Bloggers Blog about Me and My Blog

Honestly, I don't mean any disrespect but having to register to comment on a blog is annoying and a huge barrier to entry to me commenting. I don't understand why so many people have that setting when we've got things like captcha to get spam and can block or remove any comments you want. Blogging is about conversation!!

At any rate, I wanted to leave a comment on here, thanking Zach for writing about my book and buying it and giving me some credit even though he thinks Web 2.0 is lame and annoying. Also wanted to respond to a few things he wrote. But I got impatient registering, so I'm doing it here.

#1: Personally, I think the only thing more annoying than the phrase "Web 2.0" (and I agree, it is annoying) is people who say we're in "Web 3.0." We're not. Those are marketing and press people trying to get ink or people making a tired joke that I've heard a hundred times since I started working on this project. Web 2.0 was a fundamental shift-- even as it built on the late 1990s-- and we're not done with it. We're only now figuring out the monetization of it, in fact. Definitions I hear of Web 3.0 either aren't here yet, are just a small iteration off Web 2.0, or aren't big enough to warrant the name.

#2: I love the touchstone of the hometown and best friend. Those were crucially important to me in my reporting and still are. Particularly living in Silicon Valley, where we all get so absorbed in these companies. But it's important to keep in mind something doesn't have to be 100% mainstream anymore to be a huge multi-billion-dollar Web business. There are more than 1 billion people online. This was even the case when Web adoption was more nascent. I know a lot of people who have never-- and will never-- use eBay, for instance. Same with Skype. Same with PayPal. 

Also, your best friend may never get on Facebook, and Facebook could still become mainstream over time. Part of its promise is its utility status on campuses, and increasingly high schools. So while it's great and all if people my age join, just by time passing, Facebook starts to take over 30-year-olds and up. (Unless of course they stumble, which they still could.) I know I harped about this in the book so sorry to reiterate. But I get stuck in thinking "I'd never use that!" too and sometimes count companies out, when really, I'm just not the target. And that's OK, because the whole market is so huge. I'm not Lane Bryant's target audience either (in part because i have resisted a mad brownie craving for three hours now!)

#3: You have to be the first person who has ever said these guys are normal or mainstream!! If everyone you know is just like Max Levchin you run in a strange, strange crowd my friend!

Anyway, again thanks for picking it up and writing about it!

Here are a few other links this week while I'm giving shout outs. Vishal kindly wrote about how I've used Web 2.0 to market the book, which is awesome because I constantly agonize about how-much-is-too-much! and BEST FOR LAST: I also got a shout out from a blog all about cupcakes!!! My editor was especially pleased with that one...and of course everyone at the party was pleased about the cupcakes!