All signs seem to point to us being in a period of that which can not be spoken. Time for another economics rant ;)

The funny thing about wealth is, in an overly simplistic explanation, it's kind of like water energy [note: yeah, yeah.. i was tired as heck when i wrote it] -- its not really created or destroyed. It moves. People often say that building roads and infrastructure creates a better economy, and often, they're 'correct' for that particular area. But that doesn't mean wealth was created. The taxes to pay for the project came from other consumers who would have spent the money on other things -- the jobs created by the new infrastructure hurt the unseen profits of someone else (and probably a few unseen jobs because of it). The money spent in that new area came from money elsewhere, and hurt the unseen profits of where ever else it would have been spent instead.

I'm sure there are caveats to it, but most of the wealth creation that people reference are simply cases of inflation or speculation, mixed with cheaper products available from better production methods. The middle class, for example, has way more now than it did 200 years ago. Are they richer? Or has the quality of life provided by what would have been considered luxury items simply become more affordable? Having air conditioning doesn't really mean your rich these days, does it? And remember, inflation's a bitch. A millionaire in Rockerfellers day would probably need 7m+ to maintain that title today.

Housing is such a pressing issue because its effects on consumer confidence is immediate. Tons of "wealth" was created on the books over the course of the housing boom. In a more liquid market, that wealth would simply evaporate (i.e., the tech stock boom). In housing, people are a whole lot more slow to sell and the numbers are a heck of a lot larger than individual stocks. No matter how you slice it, that wealth absolutely has to come off the books. Price reductions remove the wealth from the books, and so does inflation. Inflate the dollar through tax rebates and federally back buy outs. The overall purchasing power of consumers is lowered, some more than others depending on the region (the numbers don't have to be adjusted in all regions equally, after all), but housing prices stabilize because in real terms, they become fair market.

The traditional scape goat, the federal debt, is another thing that I find troubling. The way we as a country become "richer" is by taking in more money than we're sending out. If other countries are moving their wealth to our country, and we're not moving that wealth to anyone else, we end up with a bigger piece of the world's pie. Right now we're not only spending more money internally than we're collecting in taxes, causing us to take loans from China and pay them interest, we are also importing more than we're exporting. Wealth is leaving the country at a fairly fast pace. Now, you can borrow money if the money is being used to expand the economy (and thus bringing in more foriegn wealth/etc, at that point, it's an investment).. But borrowing money in a stagnant economy and not selling enough to cover our purchases?

All the sudden we find ourselves in a situation with increasing inflation with little to no economic growth -- aka, staglation. (shh!)

While it's not a good thing, it's not necessarily "omg the worst thing ever!!1" either (at least, over the long run). It's certainly not the doom and gloom that the media makes it out to be. You may have seen the headline yesterday of "The worst June since the Great Depression!". That's technically true, but it seems to imply that bad months are unheard of. They're not. It was simply the worst June, and things aren't nearly as bad as they were in the early part of this century. Regardless, where the doom and gloom theories fall flat is that they make the assumption that people will refuse to change habits in the face of economic pressure. That, of course, is bullshit. We're the most adaptable creatures on the planet. Something tells me we'll drive smaller cars if we really, absolutely, have to.

We're going to see a ton of innovation come out of this economy. We're going to see housing stabilize and consumer confidence rebuild (stable prices at the expense of reduced purchasing power is still probably a good thing, given the circumstances). We're going to see alternative fuels and synthetic gasolines start pushing their way to the forefront like never before (it looks like OPEC can't get in the way this time, suckers). We're going to see out of work engineers put their heads together and create truly amazing technology and all sorts of deritive applications of that technology. This country is full of talented folks, we just sometimes have to be pushed a little bit. Things are ugly right now, but adversity may be the kick in the pants this country needs.

For me, all of this is fascinating. I love trying to figure this out and learning. If anyone thinks I'm wrong on any of this, share in the comments below, because, well.. let's just say it happens from time to time ;)

Is there any particularly good reason why O-Rock and 740 both disappeared?

Surely, it's a money thing.. but man oh man.. Orlando local radio suuuuucks. Real radio during the day is okay, but then you have a poor mans love line mixed with stereotypical dj cliches at night. It's like listening to an ongoing family guy joke. My brother and I were reminiscing about how Monsters used to make fun of those idiots all the time.. now they're the night time show. Awwkward.

And yes, 101.1 is still around, but if I wanted to listen to Nickelback... wait.. What am I saying.. I'd never want to listen to those hacks, nor do I want to listen to any of the other corporate trash that WJRR plays.

Do the radio station corporations own a chunk of satellite radio? Are they trying to make FM radio die a painful death? Or has Orlando just rapidly changed its demographics to the point where only Spanish, manufactured pop and cheesy over-produced lameo-rock stations are able to survive?

I guess I just don't understand the business behind local radio. I'm sure margins are tight and everything is pre-planned and digital now. It just sucks, that's all.

Thank god for my iPod and my tape deck connector.... New school meets the old.

I've been thinking a lot lately on various investments that would be able to handle the pending recession. There are the obvious answers (gold, basic materials, etc.), but I'm trying to round things out a bit.

It seems to me that when money is tight, people certainly cut back their spending, but the need for entertainment and pleasantry still exists. Cheap entertainment and thrills seem like a decent bet. Movies used to fall into this category I'd think, but that's just not the case anymore. I wonder if Netflix/blockbuster and other rental outlets would fit? Video games actually work out to be cheaper than most forms of entertainment, but they have such a high barrier to entry. Gamestop might be an answer to that, being that they sell a great deal of pre-owned (cheaper) games.

My sister pointed out makeup companies. That might sound a little funny, but truthfully if a $10 thing of lip gloss makes someone feel better, then it might match up perfectly. Never under estimate the feel good powers of vanity. That would suggest who, Proctor & Gamble?

Costco, BJ's, Walmart, Target, Dollar Tree, Big Lots -- big box stores and discount chains are a likely candidate. I started wondering about home depot. Normally, I'd say probably not, but given that much of this is caused by housing, maybe. People aren't going to be able to sell like they used to and will probably be planning on staying around a little longer. There might be a decent amount of home improvement going on, it's just whether or not that amount of home improvement is greater than the home improvement that was taking place during the housing boom. Probably not, but might be worth keeping an eye on.

Vacations are likely to be cut back on as well, but that doesn't mean families still won't try to go places and it doesn't mean that business will stop sending folks to different cities. Cheap destinations, discount travel outlets, discount airlines and discount hotel chains might be worth looking into (I think I'll pass on Spirit, though ;). When Kat and I were visiting family up in Ohio, we went to an indoor water park. I remember it as being a bit more pricey than I would have suspected, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were cheaper alternatives. It wasn't a water park like oh-my-god-a-water-park!, but more of an indoor pool with a bunch of neat slides attached to a hotel/destination type of place.

I've already been researching and following along with the alternative fuels world. I think given our economic situation, national politics and the general pulse of things, alternative energy will become even bigger in all this. A big part of our economic situation is oil. China isn't going to slow down their growth anytime soon, so oil demands aren't going to go down anytime soon. High oil creates higher inflation. The best way for us to reduce this added inflation may very well be alternative energy sources (combined with some clever Fed moves, of course). If the next president of the United States is a Democrat or one of the few Republicans pushing for massive energy reform, this sector will blow up.

Am I missing anything? Is my head in the right place or am I off base? I wasn't quite "investing age" during the last real recession we had, so I'm kinda basing this all off of logic. ;)

I've been watching the "fascinating" Iowa Caucus coverage. The Iowa Caucus is an event that comes before their nomination convention, and winning it carries no immediate delegates. Basically, everyone shows up to a public place, stands next to the fold out table of their favorite candidate, and raises their hand. It comes across as one step above a straw poll, just held at a much more crucial time. I guess its a little more formal than that, but.. I feel sorry for the people who had to work tonight and couldn't attend -- basically, they get no voice.

We sure do put a lot of stock into it though. It's seen as the ultimate spring board into the New Hampshire primary (the first actual primary).

To give you an idea of just how small the Iowa Caucus actually is -- the total state wide turnout is less than just the Republican turnout in Miami Dade County in '06. Or try this -- there have been more absentee ballots requested in the state of florida by Republicans already for '08, than the entire turn out of both parties in Iowa. (I use republican numbers just because that's what I have access to, serves as an illustration for both parties).

Here's where it gets even crazier -- over $50 million was spent in Iowa just on T.V. ads. Compare that to 2004, when $9 million was spent on TV ads in Iowa. Most of the campaigns have hundreds of people on the ground in Iowa. Hillary Clinton's camp said they had 5,000 people just to drive people to the polls (I'm sure they were volunteers, but.. just pointing out the amount of focus put into it).

So much attention, and so much money, for absolutely zero delegates, with New Hampshire right around the corner (the 8th?). Only one candidate rejected the notion of Iowa outright -- Rudy. He spent today campaigning in New Hampshire and Florida instead of Iowa. In years past, this would have been seen as completely crazy. This year the primaries are so close together, it's only a little crazy. If it works, will Iowa start losing importance? I mean, the entire thing seems incredibly silly. Why are we still doing this in 2008? Isn't it supposed to be the future?

Anyway, the biggest story of today is that a black man won an Iowa Caucus. He didn't just win. He spanked Clinton and Edwards. Iowa is a state thats something like 95% white. We're not a perfect nation, we have our share of problems, but it would seem to me that we're certainly making progress.

The next story is Huckabee. Huck was outspent 10:1 in Iowa by the Romney campaign. Romney has been on the ground for over a year in Iowa and has spent the most money there. Losing after that much effort seems like it speaks volumes. We'll see if voters in New Hampshire agree.

Speaking of Huckabee -- Anyone see Chris Wallace call Ed Rollins (Huck's chariman) out onto the carpet? Ed went on about how Huck didn't go negative and how that helped him win, then Chris asked him if the blog post on townhall.com was true and that they were planning on going negative in south carolina but making it look like they weren't (sneaky politician crap). Ed admitted that the blog post was true, and then man, I thought Ed's head was going to explode. Chris basically proved that Huck's campaign wasn't all that innocent in how they went about the whole pulling-the-negative-ad-but-we're-still-going-to-give-it-to-the-press-anyway thing. As far as politics go, thats about as good of TV as it gets. I'm sure a dozen people will post it on YouTube tomorrow.

UPDATE: That was quick.

It's been close to three weeks since I posted my original spirit airlines rant. Obviously, yesterday, things got a bit louder. This post is a compilation/rant of the frustrations I've had watching this discussion unfold.

What I've Learned

I've learned that the internet is a big place. For every 100 people who believe in consumer rights, there is another person saying "screw em!"

I've learned that Spirit Airlines wouldn't have nearly the same amount of drama if they didn't offer so many Caribbean flights. Not once has a story been like, "We were stuck in Atlanta and forced to eat at a IHOP. I want my stomach back." Instead, it's all "We were stuck in Guatemala for a week while a drug lord held us hostage. A monkey stole my baby."

I've learned that if you are going to have a fake customer service line, people will quickly figure it out.

I've learned that different blogs send vastly different traffic. Comments will vary from "That's what you get!" to "Chomsky forever!" based on the style of site that's sending traffic.

I've learned that my own experiences with Spirit pale in comparison to most of the growing number of comments people have submitted.

I've decided that if someone explains "you get what you pay for" to me or anyone else on this blog again, they're about to get beat with the no-shit-sherlock shovel. The entire story is that from the very beginning. The problem is, most of us paid the same amount of money as we would have on Airtran, JetBlue, Southwest or any other discount airline. They may all be frustrating, but I bet they have a real 1-800# that actually frigging works. I'll pay the dollar for a soda and the $4 for a bag of delicious nutritional combos and the $20 for a backpack, just give me a working 800# to call when you cancel my flight and leave me stranded in the rain forest.

I've learned that the more I complain about people explaining "you get what you pay for," the more people who will. Cue annoying-to-me-but-funny-to-everyone-else-comments now.

I've learned that people are sympathetic to "reply all".

I've learned that people are not sympathetic to "reply all" when their vacation was ruined.

I've learned that the quote "Let him tell the world how bad we are." makes me laugh. Thanks for granting us all permission, Ben ;)

I've learned that Ben Baldanza has a history of sticking his foot in his mouth. When he was a VP at US Airs, he went on record saying that they don't value deal seekers. Awfully ironic now that he's the CEO of a discount airline, don't you think?

I've learned that some people within the airline industry expect you to expect a full day of travel, and it's your fault if you don't. Some folks have been given Christy and her husband a hard time for only landing an hour before their concert. I've had important business meetings scheduled inside of airports for 15 minutes after landing. In the real world, people don't have all day to sit around tolerating a crappy airline industry. We shouldn't have to take all this crap as being par for the course, and if we do, at least pretend to be sympathetic. You're ruining vacations, thieving peoples money and overall interrupting our lives. Even if you don't owe the customer anything, empathy would be the least you could do.

I've learned that some people within the airline industry blame consumers for their problems. If those pesky consumers didn't demand cheaper flights, then we would be able to charge more money and offer more service. There's so many things wrong with that statement it boils my insides, but let's ignore all that. Explain how cutting customer service while at the same time canceling more flights to save cost, makes any ethical sense what-so-ever. Begin.

I've learned that despite a few strange folks in the airline industry, there are many great people inside of Spirit Airlines who are just as frustrated with the state of their company as their customers are. At this point, I have every reason to believe that Spirit's problems originate at the top, and not with the men and women who actually make the airline go. "Dell Hell" may have sucked for Dell, but it also created much needed change within their organization. If you've recently been laid off by Spirit, e-mail me. I'm pretty good with resumes.

I've learned that every time I start feeling the slightest feeling of remorse, another comment will come in or a private e-mail and make me understand the importance of this type of thing. Consumers need a voice. Too many corporations have started to act as if they're the ones with the rights and privileges and that the market exists to benefit them.

I've learned that most companies are still really afraid of blogs. If Spirit had reached out in any official capacity when all of this started, I would have been able to post their response and go about living my life without moderating a discussion amongst what I estimate to be 20-25% of the people searching for "spirit airlines".

I've learned that Spirit, or an airline like them, will probably always exist. There are deal hunters out there. Spirit defenders have said customers were expecting too much. That might be true, but expectations require the customer to be informed.

I've learned the power of word of mouth when it comes to informing people. I wrote my original rant to inform friends and family of my experience. I figured if a couple people found it off of google, I'd justify my feeling that they should have comped me $5 for baggage on one leg of my trip (smallest token I could think of, it's not about the money) I do not believe in eye for an eye, but I do believe in karma.

Jason Calacanis asked an interesting question today in regards to the economy.. Interesting times, indeed.

I spent a little time trying to catch up on the economic going-on's in the world on my flights this past week, and things are looking volatile if nothing else. Credit fears and overall consumer confidence levels are a drag, inflation concerns and the price of oil are putting downward pressure on the markets, and real estate is in the dumps.

I've posted before about the movement of money from one investment opportunity to another, and I still think thats the case. It's just.. When the market goes south, along with a hard asset like real estate, that largely leaves things like gold, CD's, t-bills and private equity investments, right? If interest rates are forced up from inflation, that doesn't make CD's all that appealing, but the Fed is looking like they might have to cut rates to spark spending -- I'm just not sure what a rate cut would do to consumer confidence. Wouldn't it be seen as more than an admittance of trouble ahead? I bet the media would at least spin it that way.

The other option is to move money overseas, which could lead to an even more unbalanced trade deficit/weakening dollar. Not necessarily a problem if we didn't have such profound budgetary concerns. Can't cover the overruns unless you can grow the economy faster than the debt. That won't happen if the money is invested elsewhere (the often overlooked exception to trickle down).

On the other hand, a month ago the Dow set a record high, factors like the unemployment index are fairly strong. June 2007's CPI was up 2.7% from June 2006, which seems to be about right (expectation should be 2-3% a year, correct?). The productivity index is up strong for the second quarter (over 2% 2nd quarter, compared to 0.2% for the 1st quarter of 2007). Many aspects of the economy seem to be not just healthy, but growing stronger. (follow along at home over at bls.gov)

I'm inclined to suggest that our overall confidence in handling the potential threats is what's dragging us down, and if there is a signal of good news somewhere, it'll cause a rebound. The threats aren't small ones, to be sure, but we're also surrounded by lots and lots of negativity driving down confidence. I'm not an economist, and I'm still trying to learn as much as I can about the subject, but it would appear that our economy is much stronger than folks want to give it credit for (hah, get it? credit?...ahem). It goes without saying that housing continues to be the biggest risk -- if we can avoid sellers panic, we may just pull through. Thin ice, though.

Thoughts?

Bin Laden posted a new letter that was originally reported in the Observer. In it, he answers the question of "Why" they are fighting, and what it is they expect us to do for them to stop.

Here's the thing -- we can't go backwards in time and change (not that we'd particularly want to in most cases) foreign policy. We can sit around and argue and point fingers at each other all day and night but what we have to pay attention to are the specific things that Bin Laden and his followers are looking for. They're demands that all Americans will probably disagree with. These demands soundly support the "they hate our freedom" tag line we've all grown to know and love.

I've chopped up the letter some. It's not meant to be out of context, just removing some of the lunacy and ranting to keep it relevant. Their goal (which has been stated before..) is to rid us of the ramifications of our freedom -- tolerance of religions (or from it), tolerance of homosexuality, legal sex outside of marriage, drugs and alcohol, exploitation of women (even those who want to wear that two piece..), gambling, and here's the kicker hidden in there -- our ability to create our own laws as "we will and desire".

If that's not a definition of the benefits of our free democracy (which he seemingly does, in fact, hate), I do not know what is. It's obvious that "they" plan on fighting the war. The question we need to ask ourselves isn't whether or not we should be fighting -- it would appear that we have little choice at this point-- it's where and how. In mountains, in a desert, or in an American city?

---- excerpts, full transcript here ----

Why

(1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.

(2) These tragedies and calamities are only a few examples of your oppression and aggression against us. It is commanded by our religion and intellect that the oppressed have a right to return the aggression. Do not await anything from us but Jihad, resistance and revenge. ....

What "they" are after

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.

(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest.

(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator. You flee from the embarrassing question posed to you: How is it possible for Allah the Almighty to create His creation, grant them power over all the creatures and land, grant them all the amenities of life, and then deny them that which they are most in need of: knowledge of the laws which govern their lives? (emphasis mine)

(iii) You are a nation that permits the production, trading and usage of intoxicants. You also permit drugs, and only forbid the trade of them, even though your nation is the largest consumer of them.

(iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.

(v) You are a nation that permits gambling in its all forms. The companies practice this as well, resulting in the investments becoming active and the criminals becoming rich.

(vi) You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools calling upon customers to purchase them. You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of women.

(vii) You are a nation that practices the trade of sex in all its forms, directly and indirectly. Giant corporations and establishments are established on this, under the name of art, entertainment, tourism and freedom, and other deceptive names you attribute to it.

If you fail to respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight with the Islamic Nation. The Nation of Monotheism, that puts complete trust on Allah and fears none other than Him.

Technologists tend to be an idealistic bunch. Things are created with purity and community in mind. Eventually of course, the strictly business folks come in and wreck the place.

It happened with the BBS to ISP conversion, it happened on the web with nascar-esq advertising (banner overkill), it's happening with Google and the SEO masterminds (it can't just be me, but isn't it getting harder and hard to find things?), and it's starting to happen with the blogosphere and paid links.

Magazines taking bribes and the mainstream media outlets skewing the news both helped fuel many of the "early" blogging initiatives. That shared focus and identity, that blogging wasn't the mainstream, helped foster a certain level of community. Paid links, paid review sites, misleading advertising placements, affiliate program abuse -- the blogging world is quickly following a somewhat common theme. As it all becomes more and more mainstream, it only makes sense that the initial proponents of the medium start searching for someplace else to hang out.

After SxSW, I thought Twitter had officially run its course. It was fun before hand but at SxSW it became an important tool. It was only natural to expect a let down afterwards I guess. I have to say though, that it seems more and more of the conversations are taking place there. As one community slowly gets overcrowded and commercialized, it would seem that this might be where people are headed.

Twitter's usefulness by itself can be a bit limiting. 140 character messages can only take you so far, and in some ways, I feel like I'm writing on an old-school BBS graffiti wall or typing in a horribly disfunctional IRC channel. It's not so much that twitter is a "better" way to conduct this type of socializing, it's just still a bit more exclusive and its made up of the right people.

What are the take aways of the service itself though? Instant gratification maybe? The "convergence-interface?" The friendly API? Or is it simply something to tide everyone over until the real "next big thing" happens?

I can't count how many times someone points to the fact that it's cold outside as proof of global warming not existing (global warming is about extremes, not hot and cold). Almost all sides can admit that the world is entering some sort of period of change. The question isn't on that, it's whether or not we are making any meaningful contribution to it. I've shared my thoughts on this subject numerous times, but I'll do it again for good measure -- if it costs us little to nothing to change various practices and ensure that we are not contributing forces, and we benefit from these changes in numerous other ways, why not?

And what about the climate changes themselves? Nobody is talking about them. We're so busy pointing fingers and trying to make this issue a divisive political war instead of using it to unify an otherwise politically torn country. Examples of real world questions that need to be answered are insurance costs, costs of strengthening storms, potentially lost GDP from a changing business landscape, protecting inhabited low lying areas disrupted by melting glaciers, protecting countries dependent on fresh water that is quickly disappearing. These are all important, life altering possibilities. None of them are necessarily doomsday prospects, yet they all dramatically effect our national security and world stability. What do you think is going to happen when someone like Chavez runs out of water? What if we experience 2 or 3 more Katrina's? We can't even handle the first one.

Then again.. Brittany just shaved her head, and well, thats a lot more fun than talking about Al Gore screwing up our weather patterns.

I can't believe that it's been five years.

I was on campus at UCF later that morning and there was a movie screen set up in the student union. Thousands of kids gathered around watching it all unfold. The one thing that will probably always stick out in my mind (outside of the transparent horror that was evident on the faces of everyone there) were the military recruiters signing up lines of kids.

I'm still not sure exactly how I feel about that. I think if nothing else though, thats what really drove home the notion that things were going to be massively different in our lives than we had previously thought.

It's not just a series of events that occurred five Septembers ago. 9/11 didn't end that day. We're still in the midst of 9/11 now, and I believe our generation could very well spend our lives in 9/11. Every time I hear the media say "post-9/11", I question what that really means.

I hope that today, as the memorials and the tributes unfold, people remember their vow to "never forget". Everything that we've experienced isn't about revenge and retribution, it's about a philosophy. What kind of lives do we want our children to have, and how do we want to ensure that they have it? Is it through war? Discussion? Education? Diplomacy? Containment? Denial? The reality is that the answer isn't black and white and it won't fit into a campaign sound bite or a blog post.

What's surprising the most to me is that I'm not sure if this discussion has really even started to take place. We're 5 years away, and it feels like we're just as lost as we were the next day.

So that Emurse article by Kim Komando keeps getting picked up by a different metro papers. I'm not sure where it was yesterday, but a user mentioned to me that something ran in the Denver Post. For a site such as ours, getting paper coverage metro by metro is absolutely great. It helps us build mass in each of our target geographies. Something like the Komando article, which was unexpected/unsolicited, is a total blessing. Even a slight mention in an article, like the C|Net's Top Websites for Students, brings in a slew of traffic for us. I wonder if its directly proportional to how many words are written on us? ;) If we hire a publicity person, is that what they do? Get things written about us? No idea. Maybe one day we can have a "blog relations" person, with slight press responsibilities. I think that's probably more our speed.

Maintaining solid % growth day after day is a tough thing to do (linear and all), but between the excellent word of mouth and the coverage we've been getting, we're continuing to meet our goals. I think we've been spoiled by all of it to some degree. I heard the other day that Kiko, a site that garnered a ton of Web2.0 press within the community echo chamber, only had a few thousand users. Seriously?

I tend to remind myself that we're not really a web business. We aren't out to leverage the long tail or create a social network or do everything 100% automated. We're looking to fill the need of the every day job seeker, something that after 12 years, the web community has still failed to do. If we happen to strike a web2.0 chord along the way (like we've done with our use of Ajax), then rad. Bring on the hype. Other than that.. It's the traditional job seeking folks in Denver, reading their paper, that we'd like to attract ;)

Kind of ranty, but, it's been awhile...

Tagging: What most people call tags are really just keywords or categories. Tagging is bottom up, the former are top down. If I write a post (as I'm doing now), it doesn't make sense to me to say that I'm "tagging" it as Blogsmith implies (yeah, I know, I share responsibility for that...) I'm really adding relevant keywords. Tags would be if you, the reader, entered in your own keywords. Author Tags, in my mind, are an oxymoron.
Overall feeling: A misunderstood concept. Buzzword-phobia is bound to kick in.

Clouds: Clouds are cool. Not so much in the "OMG Tags!!1!" sort of way, but more in the "OMG Density!!1!" sort of way. It's a great way to conceptualize relevancy in a storm of mixed data. Trendy, sure, but there is some use there. The alternative way to present such data would be to list and rank, and well.. It's all about the quick glance, ya know?
Overall feeling: Cloudtastic.

Voting: The Wisdom of the Crowds, right? Well, kinda. In a purely theoretical environment where every niche, focus, and person has equal access and say, then sure, wisdom, nay, brilliance of the crowd. Unfortunately in 2.0 land, crowd means clique. When dealing with something like Digg or Netscape, here's how it really works; People sign up, people add friends. People subscribe to a feed of things that their friends are doing. All the sudden, information access is limited -- People aren't viewing all the data in the mix, they're viewing a subset of the data posted by their friends. That data gets votes and makes it way to the top of the page. Unless you have friends who have friends, you have very little voice. That's the reason 10% of digg controls the majority of the content -- the other stuff isn't even necessarily being seen. Digg goes as far as to put a nice green ribbon on each item that a friend as had their hands on, which really only adds to the issue. Doesn't seem like the crowd has a chance, does it? Either way, voting is another form of feedback, and that's *always* a good thing.
Overall feeling: OMG user feedback! It's going to transform media! OMG ...

Hive Mind: A natural, sometimes unfortunate, by-product of poor implementation. It's means to me that we need better interfaces and presentation of concepts. Find ways to wrestle control out of the selected few and into the hands of a larger pool of people. On Netscape, the idea is to, counter intuitively, pay people to help perform this task (anchors). The real curiosity behind paying the bookmarkers (navigators) is that it seems like its sanctioning a clique. The flip side is that it might solve the problem on how to drive participation without content. Anyway... We'll see.
Overall feeling: It's human nature. A "solution" would have to start with acknowledgment and then take it into account.

Social: Social is cool, social is fun, but the vast majority of people will always be at least a tad bit selfish. MySpace helped people find new music, Friendster didn't. Social networks are the platform, not the product. Tons of promise, but over-hyped and not yet applied well in most cases.
Overall feeling: Over used, under applied. Ack! BRB, another friend request...

Rails: Rails is easy enough to help designer type folks code and they love it. It's like giving a 16 year old keys to the Chevette. Rails is a lot of fun to use, but a lot of engineers look at it and see an MVC pattern. Neat. In 1994. When I read about designers saying its the best possible programming "language" (ruby and rails are becoming synonymous), I hope they realize that's like me saying GIMP is the best possible illustration package. Both are *great* projects and can be a tool for many cool things, but let's stop short of calling either revolutionary. Then again, it's young and probably a lot further along than PHP was at its age, so, who knows.
Overall feeling: Too early to say. Trendy? It's right up there with Pog.

Bootstrapping: Maybe I'm too young to remember, but it doesn't seem to me that there was ever a time when this wasn't the way to go. Sure, in the 90s everyone took huge boat loads of cash for their startup, but everyone outside of the echo chamber questioned their super bowl spending patterns. The "new economy" existed then, and I think it still exists now. It just requires you not to be dumb. If you have the means, do it on the cheap and hold on to the pie. Take money for strategy (time to market, partnerships, etc) not false needs. The key difference between now and then are the even lower barriers to entry. Even though I tease Rails, its enabled a whole new wave of "weekend warriors". Thats a good thing, take advantage of it.
Overall Feeling: Seriously. We have a great idea, but I'm going to need tens of millions of dollars to hire 50 of my friends and throw a lot of parties. Expect a P/E of 60 in a year after we go public next month. Social vote tagging, it's going to be huge. Written in rails. Skype me.

Data Ownership: From a consumer point of view, it's my data -- let me do what I'd like, even if that means taking it with me. Right now I'd love to take all my gmail off of gmail and put it somewhere else online. I *love* their service, but I'm too dependent on a "beta" product. It goes down for hours at a time. Can I do this? Sure I can download it to my mail client, but then what? Use a real mail client? Gross. Anyway, this gives traditional players nightmares, but open data initiatives are coming no matter what. Might as well embrace it and build a business plan that keeps it in mind.
Overall feeling: If Emiliano Zapata were digirati, he'd be captain microformat. "I'd rather die on my feet, than let you keep all my data." Heh. That was so cheesy, Gavin's in the bathroom throwing up from his lactose intolerance.

Syndication: Consumers love it. Theres only one problem. Revenue on the web is largely tied to page views. D'oh!
Overall Feeling: The first person to truly figure out this puzzle will be able to buy lots and lots of Pog.

There's been a lot said about the hazards of the "Hive Mind" lately. Jaron Lanier wrote an excellent essay here. Mike Propst touched on it recently in relation to our attempts over at Netscape.

I just wanted to throw my two cents out there on a particular aspect of it, and explain why the hive can be dangerous without some sort of mechanism for followup.



This just isn't true. It's the top result on Page 2 when my name is searched via google. For the non-geeky folks reading this, I'll do my best to explain why this would be such a "horrible" thing to be said.

To digg users, who are notably young and 94% male, this admission would have been evidence of "gaming the system." Gaming is naturally against the spirit of the democratic site, where the better content should win out with more votes. It strikes many of them as unfair to ask people you know to "digg" material that you submitted. In Weblogs, Inc's case, they believe that its an unfair advantage to have colleagues. Oddly, I'm positive everyone of these kids have begged their friends to digg their false accusations, but hey, what's hypocrisy in the face of teenage angst and a cause.

In reality, what was said was in response to the suggestion that Digg has anti-asking-your-friend-tools and we should develop them too. I replied with something funny like "i can assure you that they don't", or "if they do, they don't work very well", or something to that effect. I say this after doing our own research and evaluation, judging the content posted there, and more importantly by simplistic logic. I simply don't think that they have such tools, can't have such tools, and shouldn't have such tools. If they do have these tools, then it's obvious that they suck. Plus, what would it matter to them. Digg wants more people to come to their site. E-mail your friends. Please. From Netscape's perspective, I think it's a losing battle. I'd rather spend our resources on finding ways to innovate within the space. And yeah, e-mail the hell out of your friends. Spread the word.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I was misquoted as saying something that I didn't, and now it's attached to my name on google for ever and ever.

Digg.com takes pride in their we-have-no-editors approach. That's their whole jam. That's their cause that they sell to the young teenage male. Ask someone like Ryan Block, the managing editor at Engadget.com, about how he has to defend himself and his organization what seems like once a month. Without linking to any of that nonsense, the kids over there pretty much look for any reason to attack him. He's constantly taken out of context or reported as doing something that is either completely false or not entirely accurate. The problem is, there's no way to address it. It gets posted, it gets indexed, and there's no one to call and pester for its removal or correction. The only responses are buried deep in user comments and probably never seen nor read.

That wouldn't be such a problem if there weren't a large number of people who trust digg. There are even more people who trust the Google Results that index Digg. Like a growing number of employers.

Imagine I was misquoted as saying something worse, maybe something that could actually get me in trouble. Maybe it's time for a promotion, or theres a new boss to report to, or I seek employment with another company, or whatever other scenario you can think of. In the heat of all the anti-netscape sentiment, some 14 year old brat posts a misquote on a "news" site, and now there's zero method for rebuttal. Awesome... An organized, democratic method for slander controlled by the Hive Mind where liability is skewed in the name of social news and lack of editor accountability.

At Netscape, we've tried to develop mechanisms for users to report stories as inaccurate. An on-duty "anchor" (there's someone online 24 hours, 7 days a week) can research the story and alert users to the dispute. Often, it doesn't need to be removed, it simply needs a notice posted addressing the concern for other users to see. It's simple, it's clean. It's still democratic and user's still have a voice. There's just a basic system of checks to keep things in balance. Seems resonable (and proven) enough to me.

There's a lot of issues surrounding the Hive Mind. Maybe this post can help serve as a plain vanilla example of a basic aspect of it. This particular case is small, it's silly, it doesn't even matter -- but it's a simple demonstration of how the unrestricted hive can't be trusted. It's kind of like the Hitchhikers Guide. It's entertaining but it's inaccuracy has potentially dangerous consequences if you put to much trust into it.