Matt McAllister: "Quality editorial is not a growth position for a media company. It may be a competitive advantage. And it will surely be a brand differentiator. But it won�??t by nature expand audience or increase revenues... Of the many great things the Internet has done for media, it has failed to value trustworthiness enough. Instead, it values speed, plasticity, and access. Information is rewarded when it is first to appear, maleable and distributable in numerous ways, and available through multiple channels �?? links, feeds, indeces �?? and through other people...
"How is a niche publisher to compete? First, catalyze relationships with and amongst people. Second, leverage the value chain as it is to your advantage... This is the strategic play that makes the MySpace acquisition seem even smarter than I think Fox was aware of at the time."
Robin Good, meanwhile, is home to an article by Josef Kolbitsch and Hermann Maurer entitled "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting, Social Networks And File Sharing: How The Web Is Transforming Itself." From the introduction to this seven-part piece: "Oftentimes it seems to be necessary to introduce hierarchies in order to make large amounts of data and complex structures manageable and comprehensible. Hence most information systems, as computer-based environments or systems in the engineering sciences in general, have hierarchical structures. Examples are filesystems, web-sites, newsgroups and e-Mail systems..."
Picking up the thread, later in the article: "Technological advancements in recent years have yielded systems with entirely new qualities. Although similar applications have existed in the past, the new developments have amalgamated distinct features of their 'precursors' and enable entirely novel applications..."
Chris Messina, in a post entitled "The beast has awoken; or, The beginning of Web 2.0", on the launch of IE7: "And that is where we are today �?? in the middle of an uprising from within �?? lead by folks like Kim Cameron, Ray Ozzie and others �?? on the opening lines of Web 2.0. What�??s lead us here so far has only been the precursor in what will be a very long and very gradual change in our cultural and technological environment. But the launch of Internet Explorer 7 represents the true beginning of Web 2.0 because the vast majority of folks who have been living on borrowed time, using the spyware prone and popup-riddled previous version of IE, now have a capable browser�?� one that�??s just as fast as what the rest of us are used to, with tabs and support for feed and CSS standards. And it�??s delivered automatically, without a thought or a care necessary. So what comes next is where things get interesting."
