Pilgrim Notes

Reflections along the way.

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Web 2.0 Winners and Losers

September 21, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Micahel Calore, Wired News Online, recently asked readers for the best and worst of Web 2.0. Yesterday, he posted responses. Worst? MySpace. Sure it’s the most popular, but it’s also the ugliest and doesn’t want to play with other Web 2.0 apps. Here’s the rest of his list:

Best Top 5

Flickr (I likee.)
Odeo (I need to play around podcasting at some point.)
Writely (I personally like ThinkFree better)
del.icio.us (it is just me or is that hard to type?)
NetVibes (This is one of my faves!)

Worst

MySpace
Squidoo
Browzar
Fo.rtuito.us
Friendster

The Great Wall of MySpace

September 13, 2006 / / 5 Comments

Trying to keep out open source invaders, MySpace has decided to erect walls around its interface, claiming YouTube, Flickr and others are simply leeches on the MySpace body. Or as Peter Chernin says,

“If you look at virtually any Web 2.0 application, whether its YouTube, whether it’s Flickr, whether it’s Photobucket or any of the next-generation Web applications, almost all of them are really driven off the back of MySpace.”

It appears MySpace is going to make their space less friendly to outside companies by blocking external links in flash widgets and more. They also plan to develop proprietary widgets for video and other services.

As TechCrunch says, “It sounds like MySpace’s owners may not want to play a game where everyone wins.”

Too bad. We’ll see what happens. Maybe MySpace won’t take their ball go home. And if they do, hopefully someone will come and play even better ball than before.

Transforming a Web 1.0 site into Web 2.0

September 13, 2006 / / 0 Comments

iVillage, once the very example of websites dedicated to women, is now a perfect example of Web 1.0 thinking. Originally built around message boards, the site limits the amount of user input and customization. While the technology can easily be modified, can the administrative thinking behind the site change? can it go from a site with highly managed content to a free-wheeling customer content driven site?

NBC bought iVillage in March, Bob Wright, NBC President, recently announced that they plan to make iVillage the foundational pattern for NBCs digital efforts. Bambi Francisco of MarketWatch offers a wonderful comparison and analysis of MySpace vs iVillage and the challenges ahead for NBC.

MySpace is as close to a democratic virtual world as you can get on the Web, as its own liberating culture and subcultures allow for new talent to rise from the virtual pool of wannabes. To wit: MySpace recently struck a deal with SNOCAP so that the 3 million bands on MySpace can sell their music to their fans directly.

Ten-year-old iVillage, on the other hand, is a first-generation Internet community site, built on an earlier top-down model of what community meant to those of us who were around back in the old days of the Web — message boards. IVillage has 1,000 message boards. But they are so limiting that the only way to demonstrate self-expression, besides writing in all caps and using expletives, is to upload a photo. Additionally, iVillage is a place where news is delivered to you; where editors rule the roost; where the audience learns and takes more than they give, and where the bulk of the content is polished and scrubbed. It’s almost too perfectly maintained compared to the anarchy, mess and grunge of MySpace.

The differences remind me of my walk through the Sausalito, Calif. Art Festival a couple weeks ago. As I made my way through the very clean, organized and civil art show, I couldn’t help but think of my friends who were — at that same time — attending the raucous, eclectic and countercultural art festival called Burning Man. The two environments couldn’t be more different. One liberates our individuality, like MySpace. The other quietly asks us to conform, like iVillage.

 

Link.

 

More Social Shopping Sites

September 12, 2006 / / 0 Comments

The list of social shopping sites is growing. New York Times ran a piece on the growth of this new phenomenon. In a way, its an expansion of the Amazon reviews. Anytime I buy I book, I almost always check out the Amazon reviews/debates. It is fascinating to see how these review pages often become an ongoing conversation or argument among Amazon reviewers. Take this to the next level, social shopping allows people to share their passion for a variety of products and to build a community of friends at the same time.

Check out some of these social shopping sites:

Stylehive

ThisNext!

Wists

Coffee and a Bride

September 11, 2006 / / 0 Comments

I am not a big coffee drinker but Joyce’s Java look appealing even to me. The Coloradoan tells the story of  an offline social network where folks gathered to buy coffee, talk and forms relationships. Some folks even met and married! Joyce will be closing her doors this week.

Sadly the comments under the story suggest Joyce is closing her doors because she lost her lease due a large bookstore moving in with its own generic community coffee stand.

Let the Downloads Begin!

September 8, 2006 / / 4 Comments

Amazon Unbox Video Downloads unveils today with a variety of movies and TV shows available for download. Unfortunately their not DVD burnable but the quality is supposed to be good. By the end of the year, there should be a wide variety of downloading services and all our movie access options will expand.

(Via NYT)

OneWebDay – September 22

September 6, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Let’s all join together in a big network and sing in virtual harmony an ode to OneWebDay, coming September 22. A VC suggests that “It’s like earth day in that there will be celebrations of the web taking place all over the world.” Not sure if anything is going down in K-town but there’s a big shindig in NYC.

The Rise of Antibranding or Semiotic Disobedience

September 6, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Yipes! As the power shifts to the people, brand owners are not the only ones generating mass messages about their brand. With the all the various social aggregators like YouTube, MySpace, blogs, and more, antibranding viral messages can travel faster than official brand messages through the culture.

New York Times (Agenda Inc. LiveFeed) presents an interesting story on the rise of semiotic disobedience.  This is the act of  subverting or reinventing a brand logo to give new meaning to the signifier.  NYT introduces a cool game that makes light of the poor service at Kinkos. Disaffected is a downloadable “anti-advergame” that allows players to experience the incompetence of Kinkos staff firsthand.

Airfare Tickets

September 6, 2006 / / 1 Comment

Want to know the best time to buy tickets for your upcoming flight? Check out this Airfare Predictions site I stumbledupon.

Play Time

September 5, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Just read an interesting interview with Andy Cameron about interactive design. The interview is filled with great links to a variety of interactive exhibits and interactive artists. Andy talks about the importance of play and interaction:

So now everyone’s talking about play. It reminds me of the 90s, how everybody used the word ‘narrative’ all the time – everything had to be narrative this and narrative that – but nobody really explained what it meant or why everything had to be narrative. Narrative is actually a very simple thing at one level – a format for telling stories – but it became this almost metaphysical quality, this magical, indispensable… something.

There’s a great online play site they created for Benetton. Check it out and have some fun!
Side note: I am a big fan of play and actively research it by playing every day! In 1938, Johan Huizinga wrote a landmark book about man as player (instead of man as worker) called Homo Ludens. In the 60s, there were many interesting books and articles on play. There was an expectation that as the West was moving toward a leisure culture where more time was spent in play. In reality, we’ve ended up filling more moments with work-consciousness. There’s not room to fully open up this idea, but I will say that I believe play is an activity I engage in for the sheer pleasure of the activity, whereas work is an activity I engage for what it will produce.

There is a balance between both. And when some people engage in activities they call play, they may actually be working. And when others engage in activities they call work, they may actually be playing.

At root, it has to do with the way I look at the world and people in the world. Is the world and the people around me something I use or something I delight in.

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