Saturday Morning Streams

Jason Calacanis and Fred Wilson have started a new form of blogging that's more Twitter style. It consists of brief commentaries on a myriad of subjects. Here's my shot at it as I sit in a Starbucks with my iPhone waiting for my car to be serviced. Let me know if you like this approach. I will add links later on. 

My move to Wordpress is not progressing as quickly as I would like. The WP team is making a Herculean effort to maintain my permalinks. They are terrific to work with and I really appreciate their efforts. If I can't take my permalinks with me I will stick with Typepad.

The iPhone version of Typepad meanwhile is quite good. I hope WP gets a similar interface.

The age of Web 2.0 innocence is well behind us. Some say it ended when Flickr sold. I see the sale of YouTube as the marker. I miss the innocent days when money wasn't the big motivation. The mania feels very much like 1999 without inflated IPOs.

As more brands begin launching their own content sites they may find themselves competing with the media. The media companies should get in front of this by enabling brands to create content. Yahoo's brand universes follow this model. BTW we haven't heard much about these sites. I like the concept. 

The whole Joe Torre episode depresses me. The man gave the last 12 years to the Yanks and was very successful. He deserves better.

The iPhone sorely needs cut and paste. Cmon 1.1.2.

Very few community sites have had staying power over the years. Two that come to mind are iVillage and eBay. Many others have wilted.

There was just as much news from companies that did not participate in the Web 2.0 conference than those that did.

I hope Twitter doesn't sell anytime soon. Can they hold out? My gut says no.

Google Docs, Zoho and Microsoft's eventual entry into the web based office wars could really replace most wikis. The versioning is quite good in these apps.

I am using Gmail for a big research project and it worked quite nicely as a database. I think a lot of people are overlooking how useful and versatile web mail is.

Most of the top podcasts on iTunes are dominated by the big media companies. They really did a great job embracing the technology.

Behavioral targeting is the big rage right now in online marketing. The challenge is that consumers are becoming more aware of the privacy implications.

Maybe I should try this blogging format more often! It fits my mobile lifestyle.

Comments

[Jon]

long time reader first time responder - i like the new format as well...and I hope twitter does not sell anytime soon too - i like its innocence and i like gmail too. cheers.

[John Windsor]

I like the new format, too (especially since I'm not on Twitter). Keep it up, Steve!

And I totally agree about the cut-and-paste for iPhones -- desperately needed.

[M Freitas]

I don't think this is a new thing from Jason et al. Isn't this what Dave Winer's been doing for years on www.scripting.com?

[Slim Amamou]

"Google Docs, Zoho and Microsoft's eventual entry into the web based office wars could really replace most wikis. The versioning is quite good in these apps."

right. but wiki is three things : writing, linking and versioning. while the three apps are also good at writing (obviously), linking is still painful. typically, you have to select text, click a button, copy/paste a URL on a dialog and click again. compare this to writing CamelCase in the flow of text.

automatic page creation (upon click) is the key feature of wiki. maybe they still did not notice it. it would be trivial to implement in a word processor.

[Lee Gibbons]

I'm going to assume you meant that JC and Fred Wilson have started using a new blogging technique, because that type of stuff has been around forever. Larry King used it with his old newspaper column, Bill Simmons does rambling columns on his ESPN blog, heck even little ole me as done random thoughts columns on my Washington Redskins blog for a few years.

[PlanBForOpenOffice]

I hate the new format. It is disruptive and insults my intelligence. If I want to read headlines, I would read a ticker and not a paged medium.

At the very least, highlight the keywords, so I can skim it.

Just my angry five cents.

K

[PlanBForOpenOffice]

"My move to Wordpress is not progressing as quickly as I would like. The WP team is making a Herculean effort to maintain my permalinks. They are terrific to work with and I really appreciate their efforts. If I can't take my permalinks with me I will stick with Typepad."

This blog platform is aweful. It does eat any brackets, allows them not even as HTML-Entities. Good reason to switch.

[Boris]

Very interesting post... Thanks

[fred Wilson]

my gut says yes steve

[Andrew Denny]

The problem with this format of blogging is others can't link to it. If I want to mention something you've said, people have to read through your entire post to find the thing I'm drawing attention to.

[ann michael]

This format works well, but I hope that doesn't mean this is the only format you'd use. I like reading your more "intensive" blog posts too (promise us at least one of those a week, ok?).

Let us know about the Typepad/WP switch as it progresses. I looked into it a while ago and couldn't find a way around losing links, so I'm still on Typepad too.

[usability girl]

This format is good, but could be improved by using short, snappy headings for each "twitter". This will help readers scan the post and read what interests them most. Cheers Miss Usability in Australia.

[Steve Rubel]

Jon Gruber has the best model by far. I may experiment with it. The hard part is knowing what goes here vs. Twitter. I have no plan to eliminate the essays.

[adam isserlis]

I think this new format is really just a "traditional" blogger's way of trying to keep up with new microblogging formats - like tumblr. Wouldn't it just be easier, and more effective, to turn each one of these lines into a single small post - as you would on twitter?

[Arvind]

Slim Amamou: CamelCase is very much supported in Zoho's Wiki application.