• web 2.0

    The bubble that wasn't

    Jason Calacanis, the mop-haired founder of Mahalo, an overfunded Web directory, is musing on Twitter about "tickers and rallies past" — a Proustian substitution of stock markets for madeleines. But what, exactly, does he have to be nostalgic for? More »

    10:20 AM on Tue Dec 2 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    5,236 views, 18 comments

  • caption contest

    IE 8: Melts in your PC, not in your glass

    "It pretty much is a perfect analogy. It's functional, rational and logical. But it looks like shit and I don't get it." So says photographer eyeliam of the carved-ice vodka tap at Microsoft's Web 2.0 Expo party last night. Care to improve the headline? Write a new one in the comments and we'll replace it with our arbitrarily-determined winner. TimsBoot won yesterday with "Who do I have to 'tweet' to get a free drink around here?" (Photo by eyeliam)

    4:00 PM on Thu Sep 18 2008
    By Jackson West
    1,062 views, 17 comments

    Most discussed m0nty.au: hmm, let me try that again. IE8: <blink> and you'll miss it. more »

  • caption contest

    Who do I have to "tweet" to get a free drink around here?

    Putting the "social" in "social media" are Tacit Knowledge VP Oz Sultan, left and Yerba Buena Center Webmaster James Im, right — with both mauling online marketeer and TechSet party cohost Stephanie Agresta, center. They were probably trying to kiss their way to free drinks, since the cash bar was charging $9 for beers and $13 for mixed drinks. But hey, there were free fried cheese sticks! Can you come up with a more compelling caption? Kiss one up in the comments and we may just kiss you back by making it the new headline. Cheers to TheChris2.0 who won yesterday with "Loopt encourages New Yorkers to walk." (Photo by Brian Solis, bub.blicio.us)

    4:00 PM on Wed Sep 17 2008
    By Jackson West
    906 views, 16 comments

    Most discussed WagCurious: What's yellow on the outside and white on the inside? more »

  • spy photos

    Venture capitalists, they're just like us

    Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures carrying his own lunch order from Shake Shack in Manhattan's Madison Square to a group of tables where he was entertaining wantrepreneurs in New York for the O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo. Not pictured: Lane Becker, president of online customer-service startup Get Satisfaction, who kept his distance from the assembled nerds, pacing around a tree and chatting on his cell phone.

    12:00 PM on Wed Sep 17 2008
    By Jackson West
    1,108 views, 6 comments

    Latest by kimbjo: Where is this ass kissing coming from VW? Try as they might, we all know VC's are the rubber neck more »

  • events

    Ignite provides a sweetly earnest kickoff to Web 2.0 Expo

    O'Reilly publishing has set up the company's annual bazaar of of bizarre business models at the Javitz Center in Manhattan, but the festivities truly kicked off with last night's Ignite PowerPoint presentation spectacular hosted by O'Reilly Radar's Brady Forrest and Etsy's Bre Pettis. Pettis and friends used fourteen pounds of butter to bake 300 cupcakes and tubs of frosting, which partygoers were invited to decorate as part of a contest — the winners, Nick and Danielle Bilton, crafted the iPhone application icon cupcakes pictured here. Deb Schultz, a Six Apart veteran, did an Alley vs. Valley routine, noting that while in the Valley code is king, in the Alley folks know how to dress. For fellow Alley expats in the Valley, "You know you've gone native when you're wearing a sweater with flip flops." Case in point? Flickr developer Cal "Don Juan 2.0" Henderson wasn't wearing a sweater, but he did look to be wearing the same cargo shorts and flip flops that he was last spotted in. (Photo by Dan Lurie)

    7:20 AM on Tue Sep 16 2008
    By Jackson West
    356 views, Comment

  • silicon valley users guide

    How to sell your software for $20,000 a pop

    Weary of the ad-supported world of Web 2.0? Outside the echo chamber of Silicon Valley, there are software developers who write code that won't change the world, but that customers will pay real, five-figure license fees for — enough to sustain a growing, private business. It's all about finding a market that works and copying the competition. Call it anti-innovation. To explain how to do it, an entrepreneur named Bill wrote a blog post called "How to sell your software for $20,000." We've edited it down to a reasonable length below. Give the hoodie to Goodwill, say goodbye to your IPO dreams, and prepare to write the world's next great automated parking garage software. More »

    1:20 PM on Mon Jun 30 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    2,104 views, 10 comments

    Latest by Shadowlayer: @Nicholas Carlson: I second the motion Just to add, another advantage of Web2.0 is that you can get hundreds of millions more »

  • once you're lucky, twice you're good

    The index to Sarah Lacy's Web 2.0 book, revealed

    In Silicon Valley, it's all about keeping score. The question entrepreneurs are asking about Sarah Lacy's Web 2.0 book: Am I in it? And how many pages? Michael Wolff's chronicle of the first Web bubble, Burn Rate, had a clever conceit: The index was published online at burnrate.com, driving people online to see if they were included in the tell-all, and then to the bookstores to see what Wolff had to say about them. (Too clever by half: The website is now abandoned, and there's no trace of the online-only index.) Lacy's instant history of this frothy time, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, could benefit from having its index published. The book is coming out a week from tomorrow, but it's already in the hands of most of the people she wrote about. Don't you think the likes of Kevin Rose, Max Levchin, and Mark Zuckerberg are counting the number of pages Lacy devoted to them? Soon you can, too. I'll be running all the pages from the index here over the next few days.

    3:20 PM on Wed May 7 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    1,160 views, 8 comments

    Latest by Goose Spruce: probably filed under sci-fi more »

  • valleyspeak

    Five words or phrases to short on the slang stock exchange

    CollegeHumor cofounder Ricky Van Veen has decided to short the word "douche."
    After a strong resurgence in 2005 and showing strong staying power through 2007, lately most of the people I've seen use it fit into two categories: 1) people over 40 who have finally had the word passed down the cool chain from their younger friends and coworkers. 2) the "douches" originally being described themselves.
    We second this call. In fact, our own very special correspondent banned douche not long ago. Below, five more words we'd like to see tank. State your portfolio position and suggest other picks in the comments. More »

    6:00 AM on Tue Apr 29 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    1,946 views, 16 comments

    Latest by Peteski: meh wannapreneur traction traction traction more »