Beginning today, we are going to link to and summarize important web 2.0 developments, essays, posts and announcements published during the previous week.
Many of you may read Richard MacManus’ excellent web 2.0 Weekly Wrapup at his site (link). Richard, don’t think of this as stealing your idea. Rather, please consider our relatively poor imitation as a very sincere form of flattery. 
Weekly Summary:
1. We’re off to the races…the first RSS focused VC fund is announced–$100m
“Jim Moore and John Palfrey have launched RSS Investors with $100m of capital. It is the first VC fund with a focus on Really Simple Syndication, (RSS), the syndication technology at the heart of media technologies such as blogging and corporate news communication.”
More info on the fund here.
2. O’Reilly: Web 2.0 to be built on the backs of hackers
“Tim O’Reilly spoke today at Where 2.0 about the merits of holding a confab focused on mapping and location based technologies and framed it in the context of the emergence of a new platform, Web 2.0.”
“Google maps with Craigslist is the first true Web 2.0 application, neither of the sites was involved…a developer put it together,” he said. “Hackers are teaching the industry what to do.”
This is an excellent essay that Troy wrote that describes the natural evolution of a site from web 1.0 to web 2.0.
4. Vertical LEAP: the SDForum Search Engine Conference
The Vertical Leap conference was held on Tuesday, June 28 and was a must-attend event for those interested in search and web 2.0. Techcrunch profile here.
5. Nick Bradbury: Microsoft, RSS and Attention
“One of the most powerful things about RSS is that it breaks information into individual items - bite-size chunks, if you like - which theoretically enables tools and services to find out what you’re paying attention to. The more that’s known about what you’re paying attention to, the more relevant information the service can automatically provide for you (and the more irrelevant information the service can automatically discard).”
Our discussion of the Microsoft announcement is here. Their announcement is a big deal. And so is attention.xml (or at least it can be).
6. Robert X. Cringely: The Supreme Court This Week Unknowingly Pushed Us All Toward Web 2.0
“But the studios are wrong if they also think that this decision means the end for illegal file sharing. For that matter, the Supreme Court may view it that way, too, and they’d also be wrong. All it has done is change the game, accelerating a trend that was already inevitable — the transition to Web 2.0.”
7. It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur
“Excite.com took $3,000,000 to get from idea to launch. JotSpot took $100,000.”
8. Social Networks: The Network or the Service?
“But as the number of social networks and connection-services grows, the likelihood of achieving the necessary critical mass for each one diminishes.”
9. Read/Write Web: Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-up, 20-26 June 2005
Lots more to read here. Thanks, Richard.
A lot has been said about Joe’s post, “It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur” during the past few days. Which made me think — is it also a great time to be an investor?
I think so and provide reasons why in my post, Web 2.0: It’s a great time to be an investor. It would be great to get feedback to see if others feel the same. It’s clear that Web 2.0 is not only changing the rules for entrepreneurship… it is also changing the rules for angel and venture investing.
Clarence Wooten - good to hear from you (Clarence’s imagecafe was my first client when I was a wee attorney at Wilson Sonsini). Send me an email at editor@techcrunch.com
Nice compendium but why all the blind links? I think you should say where the articles you are pointing to come from, rather than hiding them until mouse-over or click. It helps give credit where credit is due, imho.
Hi, I don’t think I’ve exactly violated copyright laws here, but I was a bit lazy and will try to attribute more visable credit to the links in future posts.
In my opinion though, linking to someone is showing a lot of respect for their opinion in the first place. The extra information you’ve requested will be most useful to readers in deciding whether or not to click the link. Thank you for suggesting it.
I love Joe’s post he must have been listening to PodTech.net InfoTalks that I’ve been having with many CTOs and CEOs. Joe thanks for highlighting what PodTech has been saying.
I’d like to comment on the idea of summarizing. I see more of this “linkblogging” popping up now. I have been working on http://taghop.com for a while to try and bring together these kinds of summaries. I think they are really useful and much easier when you are pressed for time and want to tell others (and remind yourself) about things you find round the web.
We’re in early days and their’s certainly a lot that could be done with this concept - will be interesting to see where it goes….