The Master of Wirearchy

Glad to hear Jon Husband's going to be expanding and expounding on Wirearchy in 2008 -- especially since he's been talking about wired and collaborative workplaces since way back during Web .25.

Jon is a powerful thinker, communicator, and a gentleman. He's been around the business cycle a time or two. He's NOT a Silicon Valley twenty-something entrepreneur with a poster of Mike Arrington on his wall and a bad techmeme habit. (Thank goodness.) The first stuff I learned about gesturing (from a collaborative and web perspective, not a road rage perspective) was from Jon.

Yes, it's definitely Wirearchy time.



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the redheaded stepchild?

I hadn't heard that LiveJournal was sold. Apparently a Russian company called SUP bought it and will set up an operation in SF. They got the property and its faithful baby bloggers for an undisclosed sum.

Six Apart CEO Chris Alden says it's about focus and Six Apart growing up. I know and like Chris, but that sounds kinda lame, although it also rings true. LiveJournal was MySpace before MySpace was MySpace, and apparently that's the point. The kids have run off to greener social networking pastures, or at least that's the thinking.

Canter and Semple feel creeped out about it.

The thing is that Russian bloggers have found a home on LiveJournal (ala Orkut with the Brazilians). That gives some context for the sale, as does the fact that SUP has been managing LiveJournal for over a year: "The Russian LiveJournal community is second only to the U.S. in number of accounts. There are about 14 million Live Journal users. SUP now represents 28% of the total LiveJournal monthly audience."

I mean guys, it's not like the Russians invaded Six Apart and ran off with the family jewels. And it's not like SixApart sold LJ to AOL or something. SUP was already involved. Users who didn't like it had a year to move. I've seen worse treatment. (COUGHweblogs.comCOUGH).

The thing is, sooner or later the pull of enterprise 2.0 will become irresistible for web companies that will have to grow up and find a sustainable business model (like beyond pay-per-click ads) and a revenue stream that supports salaries and office space and benefits for The Team.

Not all of the web can stay young and hot forever.

That means you'll likely see more of your very-good-best-friend webcos divest themselves of their non-core offerings as they hone in on providing Value to the New Old Boss.

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where's marcus?

You know, just for one day, one half day, one hour even, I'd like the spirit of Buddy Rich to visit the hot web 2.0 players for a little history lesson.

(nws, btw).

These were never supposed to be this accessible (we had the cassettes back in the 80s), but maybe the twitter crowd will enjoy a tour of work 1.0.

State of the Blogs Roundup: Ronni, Brian, Shelley, Tony, Doc, and Extra-Jesus

I'm concerned about the state of blogging, located just south of North Dakota and just north of South Carolina last time I looked. If you don't see it on google maps that's because the location is v. stealth.

I am concerned that the talented, smart, mouthy voices we need are growing ever wearier of the stupidity. I am concerned that vegetarianism has rendered some bloggers seemingly impotent and obviously NO one has sent meat.

I am concerned that a gender-rigged version of techmeme wouldn't link to me even if a girl did say it was okay to have such a site, which apparently she has not. Okay no i'm not really concerned about that.

I saved a kitten from drowning in a tub tonight. After a friend's three year old got out of the tub and got his PJs on, someone forgot to pull the plug on the tub. And the thing is that two 8-week-old kittens live in the house and WHAT kind of dumpster kitten jumps into a tub full of water? But when I went back in there, there he was floating about in the water looking very disheveled, and so I grabbed him out of the water, and even though this is a wild kitten, he sure was calm and happy to see me and even let me blow him dry with a noisy hair dryer.

Animals are smart like that. Especially after they do something dumb.

But the COOL thing of the day is that I learned our Shakespierce has gone and landed a holy-shit job as head blog wrangler for the entire LA Times, overseeing the MSM outlets 25 blogs. And he got BENEFRICKINFITS. Hey Mr. Media, MizPee is now in your area. Let's talk.

As for Tony's impressive new gig, I hearken back to something doc said on his old blog, doc 1.0:

It will eventually become clear to everybody that there is far more money being made because of open source than with open source. This is what we have to remember every time somebody asks, "How can you make money with (open source product)?" The answer is, "You don't make money with it. You make money because of it."

The because of principle is old hat in mature business categories, but it's new to the software business. Too many of us still want to see "business models" for all kinds of goods that don't belong on the income sides of balance sheets. Would you ask your telephone what its business model is? How about your front porch? Your driveway? Your clothes? Those things may help us make money; but they are not how we make money. Well, the same goes for open source products. They are means to ends. You make money because of them, not with them.

But the best part of that whole Doc discussion was the extra-Jesus.

Because see it was very loud at these bars when you are at SXSW, and you know bloggers, well someone used a big vocab word - Exegesis - and doc heard as "extra-Jesus", at which point that became the conversation condiment of choice for every sentence thereafter, as in "yeah, get that next pitcher with extra-Jesus blahahahaha," which you know, when you think about it, makes pretty good sense.

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it takes a village to make a banner

THANK YOU to Madame Levy and her Wonderific Daughter, and to RageBoy and his Wonderific Dissociative Identity Disorder, for the mashup that is my new header. Weee!

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