Web 2.0 This Week (Sept 25 – Oct 1)

The excitement is building over this week’s upcoming Web 2.0 Conference (October 5-7) in San Francisco. The event is sold out. It’s clear that a number of companies intend to launch this week, and so I expect we’ll be kept quite busy checking them all out.

1. Recent TechCrunch Profiles

PubSub LinkRank, Skype Video, zvents, Jotspot Live, Rollyo, FilmLoop, Slide, OPML Editor, Goowy (update), CustomScoop, Writeboard, Zoho Writer

2. Web 2.0, The Definition, Continued…

Richard MacManus summarizes this week’s evolution on the web 2.0 definitional thinking, inlcuding Tim O’Reilly’s important essay on the subject.

I also agree with Dave Winer – John Furrier may have said it perfectly in his comment to Om Malik:

Come on this is so simple.. Web 2.0 is the next version of the Web 1.0 (second generation) – it’s simply a better version than the previous version.

3. Yahoo Blog Search This Week

Stephen Baker says Yahoo will launch blog search this week.

4. New Blogging Study by Forrester Research

Information Week highlights new data released by Forrester Research last week. Ten percent of consumers now read blogs at least once per week:

Participation in three of the technologies highest on the Internet’s buzz list — blogging, reading RSS feeds, and engaging in social networking — is climbing, a research firm said Wednesday, but two of the three haven’t cracked the 1-in-10 barrier.

Ten percent of consumers read blogs once a week or more, said Forrester Research at the opening of its annual Consumer Forum. That’s double the 5 percent who browsed blogs in 2004.

Real Simple Syndication (RSS) use tripled in the same period, from 2 percent in 2004 to 6 percent this year, while use of social network sites such as Friendster.com and MySpace.com increased from 4 percent last year to 6 percent in 2005.

Via Fred Oliveira on webreakstuff.

5. Mashup Matrix

John Musser creates a great visual matrix of current mashups on Programmable Web. Let’s see how long he can keep it updated before it is simply too complicated to be usable. Great stuff.

6. Attention Trust Recorder Coming on Tuesday

Dan Farber says Attention Trust (profile) is launching a Recorder this week.

On Tuesday the organization will launch the AttentionTrust Recorder, a royalty-free, open sourced downloadable piece of code that keeps track of an individual’s behavior online. You can get the details in a podcast that features AttentionTrust Chairman Seth Goldstein and fellow ZDNet blogger and President of the organization, Steve Gillmor.

We’re big supporters of AttentionTrust and it’s ideals.

7. Google and NASA Party Together

Google is partnering with NASA on all kinds of stuff:

NASA and Google have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that
outlines plans for cooperation on a variety of areas, including
large-scale data management, massively distributed computing,
bio-info-nano convergence, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial
space industry. The MOU also highlights plans for Google to develop up
to one million square feet within the NASA Research Park at Moffett
Field.

The best commentary I’ve seen so far is from Greg Yardley, who writes:

I’m not installing the Google Implant until it’s out of beta, though.

:-) Me either.

8. Meetro Gets some Wired Love

Wired writes about Meetro, the cool new location-aware instant messaging service. We profiled Meetro here. Digg the story here.

9. Writing about me-too’s

I wrote about Zoho Writer earlier this evening. It’s very much like Writely, and Zoho has another product out that is very much like 37Signal’s Backpack.

An interesting discussion sprang up almost immediately in the comments section, led by Jason Fried at 37Signals and Sam Schillace at Writely. Both comment that TechCrunch loses credibility by writing about companies that largely copy existing applications.

Jason writes:

I’d think twice about covering such blatant rips like this — it hurts your credibility to support these sorts of businesses and ventures.

Sam writes:

I love this blog, but it would be nice to get a little deeper review of competitors than this. I think a more accurate characterization of zoho writer right now would be a ’skin’ that looks like Writely, and is strictly following along right now.

These are two individuals that I respect greatly for their contributions to the web and so I do not take their comments lightly. I’m still thinking through what our policies should be in this area…and I appreciate any feedback.

10. Wedding Proposal via Search Engine

In an incredibly romantic moment, Barry asks Yisha to marry him via Ask Jeeves. This may be only slightly better than doing it at a baseball game, but she said yes, so…Congratulations!!!