Poor photo-search technology, obviously. If only it had spent millions of dollars laboriously tagging its morgue with metadata! That's exactly the kind of service one semantic Web success, SchemaLogic, provides for the Associated Press. Before, we all wished you'd stop telling us how the Semantic Web was Web 3.0. Now you can make your case with Ashley Dupré nude pictures — and we're all listening.

Radar Networks, a semantic-Web pioneer, wants to bestow intelligent search and linking upon the Internet. Planning a trip to Vegas? You'll instantly know who in your network lives there, where they work, their favorite casinos and whether they wear boxers or briefs. Radar's client software, masked as a digital life organizer, will be able to ferret out all your engagements and use them to plot out everything from your next doctor's appointment to tomorrow's Happy Hour. Or, one day, in a future version, conspire to kill you if you're not maximizing your life potential.

Search engine Spock is, similarly, just at the beginning of its ultracreepy potential. The newly launched people-finder has already been stirring up concerns over personal privacy. While every tidbit of personal info it gathers was willingly surrendered to various social networks, the information was scattered across multiple sites. Now that it's all in one place, it's easily compiled for various nefarious ends. Standards for metadata, the big kahuna of Web 3.0, just promises to make things easier for Web-scouring sites like Spock.

The problem with Spock and the greater ideal of a semantic Web is the continued need for human input. Intelligent tags for metadata don't magically appear. Humans need to establish the relationships between data points. Even Spock claims to rely on users to ensure personal data is correct. Spock is going to have a hard time keeping tabs of all 6 billion people. How exactly is a semantic Web going to manage a world's worth of data? Wikipedia can barely keep itself straight.

The really scary thing is if they actually manage to do the job. If the Semantic Web becomes real, we're all surely doomed. It's just a matter of time before the computers figure out they don't need us. So thanks a lot, Spock and Radar, for working towards a better, humanity-less tomorrow.

Imho, the next step after that, I hope, is the professional media fully embracing the new media, no longer see it as a threat to their continued employment. See amateur public writing, the former audience who is no longer silent, as sources who can get attention for their ideas without going through an intermediary.

While there is real disdain from a vocal minority from each camp towards the other, there is already cross-pollination and blending between the professional and amateur, and this "embracing" continues to grow. Online newspapers are embracing comments, using blogs as sources, recruiting blogger talent. Blogs have developed sources, formed larger networks with paid writers and higher standards. Moreover, all media has always formed a spectrum of the amateur to the professional; homogenization occurs in the middle but isn't desirable for an entire community of creators.

Of course, there is a real debate about the standards and methods of creating content, real threats to old media, and real concerns with the blogosphere. However, misapplying trite valleyspeak to that debate does nothing to advance the old media's appreciation of the new. It merely adds to the disdain... even from the blog side of the spectrum.

At least, that's what the "shiny e-brochure" received via email for a "Mr. Nick Edwards," who is apparently the editor here at Valleywag, said. The not-so-critically-acclaimed Web 2.0 Wave in the US and POLAND conference took place at Stanford University just a few short weeks ago.

Did you know that Poland has the largest Skype user base? Or the leading contribution to Wikipedia, per capita? But what does that have to do with Web 2.0? And why did Poland fall victim to the Web 2.0 hype machine, promising that "many companies are breaking new innovative ground in astounding ways." Yawn.

For any who may care, the full propaganda after the jump.

—-—-—-- Forwarded message —-—-—--
From: Clay Bullwinkel <[redacted]>
Date: Nov 12, 2006 6:34 PM
Subject: "Web 2.0 Wave in the U.S. and Poland" - brochure
To: tips@valleywag.com

Mr. Nick Edwards
Editor
ValleyWag

Dear Mr. Edwards,

Below is the shiny e-brochure announcing our event. Press can be admitted free of charge. We hope one or more of you can attend. Please also forward this to fellow journalists, friends, and Web 2.0 business people who may be interested.

Poland is coming on strong with world class Web 2.0. Many companies are breaking new innovative ground in astounding ways. It's about time that they get to know their U.S. counterparts and explore partnerships. Poland has the largest Skype user base, leading per capita contribution to Wikipedia, rampant proliferation of all kinds of media aggregation sites, leading interactive mobile TV technology, and other stunning infrastructure and user interface innovations.

If you or any of your press colleagues will be attending, please let me know with a quick email. I can then make proper arrangements at our registration desk. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Clay

Event Details [U.S.-Polish Trade Council]
The Sweet Very 1.0 Slides [Stanford.edu]
US and Polish Web 2.0 companies swap notes at Stanford [SiliconValleyWatcher]

The idea of the Semantic Web has been around since 1999. Why is the Times treating it as new? For the same reason that the Times put Burning Man afterparties on the Styles section cover: It sells papers.

But take a closer look — there's no quote from Google VP/spokesperson Marissa Mayer. In fact, there's no quote from anyone at Google. You can bet writer John Markoff gave them the chance. Other than nods to PageRank and Google Maps, the company isn't even mentioned.

(One other company gets their message through, though. The creator of would-be A.I. system Cyc tells Markoff his system should be able to answer, say, "Which American city would be most vulnerable to an anthrax attack during summer?" Sounds like a researcher going after more military money.)

In short, the Times wants to announce a trend just in case that trend actually materializes in the next few months. But don't bet on it — Google smelled a dud and didn't touch this story, and neither should anyone looking for the real next big thing.

Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense [NY Times]

Ebay and Google both benefit from the adoption of Web 2.0, or Web 3.0.

Gag me with an hors d'oeuvre stick, he said the magic meaningless word. Has Schmidt finally attended one too many conferences, or is he knowingly crowdsurfing on the hands of silly neologists?

Grand alliances shaping Web 2.0 [Financial Times at MSNBC]

Jamcracker unlocks a Web 3.0 role for the channel

What to expect from Web 3.0

Who will rule Web 3.0?

Not only are there three mentions of an Internet "version" that does not actually exist, but each mention sounds like a handcrafted conference panel topic. Someone's gunning hard to be the expert on a movement that will never arrive.

Who owns the on-demand customer? [Software as services blog, ZDNet]

That's from the overview page for the — wait for it — Web 2.0 conference. If Web 2.0 is all about Web 3.0, and 3.0 is all about 4.0, we're gonna have some serious version compatability issues.

Meanwhile, Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the Web, is afraid to say "Web 2.0," which is a danger sign if we've ever seen one. But TB-Lee (say it like J-Lo) gets quoted in an International Herald Tribune piece about this dreaded "Web 3.0." Will the creator get sucked up by the stupidity of the created? Can anyone save TB-Lee from the WWW3? Tune in next week on "Attack of the 3"!

Web 2.0 Conference Overview [Web 2.0 Con]
A 'more revolutionary' Web [International Herald Tribune]

The Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose was pretty cool, in that hardware geekery kind of way. The shwag sucked, the lunch was terrible, and the coffee was only available for free in between sessions. Aside from that, it was kinda fun out there. But, can someone please explain what exactly DSO is? Wind River had a huge, expensive booth touting DSO as the life changing technology of the future, but I still don't know what the fuck it is! I don't really know that anyone else at the show did either. Enea gave a presentation in Wind River's booth about databases, and their talk actually began with an in-depth discussion of what a database is. Seriously, they were explaining how a database is a collection of data stored outside of the program itself. No shit?! Lemme get a pad of paper and write this stuff down.

But who knows, maybe these hardware guys don't know what databases are. They certainly don't know what shwag is, as my empty show-bag attests. Two pens and a squishy Earth do not a conference make, people!

But 10,000 companies announcing IP stacks for microwaves, toaster ovens, and testicular implants do a conference make. Beware people, Web 3.0 has already been tagged as being the integration of real-world devices with the Web. No, not yer cell phone, fucker. That's Web 2.5. Web 3.0 is cameras, temperature sensors, wind velocity monitors, sunlight measurers, spedometers, and vaginal temperature gauges all hooked into the Web for greater effect.

No real gossip to report, as everyone here was too busy talking about soldering and building robots out of spare parts. But who was the poor fucker in the frog suit? The poor bastard musta been sweating his ass off, and no one at this event was drawn to a booth by someone in a fucking furry suit. Save those for the consumer shows, folks.