1. The irony...the logo for you Weblogs, Inc. is near the top center, =)

Posted at 6:03PM on Mar 6th 2006 by RT

2. I can assure you that we will be part of the 10%... our business plan is based on this new technology called "earnings."

Posted at 6:20PM on Mar 6th 2006 by Jason

3. Shh! Give all the startups a few more months to be sold to Newscorp or NBC before you go blowing the whistle that there's nothing special about the web 2.0 boom.

I wouldn't class Weblogs at web 2.0, I don't know what Jason's opinion is but I'm sick of these analysts harping on about 'blogging' as if it's some kind of amazing development; it's a text WYSIWYG editor! a blogger is nothing more than a writer.

Posted at 6:28PM on Mar 6th 2006 by Adam

4. If your prediction comes true (and it wouldn't surprise me), that's a lot of logos to add to the over-cute pile in the sky.

Posted at 8:53PM on Mar 6th 2006 by Easton Ellsworth

5. Jason, I was pulling your leg. WIN has content, advertising, readership and is backed by AOL. Now, if it were one of the 20000 social "bookmarking" sites then I may disagree.

PS I believe branding and name recognition are important to a sites success. To the majority of people switching to online content from other forms of mass media may not recognize, not care to remember sites named "renkoo" "yedda" "jamendo" "tagzania", but I could be wrong, people could catch on to the odd names.

Posted at 11:58PM on Mar 6th 2006 by RT

6. I wouldn't even refer to AJAX as a technology, more a concept.

These things are always overhyped. People were saying the same things about the web itself in '94 when it started to take off.

Jest get over it and get on with it. Let the marketeers and the leeches do their thing and you do yours. You will benefit from their hyping. Many people will stumble using Web 2.0 technologies for completely inappropriate things, however their mistakes can be salvaged and lessons can be learnt for the rest of us as things start to settle down.

What annoys me most, is that it should be Web 3.0. The people who have coined this phrase blatently wern't around in the days when the web was full of pure data, and very little server programming. I'd refer to the designer-led days of the dot.com boom as the second major milestone of the web's development.

Your absolutely right that it's a term for non-technically minded people. I'm not sure whether you think this is a bad thing or a good thing. I believe it's a good thing. The desire to confine technology to those that understand the technology is elitist.

Posted at 2:36AM on Mar 7th 2006 by Rob Said

7. Congrats on taking the leap!

It's about time more people like you publicly state the facts. There are too many "features" these days getting press and funding like they are a full fledged company. Worst of all, 75%+ of these sites don't even have a revenue model.

I'm a huge fan of the technology and understand its role in the space but let's not kid ourselves into making the same mistakes we made in the past.

Posted at 8:52AM on Mar 7th 2006 by Fortino

8. It's refreshing to know that I'm not the only one thinking this is getting out of hand....

Posted at 10:16AM on Mar 7th 2006 by Chris

9. Amazing to see these stars rating comments! COOOOOOOOOOL!
Can you help on how to add something like this to blogger?

Posted at 1:44PM on Mar 7th 2006 by Osman

10. 90%? I'd have thought +8% on financial life support, 1% making a decent independent living and 1% that go stellar. If investment history is a guide that is. (BTW - if this posts multiple times, it's a problem I'm having with Co-comment)

Posted at 7:37PM on Mar 7th 2006 by Dennis Howlett

11. Agreed.

Posted at 9:28AM on Mar 8th 2006 by Nick Aziz

12. LiveJournal is hardly web 2.0, even if they did get bought by SixApart ;)

Posted at 11:04AM on Mar 8th 2006 by Hexxenn

13. AJAX isn't even a technology, it's a methodology. It involves the coordinated use of three actual technologies (JavaScript, HTML, and XMLHttpRequest) to create pages which can change without reloading. That's all. To use AJAX methodology does not mean that you'll end up with anything desktop-like at all; it's all up to the developer.

Web 2.0 isn't even a methodology, or a technology, it's a philosophy -- an ideal. Web 2.0 simply means that the consumers of information also become producers. Anything that allows or promotes this concept is, in some way, contributing to Web 2.0.

As far as connecting to the other buzzwords goes... AJAX methodology can be used to create better web-based tools to achieve this goal, both inside and outside the blogosphere. Other long-standing technologies will evolve, like Search Engines and Browsers.

What's funny is that Microsoft is the creator of XMLHttpRequest, which makes these desktop-like interfaces possible without Flash or Java (it's the X in AJAX). However, it took Firefox becoming popular to make it an everyday part of our lives.

Posted at 1:14PM on Mar 8th 2006 by Matthew Judy

14. I totally agree Jason, all these startups that have no plan to make money shouldn't be companies in the first place.... they should still just be "side projects" people work on while they actually pull down revenues/cash from something else.

Posted at 9:40AM on Mar 9th 2006 by Mike Rundle

15. At a 90% failure rate, it's almost better to NOT have your logo on this.

Posted at 5:23PM on Mar 17th 2006 by Stacy Martin

16. Ajax was discovered in 1998 (and is a clenser)
Podcasts are downloadable audio clips

I agree, make all they buzz go away.

Posted at 8:28PM on Mar 30th 2006 by Marquee

17. Just stumbled upon your post and have to say that I couldn't agree with you more. I'm a fond reader of TechCrunch and all these so called Web 2.0 companies that launch day in and day out seem to create nothing but convoluted, ridiculous ideas that do nothing except reinvent the wheel.

As a long-time web developer, I have to say that this madness needs to stop. Users want a simple way to access their content without staying abreast of the latest technologies...and as far as I know, "tagging" everything in the universe isn't something the average user is going to be too fond of.

Posted at 9:18PM on Apr 20th 2006 by Jim

18. 1. AJAX is not a business--it's a technology.
2. AJAX is the web catching up with where desktop software was in 1985.
3. Web 2.0 is a buzzword designed primarily for people who don't know what they're talking about (or to get people to pay $3,000 to go to a conference).
4. 90% of the companies in this Web 2.0 image will not be in business in three years, regardless of how cute their logos are.

The point of the idea of Web 2.0 is not to actually have a purpose of its own, but rather to come up with what could be completely pointless and useless ways of doing thing so that maybe down the road someone will go, "I can use that for this.' And it will make the whole functionality of the internet a lot better.

Throwing out ideas just because they don't make sense at this time is more of a waste of time than coming up with those ideas. The internet itself was such an idea, but i'm sure no one will call it a bad idea.

And finally, just because companies don't make money, doesn't not make them a bad company. some of the best software and technology out there is free. And there are many companies that have a plan to make money and just don't. You can plan all you want, but what you plan and what happen are two totally different things. And for you to make light of a compny because it has a 'cute' logo, only makes you all the more ignorant.

Posted at 4:17PM on Apr 23rd 2006 by Adfectio

19. Wow, its great to see someone pinning this crap for what it is...crap. This week its Ajax and Web 2.0, ten years ago it was "push technology" and we saw numerous companies go down the toilet or get acquired, absorbed and forgotten.

Just stick to fundamentals: valuable content presented well and a profitable business model. Jeez it ain't rocket science!

-=Tim=-

Posted at 8:20PM on Apr 23rd 2006 by Tim