Nonsensor.

Hello World. That's programming speak for howdy! It's been a while since I showed up in the blogosphere (I know, my Bloglines vanity search tells me so), so I thought I'd throw out an update. A big one. The big news was a trip to the windy city sunshine city the big tomato the City by the Bay for TechCrunch 40. Of course, I had to get the obligatory iPhone before they'd let me in the conference, but I snuck by with the now-discontinued 4GB model. Maybe I can give some more coherent thoughts later (I'm full of empty promises) but the main things that stood out:

• Silicon Valley has obviously already forgotten web 1.0. We need revenue, people. How are your ideas, even the shamefully few good ones, going to make money? And what's more – the buyout craze is a lot like the IPO craze that cost me my first job in the biz. These days, people seem to be building companies to flip them like an old lady's bungalow. Let's add value to the world, not just our pockets. Let's make something people need instead of solving made-up problems that barely exist in the valley, let alone the Real World. In the swag bag, we got a stress ball emblazoned with the mantra "Stress Free Tagging." Class project: point out everything wrong with that.
  
• When a programmer/CEO who shall remain nameless wanted to make fun of bad ideas, he used the words "video wiki." So did at least three actual companies presenting (including the "people's choice").
• I actually knew one of the presenters: John Manoogian of Zivity, a company with a real business model (based on models). I promise not to tell the world the last time I saw him was at a Sisters of Mercy concert.
• Panelists need to be harder, or maybe they have odd ideas about what should get funding. Maybe I should be in the Video Wiki business. Only a couple companies got hit, and it was for their names? Extreme Reality had a dated name, but I really thought it was a brilliant idea (panelist question: "What's wrong with the mouse?" What someone probably asked the mouse inventor: "What's wrong with the keyboard?"). And Xobni... Yeah, the name is silly but other names were sillier and the idea was solid – Guy Kawasaki seemed to be playing it for entertainment rather than really hardballing it. And he was the only one coming close to hardball. One word: Truemors. Reverend MC Hammer, as expected, did not hurt 'em either.
  
• Cake Financial was a swell idea, but if everyone in the US used it wouldn't it crush the economy? Mint, on the other hand, is a super swell idea that I'm already using. I'm pretty sure I can already recommend it, although I hope the 50k they won goes toward as much security as can be had, since they're taking our credit card and bank logins. I have been saying for a while (to my dog, of course) that financial management's time has come on the web. My ideas didn't really encompass automagic management, but it sure seems good so far (if dependent on when your banks update).
  
• San Francisco has great great sushi, seafood, and Chinese – and amazing scenery. I hope to come back sometime.
• We had a great brainstorm session with Brian and Craig in their stylish but roach-infested boutique hotel about what we would do for our next big ideas. Here's a sample of what that looked like, in chronological order:

As you can see, we are ready to excite the world at the next TechCrunch40. Thanks to Jason and to Michael Arrington for putting on a good show, minor execution issues (and a slight desire to see it rolled back to TechCrunch20) aside. Thanks to San Francisco for being nifty.

Jason's getting hammered today with comments from people who are apparently very unhappy about the new Netscape. My first random thought was that I'd hate to be Andy the designer right now, as it's a well known fact that the average person doesn't have a great vocabulary for design or functionality (why should they, it's not their job), so they tend to go after the design or look and feel randomly. Such as a commenter who feels that the site is "chaotic in presentation," but gives as an example the fact that links may go to unverified news sources. Obviously not Andy's fault. For what it's worth, he's a great designer who I feel did a great job. I think the site has a much more friendly and fun look to it, and the people who are complaining otherwise most likely feel there can't be anything friendly about the unfamilar (valid, in a way).

We are, after all, dealing with people who may or may not know the difference between the browser and the site, or that Netscape is not in control of the NY Times' online subscription requests. Not trying to be insulting-- but some folks have a difficult time with the concept of the internet in the first place (the esteemed Senator from Alaska), and now we're shoving web 2.0 down their throats? Some resistance should be expected. I wonder if this broadsided Jason and the Netscape team, what with trying to cool down the Digg crowd most of this time.

Of course you have to be sympathetic to the constituency. There were enough of them there to make Netscape look like a viable option for revitalization, thanks to decent traffic numbers. But even people who have kept the same musty home page on their browser for years unfortunately will probably have to face something important about the nature of the internet, namely that it's ever changing. And they'll probably have to deal with some things that are new to the internet:

• Social news is for real. It's a proven model (though yes, with critics who more often than not have excellent points we should all be thinking about), and I'm still in accordance with the idea of putting the anchors in there to supplement. Maybe that aspect should be stressed more: not only does it separate Netscape from Digg, it should ease some perceptions of how reliable the sources are.
• Those sources are not always going to be the MSM news sources people are used to.
  
• Conversation is a big part of the game these days. The Web seems to be the modern convergence point of internet technology, including conversation. To the news-lovers who read Netscape, it's probably kids' stuff. I cite the commenter who likened the experience to being "in a chatroom."

In short: not everyone follows the heartbeat of the internet. And not everyone shares Jason's (and my) idealism and enthusiasm about citizen journalism, bottom-up programming, and social networks. And so what some people on the bleeding edge may have thought was the bloated corpse of web 1.0 re-animating, Romero style, turns out to be a living, breathing entity that still has a good bit of life left in it.

[Update] Jason's even proposed reviving a "classic.netscape.com" or something of the like, for the people who really like their Lindsay Lohan news to be professionally created, and their portals heavy on the intrusively annoying 1997 DHTML. This has been met with more scorn from the highly vocal sector of the population we like to call "the minority" but may not be the case.

I'm reminded of a friend of mine who tried to start doing electronic and underground rock shows at a pool bar in my somewhat rough and tumble industrial (honky) neighborhood back in the 'burgh. The shows were great, the bar was cheap, and everyone who played or came to the shows loved it, but eventually we had to stop because the bands were getting beat up by the regulars. Will Jason/Netscape crack? Or is dissatisfying the older, "less savvy" portion of the internet par for the course with AOL's customer base?

I don't want to degenerate into only link posting just for the sake of having posts often, especially when Gavin can't seem to figure out why comments don't work (By the way, comments don't work). I'm also supposed to be spending every waking non-work moment either prepping for upcoming shows or planning a wedding, but here's what's been tickling the ol' mouse button lately.

• My favorite web comic, Toothpaste for Dinner, explains what my HTC has been whispering to me since I got it.
• It is currently Tibetan Yak Cheese Week, and I'm a day into it without knowing. Celebrate by... how do you celebrate that? Actually, I'm a cheese freak (which sounds just fantastic) and I wouldn't mind knowing what yak cheese tastes like.
  
• Kick back with a randomly generated Steven Seagal movie (bonus points if the late Jerry Orbach appears), or enjoy Steven Seagal's "blues" band. If you have time to destroy, watch the promo video where he explains "mojo." I wanted to laugh, but only tears came.
• Techcrunch has been inundated lately with big 3 (4?) entries into the Web 2.0 space, thanks to AIM Pages, Googlelicious Notebook, and now my little yellow overlord's YouTube competitor, UnCut. Arrington notes that (perhaps ironically) Microsoft is the only big player working on new ideas in the web space. Not to sound rude, but as AOL gets farther into its open-content phase, it's going to be a similar affair to when it first let its subscribers into the outside world of the internet. Or will it? I dunno, maybe the collective IQ or tech-savvy factor of the internet at large isn't what it was at that time, when AOL-user bashing was a popular sport. Maybe the average internet user is a lot like those first people with aol.com addresses out of the gates and into the newsgroups. Then again, maybe not. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. All I'm saying is the initial wave of content from UnCut is not impressing me.