Robert Weisman has written a great piece on the Boston VC pursuit of promising Web2.0 companies. Some informative quotes from the piece:

"Unlike the dot-coms of the late 1990s, many of which counted on the proliferation of online eyeballs to overcome shaky business models, Web 2.0 companies aspire to profits, cash flow, and recurring revenue. Their embrace of new technologies and open-source software like Ajax, enabling the creation of richer Internet interfaces, has dramatically lowered operating costs. And they have sought to spice up static content with interactive and multimedia technologies -- like weblogs, wikis, or podcasts -- that enable two-way conversations.

Google is the poster child for Web 2.0

What the Web allows you to do is have second-to-second information about user interactions. Every click is information, and that information can drive your business.

 .... the hottest field in technology today: the second wave of Internet start-ups known as Web 2.0."

For more see: http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/08/07/wheres_web_20?mode=PF

Pageflakes Adds RSS Reader

JavaScriptSearch
Monday, August 14, 2006; 04:58 AM

Pageflakes, a leading player in the rapidly-growing AJAX-based personalized internet startpage market, announced the release of its new RSS reader.

Pageflakes's RSS feed manager.

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and is a technology used by hundreds of thousands of blogs and other web sites to deliver so called content "feeds" to users. The user simply enters his favorite feeds or selects some popular feeds such as The New York Times, TechCrunch or Gizmodo from the feed directory. Pageflakes (www.pageflakes.com) then automatically monitors all feeds for updates and puts all articles on the user’s page.

To fit everyone’s taste and personal reading habit, the new RSS reader provides a variety of different views. In Outlook View, the screen is split into three panes, letting users read their RSS feeds in a similar way like many users are used to read their emails. Newspaper View puts all articles on one large virtual sheet of paper. By scrolling down, users can quickly navigate through the daily information overload. The Website View lets users view postings in their original context and formatting.

Additional features include an "all-feeds-in-one" option which mixes postings from all of the user’s feeds into one virtual feed, the ability to save articles for later reading and various sorting options.

"Pageflakes is all about personalization and customization," said Ole Brandenburg, co-founder and CMO of Pageflakes. "Just a few days ago we announced the release of a variety of customization options, including various color and page layout themes. Launching such a versatile RSS reader once again shows that Pageflakes wants to provide users with a broad variety of options to choose from."

Web2.0 has enabled the banal to be scattered across the globe consciousness. Great content is required to get noticed and make an impact.

"Banality in the mouth of a failed businessman or an unpublished novelists sounds banal; in the mouth of  David Rockefeller or Phillip Roth the same words acquire the weight of oracle." - Lewis Lapham

"Drearily commonplace and often predictable; trite: “Blunt language cannot hide a banal conception” (James Wolcott).

Source: Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Main Entry:   banal
Part of Speech:   adjective
Definition:   commonplace; tired or petty
Etymology:   Serbo-Croatian ban `lord, ruler'

Use people as a social lens to find new products to recreate the serendipity and discovery that comes from shopping in the real world.

Seeding your network with minor celebrities and icons who have agreed to curate the Web for their favorite products.  This can influence real-world influencers will help set the tone for the entire service. Opinion leaders who others will follow.  

This is an excellent introduction to Web2.0

What You Need to Know About Web 2.0By Steve Apiki

August ...   more »