Web 2.0.11562 beta

Did you know you could drag Firefox tabs to re-order them? You could have found this or pretty much any buzz on the web at popurls.com

Bill Gates not only knows what microformats are but says we need them? Maybe he just likes things that start with “micro”?

There’s Jeremy Keith’s presentation on, what else?, unobtrusive DOM scripting, and finally this great list of AJAX tutorials.

An interesting glimpse into the heads of the latest crop of web 2.0 startups at “Under the Radar” including the office-like apps that are being snapped up before they even get to see their success. The cool social software apps are there, and basically anyone with a new app looking for venture capital or outright purchase by one of the big guys.

Elsewhere, check out Moveable Type’s venture into the Chinese market, as reported on Niall Kennedy’s blog.

Here’s a presentation I gave wednesday morning to the Boca Business Exchange, titled “Domain Names - The New Real Estate“. Of course anyone who finds the recent posts on this blog interesting is gonna already know how appropriate that analogy is.

I think there’s a great opportunity for a regional bank to step up and try financing domain names. Carefully choose the company and the domain name(s) and consider it a portfolio loan. Online businesses would gravitate to this bank, because a solid business venture would mean they could plan for a small fixed monthly cost for a premium domain name. This is more realistic for startups, instead of needing to write a large check on day one to acquire the domain name they need.

OK I’ll join the crowd in being critical of the recent decision by ICANN giving Verisign permanent rights to .com and the ability to raise prices every year. Verisign rightfully wanted to retain their right to renew in perpetuity. Verisign also wanted to be granted the right to raise prices every year. They got both.

What I don’t understand is why ICANN did not better serve the public interest by insisting on some reasonable compromise. No competition is fair, as Verisign has cooperated in recent years and divested .net and .org but why offer carte blanche? ICANN has lost a lot of credibility here. And we, the common folk, will be paying a lot more for .com domains in coming years.

My video iPod is still the best investment I’ve made in quite some time. I listen to my favorite content, with precious few ads, when it’s convenient to me. Luckily for me, technology-related subjects are not in short supply in the podcasting space.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, this great video (if Microsoft designed the iPod) really highlights the theme responsible for apple’s great successes of late. Do something simple, and do it better than anyone else. Just like in mathematics, user interface design and domain name selection - simple is best!