Web 2.0 - Nothing to see here... moving right along...

A lot of people are reading and writing about Web 3.0 again - Spurred by Alex's post on RRW.

I, myself, have written about Web 3.0 late last year. Here's an excerpt:

Web 3.0? Are you serious? Apparently a lot of people are. More than I imagined. It seems from the search results, though, Web 3.0 is some sort of Web 2.0 - except with more of everything. More mainstream users, more revenue (or finding a way to get revenue in the first place), more programmable etc.

To summarize - I thought it was a silly idea.

I was going to ignore the subject this time until I read a post by Peter Rip. I love this quote:

"VCs have always made money at finding the ideal point of friction between the Present and the Future. Profits accumulate in the gap between What Is and What Is Possible. Web 2.0 is now firmly in the category of What Is."

The quote caught my eye because one or two VCs I have spoken to (and an awful lot of investor types are always fishing around) make the statement "oh it's too early for this kind of thing" (this kind of thing being a focus on Attention as a consumer tool). It always makes me laugh.

I think Peter is spot on. I too am tired of all the 'me too' services out there. They are so unoriginal. In many cases the winners have been decided.

I do have a problem, however, with claiming that Web 3.0 is all about web services. Web services are an old idea and APIs are already part of the Web 2.0 evolution. So to claim that they are part of Web 3.0 is a bit like saying 'HTML is part of Web 2.0'.

APIs are here to stay. Screen scraping will reduce over time as apps either play nice or die. But I don't think that broader adoption of APIs is a sufficient paradigm change (at least on its own) to justify a new version number.

So to summarize:

• Web 0.5 was about communication - Chat/Email.
  
• Web 1.0 was about one way publishing - CMS/Portals - Corporates came first and they declared their message to us poor users. Community was relegated to a second class citizen on forums (if at all)
  
• Web 2.0 was about two way publishing - Blogs/YouTube/Digg - The community (specifically the individual acting as part of a community) become a first class citizen. The web became personal.

I am not sure Web 3.0 is coming. At least not any time soon. Instead I think the next big opportunity is Media 2.0.

I think that Web 2.0 was merely an overdue adjustment in our thinking. It was a realization that the web is not just another broadcast medium. That broadcasting radio/TV/print over TCP/IP was not the point or the promise of this new platform. It was a realization that interaction models that empowered the audience to become the most important part of the ecosystem was the actual point of the medium.

It's like when TV grew up and stopped doing radio plays and started doing lifelike drama.

I think the next revolution is the web transforming other forms of media. That is, creating interaction models that go beyond the web (or extend the web into more places and form factors). It's about the web transforming traditional TV, Radio and Print to become more interactive. It's about democratizing the mainstream - not just on the web - but everywhere.

Things are proceeding exactly according to plan

As I predicted with the Media 2.0 Roadmap - more and more TV will be about airing "What's popular" from the web. Just like Current.TV.

Here's a post covering the topic further entitled "You can be on TV!"

VH1, currently airing the third season of "Web Junk 20," this moth premieres the Jack Black-hosted "Acceptable TV," which attempts to fuse TV with the Web. In February, Nickelodeon debuted a two-hour programming block called "ME:TV," featuring contributions from 10-year-olds. TLC recently began a six-part documentary series, "My Life as a Child," in which kids were given cameras to videotape their lives. Also, high-profile, consumer-created ads for Doritos, Chevy and Dove ran during the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards.

[...]

Current TV, now in about 40 million homes, predates the YouTube sensation with its viewer-created "pods," which make up a third of its programming. Joel Hyatt, who co-created Current TV with Al Gore, is understandably a little irritated that his network — which launched in August 2005 — hasn't always been given the credit it deserves.

"We pioneered the concept. We are the only television network totally premised on the concept of viewer-created content," says Hyatt.
Hyatt says Current purposely wanted to level the playing field in television, rather than unveil itself as a Web site. (Current does boast a robust Web site and plans to launch a full "destination" site this summer.)

I think the way that Current.TV allows its audience to join the conversation is amazing. It is the embodiment of next generation TV. The reason they don't get the credit they deserve though, I think, is that they themselves don't join the conversation beyond their own network/blog.

My Media Consumption Diet

Jeremiah has started this meme - I follow in his footsteps!

Here is my Media Consumption Diet (most used at top, least used at bottom).

Web: I get most of my web content via RSS. I read my favorite authors and track my information junkie world via FeedDemon because I am one of those people who has to read every single item.

I also (of course) run Touchstone so that I can get an ongoing view of my news while I work. Touchstone also, by virtue of it's "Automatically Find Information For Me" feature regularly finds information first before any of my trusted authors repeat it in the echo-chamber.

Any other web-browsing happens from recommended links from friends. I occasionally check Techmeme for 'what's popular right now'.

I subscribe to 176 Sources directly + The rest of the entire feed universe via Touchstone.

I also get a lot of mainstream news from Newsmap - I have it as an Active Desktop Component on my second minitor - it is amazing.

TV: I am as big a TV junkie as I am a Web/RSS Junkie. I watch too many shows every week (including Daily Show, Colbert Report, Lost, Battlestar Gallactica, Boston Legal and others). I get most of my shows online. The only TV I watch that comes from my cable or over the air is CNN (for real news and weather!!), Fox News for excitement and propaganda and BBC for a more international perspective. I avoid Australian news because it is rarely interesting or significant.

I watch my downloaded TV via Windows Media Center on a TV.

Movies: I used to watch a lot more movies than I do now. With all my TV consumption I have found that my attention span has been reduced to 41 minutes (the time it takes to watch a typical TV show without the ads). I find it mildy disturbing that I get so restless at the 41 minute mark. I often think to myself "A TV episode would be over by now and probably told a more compelling story".

That being said though, I have a long and growing list of landmark movies in my life that I try to convince everyone I meet to watch. I love movies. I get most of my movies from the theatre - some on DVD to play catchup or for what I call "DVD Movies" - movies not worth the cinema experience.

Update Here: Jeremiah asked me to clarify if my TV/Movies were watched 'On Demand' (or as some might call 'Time Shifted'). The answer is 99% yes. I rarely wait for the networks to tell me what to watch and when. In fact, living in Australia - if I did that, I'd never see anything because they would pick up the show 2 seasons late and cancel it after 5 episodes.

Communication: I access my email from either my PC, Tablet or Laptop. I am addicted to my email. I used to route my Gmail through Outlook, but my Outlook 2007 Beta expired and I have been too lazy to re-install it. The result has been amazing. Gmail + Online Office style apps have kept me going for a month now! When I am out I check my Gmail via my i-Mate JasJam Pda/Phone over Telstra Next-G.

I also sit on Skype and MSN/AIM all day (via Trillian). 99% of my communication is done via Skype chats or calls (even to land-lines from skype in and out).

Twitter is a bit of fun also. I started a MySpace account to see how it worked and now people keep adding me as friends. I don't like using it though (maybe that's understating it a little).

Music: I listen to my MP3s mainly. Sometimes when I remember I go to Last.fm. I love music but lately I have not put much emphasis on it.

Magazines: I used to read Time and a few others. But they are always 2 months behind on news. Like Jeremiah I think it's helpful to know when stuff has hit the mainstream but... latley I don't care.

Yes... I am an information addict.

What’s your Media Consumption Diet?
I tag Marjolein, John Tropea, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Chris Messina, Marty Wells and also my contacts at the Media 2.0 workgroup to share how they get their information. Or if you don’t have a blog, leave a comment to your media consumption diet.

MeeVee is collecting your Attention Data

It seems like Attention Data is becoming more and more pervasive. Now MeeVee is asking users to specify their interests so that it can find videos for you.

According to VentureBeat:

"So far, MeeVee has let you create a calendar showing you whenever say, performer Jay-Z appears on a TV show. Today, MeeVee has unveiled a way to track Jay-Z related videos, too. You simply hit the “add interest” button, scroll down to the bottom, and add a keyword “Jay-Z.” MeeVee then surfs the Web and returns the most recent and relevant videos tagged with Jay-Z. You can then click on the videos and watch. See screen shots below for the Jay-Z example. A tab at MeeVee lets you toggle between TV programming and video."

It seems like MeeVee is becoming a great interface to manage and view your Media 2.0 video!

The question is, though, will MeeVee let you take that investment in it's service and allow you to export it for use in other services.

If you think signing up to multiple services is hard, imagine trying to maintain your attention profile across services as well.

I'd like to see MeeVee and others support APML in order to give users control of their own attention profile.

What do you think?

Via Touchstone

The Internet: One big rolling focus group for TV execs

According to Foxnews.com (your trusted source in news - fair and ballanced, we report you decide) TV execs are using adavanced software to get focus group type data out of the online conversation!

"Using company-designed technology, BrandIntel scans "literally billions of blogs, message boards and forums" using specific key words such as an actor's name or show title, said Coristine, lead analyst for BrandIntel's media division.

(Toronto-based BrandIntel does consumer research for other industries, including automative and hospitality.)

The flood of data is filtered for relevancy and then sorted and ranked to indicate, for instance, how likely someone is to view a program or whether they like or dislike a series premise. It can be cut even finer, according to BrandIntel."

Wow. I wonder what that software is.

Imagine if the average Joe had access to it for their product, industry, brand and interests.

An ebb of power from the few to the many...

As you may have noticed, the Touchstone blog is starting to move away from the academics of Attention Management toward the more practical goals of helping people manage their media consumption and business relationships/execution. So in that spirit let’s talk about the mainstream media for a second...

I'm watching Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN at the moment and they have spent TWO segments about the Rosie O’Donnell Vs. Donald Trump publicity stunt feud that is going on right now. Don't know about it? Don't worry it is a pointless waste of time.

Suffice to say there were some inflammatory statements made on both sides and now Donald is threatening to sue Rosie for defamation.

Anderson brought in legal analysts to discuss if Donald had a case etc, etc.

Are you serious? Anderson is the guy who confronted Mary Landriew live on CNN about the governments slow response to Katrina and he is now hosting a lightweight pop culture show!




Perhaps John Stewart said it best when talking about the TIME magazine declaration of 'You' as the people of the year.
In response to the TIME spokesperson's statement that, in regard to Media, "…there has been an ebb of power from the few to the many" Jon Stewart said:

"It's almost as though consumers have moved on because mainstream media has abdicated its responsibility...."

Watch the segment here:



There have been plenty of false statements that deserve legal action in the last few years. Statements that have resulted in the death of thousands of people and massive worldwide unrest. I think Rosie and Donald's little feud does not deserve prime time CNN airtime and legal analysis when those issues are still unresolved.

With the volume of real and valuable information out there about issues that affect our lives, it is my hope that attention management and engagement tools will help users see information that really matters, instead of stupid fluff pieces.

Perhaps, also, those same tools will help publishers/outlets understand the value (in terms of affluence and conversion rates) of participants who prefer real news over the false buzz generated by empty pop culture feuds that chew up valuable air time.

Search Engine Optimizing Media

Are we now at a stage where online distribution and discovery via search means that media creators need to Search Engine Optimize the name of their TV shows and Movies?

I just discovered a mini-series on Sci-Fi Channel called 'The Lost Room' because I was searching for stuff about 'Lost'.

Was that a coincidence, or was there a decision to name the show in such a way that it would get discovered by online fans of another, very popular, property targeted at the same audience?

I wonder...

In any case, it worked. I am now watching the 3 part mini-series.