Anatomy of a Snoozefest

Seriously? People are getting bent out of shape about this? Take a look at Anatomy of a Shitstorm over on Valleywag. Also look at O’Reilly’s official response (I expect more to come.)

Okay, some over-eager lawyer for CMP (the company that runs the official Web 2.0 conference) sends a C&D to a little group telling them they can’t use “Web 2.0” in their conference name and suddenly the pitchforks and torches are out and the mob is howling for Tim O’Reilly’s head on a pike (overreact much?). Whoa. Have you learned nothing about lawyers? They do stuff like this all the time.

Here’s my suggestion. Let them have the stupid phrase. It’s three years old now. I don’t know a single developer that doesn’t roll his eyes when someone else refers to “Web 2.0” in any terms other than “oh that stupid buzz phrase”. It’s just the web. It evolves. It’s not a software package. It’s a network. Build the apps, build the sites, focus on the user, focus on making the web a better place to do business and to connect with other people and screw the buzz phrases.

UPDATE: Thanks to the fact that I work with actual designers, the shirt is now available in the Feed Store . Thanks, Amber!

Written by David McCreath on May 26, 2006 |