Web 2.0.11562 beta

Following up on the previous post because there’s just so much I want to say about it. I don’t want to write long, boring essays here though. So I’ll just stick to the short boring kind. Domain names like sex.com already have histories filled with controversy. So far, I think people’s competing claims to domains have been settled quickly, efficiently and clear precendent has been established for better or worse. But that will change.

When a web 3.0 startup writes up a business plan it will undoubtedly include purchasing domain names. The .com version of the principle name will require some legwork before and after the sale. Ascertaining the approximate sales price will need to be part of the feasibility study. But more to the point of this post, professional help will be needed after the acquisition.

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I live in south florida, where real estate valuations have tripled in the past 5 years. It’s a blessing only to those developers and investors who had the resources and foresight to buy properties and hold them. Relentless immigration from Latin America, retiring boomers from up north, and the weakening dollar have all contributed to the increasing relative scarcity of the fixed amount of land squeezed between the everglades and the Atlantic.

Domain names, the virtual equivalent of real property, have been performing even better than their real counterparts. The .com TLD is the beachfront property that will always command the premium valuations. The already infamous sex.com online property (analogous to NYC’s Times Square in the real property marketplace) was sold recently for $14 million. I’m sure it’s worth much more.

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This has got to be the time to celebrate Google. They have done so much right this past year or so, and despite making some poor decisions, they made some great ones this week. Pretty much everybody has read about them holding out when the DOJ paid them a visit to request their considerable search records. Not an option for small companies like mine. But when giants like Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL don’t put up any fight, you have to admire Google’s chutzpah.

Google started late in the IM game, but nevertheless it should be noted that they have chosen the federated solution, sticking to the awesome and open XMPP/Jabber standard.

Privacy is a subject I care a lot about and intend to write about occasionally. I care because it’s been under vigorous attack. Part of the blame must go to the Bush administration, who want such broad powers of intelligence gathering that our freedoms have been significantly abridged. The Bush administration fights on for more breaches in the social contract that should guarantee our personal liberties.

At least as much blame goes to the old school, short-sighted executives running some of our largest corporations. So many of our most powerful companies are led not by luddites, but by folks who just don’t get the Internet. It’s frustrating for those of us that think we see tons of revenue potential there.

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Consider Seth Goldstein’s new business venture called Root Markets for a moment. CNN Money has this article this article outlining the new service.

This new venture aims to allow users to store large amounts of their personal, marketable data to be used for their own enrichment. The same entities will be interested in that data, only now the user would be empowered to aggregate the information in a more comprehensive fashion, and to enter into only those agreements they want to in order to share that data only when sufficiently motivated to do so.
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Time for lamenting the productivity loss caused by cool changes in technology. OK, I love the javascript renaissance that is causing people to herald the Web 2.0, even if I join the majority in frowning when I hear that moniker. I suspect that may web developers have forced themselves to practise the black art because of AJAX, and that’s a good thing. But I seem to be suffering from a productivity drop-off and I blame ajax.

I continue to discover my user interface preferences as I create ajax-laden pages. It seems that they take much longer to develop. But the reality is firstly that not only does one fancy ajax-heavy page replace several old-generation pages, or versions of a page. But also that I find myself spending more time tinkering with the UI and making tiny adjustments like I did in ‘94 when the web was a new fascination to be tweaked and adjusted ad naseum.