Tuesday, November 28, 2006
tIP of the iceberg
Lots of interesting things going on in IP these days. If you're an artist of any bent it would do you well to pay attention to some new copyright legislation being presented to congress.
This new legislation is pro-business (read: RIAA&MPAA), as this excerpt from the above-linked article mentions:
Check it out, gives a good rundown.
Also on the Intellectual Property front, apparently the Supreme Court is taking a closer look at Patents. This could be good or bad, there's still a lot to be considered before they hand down their decision, but it's definitely good if you're a proponent of the theory that the judiciary is hijacking America.
This new legislation is pro-business (read: RIAA&MPAA), as this excerpt from the above-linked article mentions:
"It's disturbing that this business-friendly legislation has the backing of the administration while the consumer-friendly Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act sponsored by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) has remained bottled up in subcommittee for most of its existence. As currently written, the Intellectual Property Protection Act would tilt the balance even more heavily in the favor of content producers at the expense of American consumers."
Check it out, gives a good rundown.
Also on the Intellectual Property front, apparently the Supreme Court is taking a closer look at Patents. This could be good or bad, there's still a lot to be considered before they hand down their decision, but it's definitely good if you're a proponent of the theory that the judiciary is hijacking America.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Latest in Entrepreneurship.
There's been a lot of hooplah about Web 2.0 and what the implications are to Venture Capitalists. And now people are even starting to talk about Web 3.0, internet run mostly by artificial intelligences. Lets look at some of the main perspectives on what Bill Gates called " Nothing like the '99-'00 bubble," and what it means for Entrepreneurs.
1. Web 2.0 is full of easy ways to make money.
There's all sorts of money to be had in Web 2.0. Sources Abound pointing at ways to use these newfangled internets to pump out some quick cash, but perhaps the most interesting ways to make money off web 2.0 is the New Media trend. Youtube went from nothing to 1.65 billion in 18 months, in case you've been in a hole for the past... two years? Not that long, it's possible. More interesting for those of us not interested in starting company after company trying to get hit in that crap shoot, Some people have been making obscene amounts of money off of Google Adwords. Hopefully I'll be joining them shortly.
What you need to know is that there's a ton of money floating around waiting to be grasped, and for once if you just provide a useful service online (like digg, weblogs, inc., or techcrunch.)
Please note that every single one of these sites provides a useful, timely service. Trying to duplicate any of their achievements won't gain you much. If you want to learn how to take advantage of the Web 2.0 your best bet is to go the Digg, Youtube, or Del.icio.us route; Learn some basic programming, spend some time researching useful tools online and how people surf the web, and make it easy for the early adopters to make it easy for other people to do it. That's the essence of the Web 2.0 business model, not blogging or online journalism or online video sharing. And that's how an entrepreneur makes money off of web 2.0.
2. Web 2.0 is easy to get into
As mentioned above, the business model of Web 2.0 success stories is simple: Make an online product that motivated other people can use, and make it good. This is easy to get into because all you need is to learn how to program computers. Which is just learning another language.
Actually, you don't even need that. New services abound which use these same web 2.0 principles to allow anyone to make their ideal program without knowing a lot about programming. For example, Ning allows people to use pre-made templates to create their websites. This means that you can also pick apart their templates, pull out parts that you like, and put them on your blog or website. Ning gives handy tutorials on how to do this. I linked one right there two sentences ago.
This new sort of programming is called a Mashup, and it's really the future of entrepreneurship. Just as entrepreneurs in the physical world have two tactics; doing something someone already does better, or making a synthesis of two disciplines which hasn't been done before, entrepreneurs online are gaining access to the second option. Mashups and similar tools are allowing people to make programs faster and better, and this will probably lead into a lengthy period before web 3.0 becomes real. If it does. If you're interested in making the kind of money that digg, youtube, and del.icio.us are, i suggest you check out those mashup links above. I know I am. :)
Tune in over the next couple of days for more on the Web 2.0 climate...
1. Web 2.0 is full of easy ways to make money.
There's all sorts of money to be had in Web 2.0. Sources Abound pointing at ways to use these newfangled internets to pump out some quick cash, but perhaps the most interesting ways to make money off web 2.0 is the New Media trend. Youtube went from nothing to 1.65 billion in 18 months, in case you've been in a hole for the past... two years? Not that long, it's possible. More interesting for those of us not interested in starting company after company trying to get hit in that crap shoot, Some people have been making obscene amounts of money off of Google Adwords. Hopefully I'll be joining them shortly.
What you need to know is that there's a ton of money floating around waiting to be grasped, and for once if you just provide a useful service online (like digg, weblogs, inc., or techcrunch.)
Please note that every single one of these sites provides a useful, timely service. Trying to duplicate any of their achievements won't gain you much. If you want to learn how to take advantage of the Web 2.0 your best bet is to go the Digg, Youtube, or Del.icio.us route; Learn some basic programming, spend some time researching useful tools online and how people surf the web, and make it easy for the early adopters to make it easy for other people to do it. That's the essence of the Web 2.0 business model, not blogging or online journalism or online video sharing. And that's how an entrepreneur makes money off of web 2.0.
2. Web 2.0 is easy to get into
As mentioned above, the business model of Web 2.0 success stories is simple: Make an online product that motivated other people can use, and make it good. This is easy to get into because all you need is to learn how to program computers. Which is just learning another language.
Actually, you don't even need that. New services abound which use these same web 2.0 principles to allow anyone to make their ideal program without knowing a lot about programming. For example, Ning allows people to use pre-made templates to create their websites. This means that you can also pick apart their templates, pull out parts that you like, and put them on your blog or website. Ning gives handy tutorials on how to do this. I linked one right there two sentences ago.
This new sort of programming is called a Mashup, and it's really the future of entrepreneurship. Just as entrepreneurs in the physical world have two tactics; doing something someone already does better, or making a synthesis of two disciplines which hasn't been done before, entrepreneurs online are gaining access to the second option. Mashups and similar tools are allowing people to make programs faster and better, and this will probably lead into a lengthy period before web 3.0 becomes real. If it does. If you're interested in making the kind of money that digg, youtube, and del.icio.us are, i suggest you check out those mashup links above. I know I am. :)
Tune in over the next couple of days for more on the Web 2.0 climate...
RSS- Your Computer, anywhere.
I've discovered the wonders of RSS, really simple syndication. It's basically a way for you to collect all of your favorite blogs, webcomics, and internet content in one place for easy viewing.
I spent some time researching various RSS aggregators, software that collects and displays your feeds, and was referred to several services including news is free, which offers not only an aggregator but many many feeds to search (the feed is the link between the website and content you want and the aggregator, the small piece of software that goes and gets your news for you) to find the ones you like.
However, being the lazy bum I am, I just wanted to use my google signin. Wouldn't want them to miss a piece of my information. So I did a little looking around and found my Google Reader, a google based news aggregator. So far it's working out pretty well.
In order to make even more of my computer available online, I went over to Del.icio.us. If you're like me, you'd heard of the danged thing but dismissed it because of the ridiculous name. Del.icio.us allows you to put your bookmarks onto their service for access from anywhere online. Combine this with your google reader and with two tabs you have access to your entire online experience (gmail [or your e-mail provider of choice] and del.icio.us). Anything without an RSS feed (look around on your favorite sites, they're probably on there in some nook.) can be added as a simple bookmark in del.icio.us.
Not a lot of work, considering how much easier it is to peruse all your websites from any computer with those nifty services.
P.S. Now if only someone would make a mashup that lets you use your del.icio.us or google login to save all of your passwords... Sure, it'd let someone else get into your Cloud of Information with a single password, but this isn't access to anything they couldn't find on their own online anyway.
I spent some time researching various RSS aggregators, software that collects and displays your feeds, and was referred to several services including news is free, which offers not only an aggregator but many many feeds to search (the feed is the link between the website and content you want and the aggregator, the small piece of software that goes and gets your news for you) to find the ones you like.
However, being the lazy bum I am, I just wanted to use my google signin. Wouldn't want them to miss a piece of my information. So I did a little looking around and found my Google Reader, a google based news aggregator. So far it's working out pretty well.
In order to make even more of my computer available online, I went over to Del.icio.us. If you're like me, you'd heard of the danged thing but dismissed it because of the ridiculous name. Del.icio.us allows you to put your bookmarks onto their service for access from anywhere online. Combine this with your google reader and with two tabs you have access to your entire online experience (gmail [or your e-mail provider of choice] and del.icio.us). Anything without an RSS feed (look around on your favorite sites, they're probably on there in some nook.) can be added as a simple bookmark in del.icio.us.
Not a lot of work, considering how much easier it is to peruse all your websites from any computer with those nifty services.
P.S. Now if only someone would make a mashup that lets you use your del.icio.us or google login to save all of your passwords... Sure, it'd let someone else get into your Cloud of Information with a single password, but this isn't access to anything they couldn't find on their own online anyway.
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