Sought After

Manners 2.0

Great piece in the times about email "sign-off" manners.  Seems like anybody who pays this much attention to a sign-off may have some insecurities to begin with, but I've been criticized at times before (unfairly!) when I haven't left a comment in my Evite responses, so maybe there's something to this.  After some review of my Inbox, here's my not-so-scientific analysis:

No Sign off:  All business -- don't have time for words. Emotions are for losers
"Best": The one I use, but re-reading, does seem a little cold at times.  Business-casual
"Best Regards": Even colder, Business Dressy.
"Regards": Ice-cold.  Don't expect to hear back.  Ever.
"Warmest Regards": Letting you down easy, but I still wouldn't expect to hear back.
"Thanks": Universal nicety -- doesn't say much nor create any confusion.  Very safe.
"Thanks!": Kissing up -- trying to get something out of you.
"Ciao": Yuppie Euro.  Thinking hard about their signoff, may have some insecurities.
"Cheers": Poor-man's Ciao.  Thinking pretty hard about it, but more down-to-earth. Probably find Ciao to be uppity.
"Sincerely": From the letter-writing generation -- likely 60+ and may write a bunch of stuff in all CAPS BECAUSE THEY DIDNT KNOW HOW TO UNDO THE CAPSLOCK.
"Warmly": Very nice feeling at first, but.... could be a trap.  Hard to know where they're coming from, so watch your back.

Best!
Russ

 

Update: New piece in the times yesterday about the Evite thing

Web 3.0: a bad word?

Lots of negative buzz in the 'sphere about John Markoff's article in the NYT this weekend about Web 3.0 describing the rise of truly intelligent applications on the Web that can extract meaning from content and use it smartly according to need.  The main points of the nay-sayers?  That he shouldn't have called it Web 3.0 and the occasional it's "not going to happen."  I smell 2.0 rats.

1.0) most of the points made involved the "mis-name," which means that most feel that the concept of a much more intelligent Web is a real phenomenon, they just don't want it encroaching on their Web 2.0 brand.  Well, actually, Tim O'Reilly's brand. 

2.0) there are a lot of people who are heavily invested in nothing upsetting their precious Web 2.0 apple-carts.  They don't have all the applesauce out yet -- after all, there's an already scheduled conference to go to next year.  So Web 3.0 could be an ugly problem for them, because who wants to be Web 2.0 when its yesterday's news?

Frankly, I don't care what you call it: Web 3.0 because it's newer than Web 2.0, SemWeb because it's the "Semantic Web" or Web 007 because it kills; if you are able to extract real meaning from the Web and in doing so build structure and content that makes today's search look like Search 1.0 Beta, you have something hugely significant as I've written about before.  And to be fair, there are definitely others who get it.

If I were to name it?  I would call it Web 3.0.  Why?  Because so many people clearly don't want me to, and that makes me feel good.  Makes me think though -- what does Wikipedia say about Web 3.0?

"This page has been deleted, and protected to prevent re-creation." 

Seriously. Web 3.0 is a bad word.

 

CTOTW: Intel and Microsoft Teaming Up?

Interesting post at ZDNet by Dana about SuiteTwo, Intel's new suite of "Enterprise Web 2.0 applications."  He thinks its a smart and somewhat obvious move by Intel.  I wonder if there is anything below the surface here...  Conspiracy Theory of the Week: Could Intel and Microsoft be quietly ganging up on Google?

Google is Microsoft's big enemy.  They are building a massive infrastructure to take computing off of the PC and move it to the network -- and they're doing it on cheap build-your-own Linux boxes and AMD chips.  There's no room for Microsoft in Google's view of the game, and there's really no room for Intel either.  As computing moves to the network, dollars flow away from Microsoft and Intel (not to mention Sun "the network is the computer" Microsystems). 

Now, if everything is going to be on the network, it has to be fast, ubiquitous, easy-to-use, and comprehensive.  The reason?  There are no switching costs on the web -- given price parity, the best, most universally accessible applications win.

So, Microsoft calls Intel and asks them to begin putting some major resources towards building a product suite that will start gaining steam in the Enterprise, and will eventually run more close to "native" with chips that are designed for distributed computing; all promising better speed and access for a whole set of knowledge and communications products accessible online.  In the meanwhile, Microsoft takes care of the platform, search and server farms.  Voila, an infrastructure and set of applications that will be difficult for Google to compete with using AJAX, bailing wire and bubblegum, and two of the most significant marketing and R&D budgets in the world to execute.

Or, maybe Intel is just trying to figure out how to get around this Moore's Law price dropping thing...

Or both...