Opinion: Will web 2.0 crash, as web 1.0 did?

Frankly I don’t know.

But consider this. Web 1.0 failed because no-one was making any money. Are any of the web 2.0 companies making money, apart from a few major players?

Web 1.0 was more than just a failure, it was a disaster because it burned up venture capital with no hope of ever turning a profit. That, at least, is a lesson learned. I think.

Now we all know that money isn’t everything, but it is necessary.

What concerns me, is that whilst web 1.0 took with it the fortunes of many small investors, web 2.0, if the crash comes, will take with it much more important things. Social networks, personal photographic archives, blogs and their comments, online collaborative efforts and other such things.

If web 2.0 fails, it wont be the gushing wound that web 1.0 was, but a much more subtle bleeding associated with a failure to make real income to support itself in the long run.

I think we need a web 3.0. A web based on real-world economics where people pay their way. Maybe for that to be a reality we need to re-visit the idea of cybercash, where micro-payments can be made for content. Maybe we can help pay our way via a bit-torrent style bandwidth sharing arrangement. Skype do this now.

These notions are not very romantic, but sooner or later the romance stops and the real work of day to day life needs to be attended to.

The more touchy-feely and stylistically simple web 2.0 rose from the ashes of the techno-brash web 1.0. We felt the need to console ourselves a little and gather round the global fireplace and build a web that catered to our more basic human needs. One can only hope that it won’t take another crash for us to mature into the adult-hood of a web that can ‘work 9-5′ and bring home an honest wage to pay our way in this world.

Lease an Xbox 360 for only $1,917* – Engadget

Lease an Xbox 360 for only $1,917* – Engadget:

some people (read: parents and spouses) are a little hesitant to throw down upwards of $300 for a system that will probably be gathering dust in the attic

Parents can be idiots. They spend all that money on a console and then only buy 1 game. They wonder why junior is no longer interested in the machine 2 weeks after they got it.

Here’s some advice. If you are planning on buying a console, plan on spending at least as much again on games. It’s the games that you play, not the console.

GTD: How to be an expert

Creating Passionate Users: How to be an expert:

Most of us want to practice the things we’re already good at, and avoid the things we suck at. We stay average or intermediate amateurs forever. Yet the research says that if we were willing to put in more hours, and to use those hours to practice the things that aren’t so fun, we could become good. Great. Potentially brilliant.

One of the key points of this article is that we tend to work on a new skill until we no longer suck, but very often that becomes a comfort zone and so we never progress to true proficiency. The expert is willing to overcome difficulties, progressing to higher levels of ability.

I must say that being an amateur can be fun. I am an amateur inline-skater. This means I don’t fall down, enjoy the exercise and can go or stop without much concentration. I don’t really want to risk the inevitable injuries which would come with any progress to a higher level of expertise.

I am an amateur OSX user and an expert Windows user. I fix PCs for a living and most of it involves lots of time in the deeper bowels of the XP operating system. Frankly I don’t want to know more about OSX than I absolutely have to. I’d rather be productive and learn how the applications work, than worry about the intricacies of the underlying OS.

But on the other hand, I’m learning the flute at the moment. For a number of months I have been content to twiddle around the lower octave using only about 10 notes. This is easy and a nice way to pass half an hour on a Saturday afternoon. But now it’s time to learn all those other notes, and move into the upper octave. It’s hard. It’s like starting all over again. But I have to do it.

I’ve promised myself that if I can learn all the notes properly, then I can buy a Saxophone.

(For those who don’t know instruments, a saxophone costs about 7 times as much as a flute. I’ve always wanted a saxophone, but I’ve forced myself to go through the discipline of learning a comparatively cheep wind instrument first. It’s not an entire waste of time. Much of the fingering is the same, and you get to practice your breathing.)

[video] Security Bites: Microsoft’s most secure Web browser | CNET News.com

[video] Security Bites: Microsoft’s most secure Web browser | CNET News.com:

For the first time in five years, Microsoft has released a new version of the Web browser. CNET News.com’s Joris Evers and CNET.com’s Robert Vamosi discuss IE 7’s heavily promoted security features in this week’s Security Bites.

Basic security isn’t a feature; the lack of security is a bug.

GTD: 6 powerful “look into” verbs (+ 1 to avoid)

6 powerful “look into” verbs (+ 1 to avoid) | 43 Folders:

Like a lot of you, I’ve struggled with how you turn “thinky work” into physical action widgets, but here are a few of my favorite task-verbs to get you started in the right direction.

This is a nice little refresher course on how to turn the abstract into the concrete, to avoid confusion and procrastination.

PC: BIOS Guides

Here are a couple of good reference guides, if you are trying to decifer the often convoluted world of your PCs BIOS.

BIOS from A to Z – Tom’s Hardware
The Definitive BIOS Optimization Guide

XP: Automatic Updates Warning

Microsoft has started including modem and LAN drivers are part of their automatic updates. Getting drivers from Windows Update has always been a very dodgy practice. Now it seems microsoft want to foist driver updates on users.

Modem drivers are especially tenuous, never change a driver if you have a working dial-up modem. LAN drivers should be less of a problem. I wonder how long it will be before tech support lines start getting floods of call from irate users who’s hardware suddenly stops working.

If you have Automatic Updates in XP switched to automatically install, now is as good a time as any to turn it off. I suggest you switch it to automatically download, but not install. Then you have a choice what goes on your machine.

N.B. It is possible that other drivers have been included in this new update policy, but so far I have only seen Modem and LAN drivers.

XP: Get a new XP Key

Here is an insider secret. It is possible to get a new Windows key if your sticker is lost or damaged.

You have to call Microsoft on the technical support number for your country. You have to convince them that you have a legitimate copy of Windows. They may ask for a partial key or some details from your Windows CD. I know 2 people who have pulled this off successfully.

So if you have an old PC that dies and you can’t re-load it because the key is missing, there is hope.

GTD: How to choose achievable goals – Lifehacker

How to choose achievable goals – Lifehacker:

There’s a tendency for people to fanatically over-plan their goals. This creates a sort of smokescreen that helps hide the fact that you’re not actually doing anything. I’ve been guilty of this for many goals, until I eventually found out that there was a tangible sense of relief from removing goals that I didn’t want to do, but merely wanted to want to do. Most goals don’t need a list of next actions, progress meters, line graphs, and customizable excel spreadsheets. Really! The sign of an achievable goal is that it wants to be worked on immediately.

Food for thought for those of us who are trying to find that useful balance between planning and acting, deciding and doing.

XP: 15 Windows Explorer alternatives

15 Windows Explorer alternatives compared and reviewed – Simplehelp:

Windows Explorer, the default file manager for Microsoft Windows, hasn’t really changed all that much over the years.

Not it hasn’t. It’s slow, prone to lockups and can be infested by spyware due to it’s close integration with Internet Explorer. If you want to move a lot of files quickly, you’d be wise to check out some of these alternatives.