F'in Spam

The "sohbet" spam is back, somehow penetrating our defenses and wasting half my morning fighting brush fires. I may turn comments off for a while, sorry. Back at it soon. Does anyone know anything about this sohbet spam?

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:00 AM
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Care About Facebook as a Business?

Then hit this conference. Dave is great, and this is sure to be stimulating.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:22 PM
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Still Travelin

Lots of interesting stuff today. Spent the afternoon with Chris DeWolfe of MySpace and others there, it was enlightening. Also, the morning with Terra Networks at a client event, where I preached conversational media. Back at posting as soon as I can.

• Posted by John Battelle at 5:29 PM
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Google Calls Out Verizon

BAM! The words ain't minced in this post about the 700Mhz spectrum, which as I have covered in the past, is turning into a major fight between Google and the telcos. Check this post on Google's public policy blog:

Just three weeks ago, Verizon filed a lawsuit against the FCC, seeking to overturn the FCC's attempt to bring Internet-style consumer choice via the 700 MHz auction. In a recent court filing, the company has also threatened to have next January's auction itself halted unless the consumer choice provisions are eliminated. Now come various news reports suggesting that Verizon is lobbying behind the scenes (and in apparent violation of FCC rules) to once again convince the FCC to water down key aspects of the pro-consumer rule provisions.

In the usually bloated legalese of lobbying and politics, this is a major calling out.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:52 PM
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Travelin' Day

You know the drill....

• Posted by John Battelle at 3:21 PM
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4000 Posts

Three posts ago, this blog crossed 4000 entries. It makes sense it'd happen this week, four years after this site launched nearly to the date. It seems my average has been about 1000 posts a year. Wow.

It's been quite a trip so far. Four years ago, I had no idea what I was doing with my life. The Standard was two years dead, I was working on a book that terrified me, and I had some ideas - for a new conference, and for a business that might support full time independent media guys like myself.

Four years later, I hear rumbling the Standard is going to relaunch, The Search is in 26 languages (and still a bestseller, two years after, in a couple categories on Barnes and Noble!), Web 2 is in its fourth year with six conferences in three countries, and my dream of supporting independent authors has turned into FM, which turns profitable this month on a eight figure revenue run rate with 140 amazing authors and more than 41 million worldwide uniques.

I honestly can't comprehend how this all happened - save that I and several teams of amazing people have worked very, very hard these past four years. But I am sure it never would have without this site, and you as supporters, critics, and sounding boards. It's an honor to be here still, hacking away.

And if I have one goal for the next four years, it's that I can get back to writing out loud here, and feeding this site and the conversation it sparks more thoughtfully than I have been recently.

I hope you'll continue to come along for the journey.

Thank you.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:56 PM
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BoingBoing: Now With tv!

Congrats to FM partners Boing Boing, who just launched their first ever video venture: Boing Boing tv!

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:27 PM
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Check Out NewTeeVee Live!

My buddy and business partner Om Malik is doing his first conference, on the future of television and the web. It's Nov. 14th in SF, it's called NewTeeVee Live, and it's got a killer speaker lineup, and I am sure the conference will be a hit. It's also a steal, $399 if you register now.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:29 AM
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AT&T; Update

AT&T has responded to the recent blogstorm about its TOS, interesting to see that the policies they promulgate came in part from their deal with Yahoo. But it's good to see the company respond quickly and clearly.

The company has sent me this statement:

AT&T respects its subscribers’ rights to voice their opinions and concerns over any matter they wish. However, we retain the right to disassociate ourselves from websites and messages explicitly advocating violence, or any message that poses a threat to children (e.g. child pornography or exploitation). We do not terminate customer service solely because a customer speaks negatively about AT&T. (my emphasis)

This policy is not new and it’s not unique to AT&T.

As a result of our recent mergers, we have simply incorporated language from the AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Terms of Service into the Terms of Service for our legacy Worldnet and BellSouth customers. The language is consistent with that of previous documents for those companies, and is equally consistent with former AT&T and its legacy companies’ policies.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:34 AM
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Yahoo Launches Significant Search Update

Yahoo has launched a new search interface that more deeply integrates its core properties (Local, Sports, Music, etc.) and implements key new features like a new search assist based on concepts, not just query suggestions. I will have a deeper look soon, but my damn home wifi is down, and I can't post pictures. I'm working off a Verizon card at the moment... Link.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:23 PM
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Help Me With Questions for The Web Bowl

At Web 2 this year we plan to have a bit of fun, not that the conference isn't fun. But we thought we'd put a number of well known web veterans up on stage after dinner and see how much they know about our industry. This format is familiar to any of you who've been to D in the past or have seen early versions of the Computer History Bowl, which has been around in various incarnations for a very long time. The twist is that we're focusing just on web history, which, until recently, was something of a oxymoron. Now that the web is more than a decade old, however, we figured it was about time we had some fun with it.

We'll be grilling folks like Martin Nisenholtz, who has been in this industry for as long at the New York Times has had a .com (actually, longer), Steve Case, who started AOL, Jay Adelson, CEO of Digg, and Scott Kurnit, founder of About.com.

But I need your help. We've set up a form where you can suggest questions we should ask them. Don't worry if you don't know the answer, we'll figure it out. But if you do, so much the better. Stuff like "What was on the cover of the first Industry Standard" or "How much revenue did The Globe have when it went public?". If we use your question, I'll thank you from stage.

It should be a fun time, and we'll make sure to get it up on the web as soon as we can, so no matter if you can make the conference or not, you can check it out!

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:46 AM
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Big Day for Web Apps

Adobe is getting more aggressive in its expansion of web based applications outside its core, Microsoft is finally taking the next step, (but TC is not impressed) and the space is really heating up. What a fall!

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:22 AM
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Yahoo and The Hot Jobs

Kara has a great write up of the revival meeting run by Jerry Yang and Co. last week, featuring a pep talk from Steve Jobs.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:11 AM
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Big: Nokia Buys NavTeq

Data is the Intel Inside, Tim O'Reilly likes to say, and his favorite example is NavTeq, which powers a ton of mapping applications, including Google's. Now Nokia owns NavTeq. Ars coverage.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:46 AM
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Customer Policy in the Age of Conversation

AT&T has a TOS for its customers which, implemented strictly, would be an indefensible limitation on freedom of speech (and would create a shitstorm for the company if enforced). I'm very interested to see how long it takes for AT&T to listen to the howling in the blogosphere, and revise that TOS. My take: Companies who don't listen, respond, and iterate are doomed to fail in the conversation economy.

The language:

5.1 Suspension/Termination. Your Service may be suspended or terminated if your payment is past due and such condition continues un-remedied for thirty (30) days. In addition, AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines, or (c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:43 AM
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Two Things To Watch

YouTube's AdSense integration.

Facebook's friend groups.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:04 AM
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Yahoo And Media

Changes in the wind. I am about to turn into a pumpkin so I can't comment but will over the weekend.

• Posted by John Battelle at 5:44 PM
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Huh. Yahoo's Better, Google's ... Bigger-er?

This Compete study was interesting to me (found on Mashable). The blog posts that summarizes it asks:

An interesting data point got me thinking recently. According to Compete data there are roughly 7.5 billion search queries performed every month by the US Online Population. However there are only about 5 billion search referrals every month. This means that roughly 1/3 of all searches in some sense go unanswered. People search for something and then don’t click on a search result. So the obvious question is which search engine is doing the best job from a “search fulfillment” standpoint?

It then answers:

Yahoo! pretty much takes the cake on this one with about 75% of searches performed on Yahoo! in August resulted in a referral. By comparison, searches on Google result in a referral about 65% of the time and searches on MSN/Live result in a referral about 59% of the time. Lower search fulfillment numbers mean that on a percentage basis fewer search queries on that engine resulted in the searcher clicking on a result link. So from this perspective one might consider Yahoo! more effective at getting consumers the results they want.

I can imagine that these results have to do with any number of contextual issues - do people who use Yahoo search exclusively, for example, have habits that Google searchers do not? For example, I wonder if folks who do tons and tons of searches each day - the most high volume, hard core users of search - might be Google users, and also might use Google the way I do - very iteratively, in other words, I try a lot of query strings till I get the one I want, then I drill down.

Just a thought. When I see studies like this, I tend to not buy the obvious conclusion. That's not to say it might not be true, but it strikes me more is most likely in play here than meets the eye.

• Posted by John Battelle at 5:30 PM
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Last Few Days to Submit to the Web 2 Launchpad

The submissions deadline is Oct. 1 for the Launchpad, for those of you who need a gentle reminder. We've got a great group of applicants already, but the deadline is very strict, as we have to have time for the final judging process.

A reminder on the new approach this year:

At this year's Web 2.0 Summit, we are evolving Launch Pad a bit. While it’s great to be chosen to launch your new company at a conference like Web 2.0 Summit, the reality of the market is that the majority of successful Web 2.0 companies do more than just launch products. They also often pass the test of VC scrutiny— that's how the market determines who wins and loses in the world of startups. To that end, this year there is no fee for companies involved, instead, the VCs are sponsoring the program.

The New Approach
This VC Edition of Launch Pad has several adjustments to the typical judging process:

* The judging panel will be comprised of six venture capitalists who will review Launch Pad companies as if considering them for funding.
* Judges will select up to eight finalists, that will be given ten minutes each, to pitch themselves on stage, in front of the entire Web 2.0 Summit audience and the VC judging panel.
* Each company will be provided feedback on its presentation in real time, by both the VC judges and the audience.
* The VCs may, at any time, offer these applicants non-binding term sheets for financing.

Entrants no longer need to launch their company or major product/service to qualify. Instead, those that apply will be reviewed by our panel of venture capitalists. If they make the first cut, they will pitch their company in front of the Web 2.0 Summit audience – the top executives, financiers, press, and analysts in the Internet industry. The audience will also have the opportunity to vote, along with the VC panel.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:55 AM
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Still On the Road

I'm always on the road when loads of news breaks. Alas. But I will be back starting Thursday....

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:13 AM
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