiful and sad number inspired by a Thomas Moore poem. Laughing and Undun, two classic rock gems, follow.

Every other song on this record could easily have been a hit. In fact, this record could be a greatest hits record for a lot of popular bands. And it’s just one of 4 great records in a row by this under-appreciated band.

One of the things that impresses me the most about the Guess Who’s records is how well they have aged. These records sound like they could have been recorded yesterday. The true sign of musical genius is the ability to make music that still sounds fresh 20 years later. Bob Dylan does it. Springsteen does it.

And so did the Guess Who.

Technorati Tags:
top 50 albums, record reviews

RanchoCast – July 28, 2006 Edition

I did a new podcast last night.

The theme was great, but under-appreciated, guitarists. I played deep album cuts by Peter Green, Frank Marino, Brownsville Station, Derek & the Dominos, The Guess Who and more. The finale is a 12 minute blues jam by Boz Scaggs.

I also talked a little about HR 5319 (the MySpace Law) and the underground blogosphere.

Star Trek, Monty Python Style

It’s like the Reese’s Cup of television.

Link for feeds.

More on the MySpace Law

Dwight Silverman thinks I’m wrong about HR 5319 being a good idea.

Maybe, but here’s my thinking- as succinctly as I can describe it.

Yes, in theory, it would be great to have these decisions made at the local level, as Dwight suggests. The thing is, though, that I simply don’t trust the local educators to make the right decision. Plus, I know that kids are very, very clever when it comes to getting around obstacles to their desires, and if the blocking was done on some ad hoc basis, kids would find a way around it within the first day.

Let’s say it was handled on the local level, and let’s say that the principal at my kids’ school decided that since her kids are so responsible and all, that she would trust them to police themselves. I know that’s not going to work. So what would my choices be? To gut it up and deal with it or yank my kids out of the school they love and move them somewhere else? What if the principal at the new school leaves in a year and the new one changes the policy?

What if changing schools is not financially or geographically feasible?

Again, I simply don’t trust local educators to make the right decision every time. Particular when it comes to technology. And I’m unwilling to cede control to them to that degree, regardless of whether they see things my way or not. If you accept the fact that kids shouldn’t be hanging out on MySpace at school, then there is no compelling argument against HR 5319.

Now, if I could conceive of one good reason why a kid should be on MySpace at school, then maybe I’d have second thoughts. But I can’t. Not for a second.

So while there is some paternalism going on here, on both my and the legislators’ part, the overriding good of protecting our kids far outweighs the mild fear that this is the fist step in some Orwellian plan to take away all of our rights.

Kids shouldn’t be on MySpace at school. Kids don’t always know what’s good for them.

The MySpace Law is a good thing that will make schools safer and more productive for our kids.

P.S. Although I suspect he will line up on Dwight’s side of the debate, I really want to hear Seth Finkelstein‘s thoughts on this.

Update: As he mentioned in a comment, Seth posted his thoughts and, as always, makes a lot of good points. I hadn’t thought of the Republicans vs Fox angle, but that might just prove to be a very interesting by-product of this debate. Having said that, if the vote was 410-15, a bunch of Democrats must have voted for it too.