Fiat Lux

So I was checking out rev2.org’s list of the Top 10 Most Successful Web 2.0 Startups to Date this morning, and noticed something interesting: Not one of them has IPOed or announced plans to do so. All of them have either been acquired by Web 1.0 companies (several of whom did IPO) or are still privately held.

The other interesting thing is that there’s no mention on the list of whether any of the companies is profitable (or was before acquisition). Wikipedia, being a non-profit, is off the hook there, but what about the others?

You’d think that after all the craziness in the last go-round, this time, any real definition of success would include some amount of actual profitability, but maybe I expect too much.

UPDATE 4/15 In comments on his site, rev2’s Sid clarifies:

Since most Web 2.0 companies are private and don’t release any information at all on profitability and revenues (with the exception of perhaps YouTube which we have some data on) I decided to leave that out. While I realize that’s one of the important things in terms of ‘most successful,’ Web 2.0 is really more about ‘who can get acquired for the most money’ than ‘who can make the most money.’ That was Web 1.0, and those companies are now the ones who are buying these.

Having lived through Web 1.0, I seem to recall it was all about the “eyeballs” and about IPOing as fast as possible, not about profitability, but hey, maybe old age has clouded my memory.

A month or so ago, I posted a blog entry noting that I was having a problem with comments vanishing when I posted to Wordpress blogs. Thanks to the kind operator the Burbed blog, who listened to my complaints and took the time to do some testing, I finally have an answer to why my comments were vanishing into the aethir.

Apparently, my ‘handle’ of Fiat Lux is classed as ‘definitely spam’ by one of the common Wordpress spam filters (presumably Akismet).

That’s moderately annoying, since I’m rather fond of that phrase.

On the advice of friends who are in the beta, I just pre-ordered two copies of Lord of the Rings Online.

I really, really hope it doesn’t suck.

Sadly, Kathy Sierra has decided to shutter ‘Creating Passionate Users’ and do more thinking about when or if she will return to blogging. As much as I honor her right to choose her own course, I can’t help but feel that this sucks, because the people who drove her away are going to consider that a ‘victory’. And that is not how it should be.

Damn.

Craig pointed out a cool mashup site today: MapWii.

One of the clunkier aspects of the Wii is the multi-step process necessary to get a friend’s Mii on your console. The result is that although our Mii Parade is well-populated, it’s 98% random Miis and only a couple from people we actually know.

UPDATE 3/26: Hello, Digg users.

If you like listening to music streamed via internet radio, or from websites like Pandora, you might want to click through and read the FAQ at Save Our Internet Radio.

On March 1, 2007 the US Copyright Office stunned the Internet radio industry by releasing a ruling on performance royalty fees that are based exclusively on the number of people tuned into an Internet radio station, rather than on a portion of the station’s revenue. They discarded all evidence presented by webcasters about the potentially crippling effect on the industry of such a rate structure, and rubber-stamped the rates requested by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

Under this royalty structure, an Internet radio station with an average listenership of 1000 people would owe $134,000 in royalties during 2007 - plus $98,000 in back payments for 2006. In 2008 they would owe $171,000, and $220,000 in 2009.

There is no way for a station with 1000 listeners to make that kind of money. That’s over $11 per listener in 2007. No Internet radio station currently operating comes even close to that kind of income. Also keep in mind that 1000 listeners is not a large number. Popular stations like Radio Paradise, SOMA, Digitally Imported, radioio, etc have many times that many listeners.

In other words, if they are allowed to stand these rates are a death sentence for independent Internet radio stations. The only stations that would survive would be those who can afford to operate at that kind of loss, such as AOL (who would owe over $20,000,000 in 2006, far in excess of their income from radio).

Unless the Feds change their current ruling, it’s looking like RIAA has been able to strike a death blow against all but the biggest and best-funded companies that stream music online.

Hat tip: Craig.

I started writing this yesterday but the power outage (now thankfully resolved) sidetracked me.

Recent IM conversation with Scott:

Me: Microsoft announced six different versions for Vista. What a support nightmare that’s going to be.
Scott: yep
Me: I’m going to stay the hell away from Vista for at least 12 months after it’s releases. You, OTOH, will upgrade to it as soon as you possibly can
Scott: You got it. Probably on my new $4000 dream computer.
Me: *shudders*

I’m the kind of Windows user Microsoft probably hates: I just want my OS to run the applications I choose to install on it, and to stay the hell out of my way the rest of the time. I don’t need a high-end desktop searching feature — I know where my personal data is and how to find what I’m looking for. I don’t want fancy 3-D versions of the alt-tab app switcher or funky integrated media capabilities. I have iTunes, an iPod, and a very nice TV and TiVo in my living room for that. I just might end up with the lowest-level version of Vista just so that I don’t have to deal with all the add-on crap the other versions will include.

Buying the low-end version of an OS kind of goes against my grain, since I more or less consider myself to be a power user. But in this case, I suspect I’ll be much happier without all the bells and whistles.

At any rate, I am quite serious about waiting at least a year post-release to upgrade (I waited a lot longer than that to go from Win2K -> XP). I have no intention of upgrading until the inevitable missed bugs, security issues, and driver problems all get resolved. Let some other schmuck do the sweating and swearing; I am not going to waste my time dealing with Microsoft’s mess for them.

While checking my RSS feeds this morning, I noticed that Bloglines had switched languages on me. Very odd. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

UPDATE 1:15PM: It’s back to normal.

Whither the Blackberry?

The maker of the popular BlackBerry e-mail device is facing a critical decision: Pony up a lot of money to settle a long-term patent dispute or inform most of its 3.65 million U.S. subscribers that it may have to shut off service.

I would expect that they’ll find some way to stay in business. After all,

The Department of Justice has asked for a 90-day grace period for federal workers if Research in Motion’s BlackBerry e-mail service is shut down.

Maybe it won’t be RIM, but somebody is going to keep running this business. With demand like that, it’s too attractive to just toss in the trashbin.

So while snaking through the security line on the way home from Miami, my knapsack/laptop case got dropped on the floor somewhat hard. Once I’d booted my laptop and discovered that the laptop was OK I promptly forgot all about the incident. I also forgot that my Tungsten C was in the bag and was not as padded as the laptop.

I powered the T|C up today and discovered this:

Fortunately the T|C can still sync, so if I choose to pay $125 and go without my TC for about 2 weeks I can once again have a functioning T|C. Right now I’m not convinced it’s worth it.

However, I’m a bit annoyed by the news that, as rumored, Palm is indeed going to be making a Windows Mobile version of the Treo, and that’s affecting my judgment.