Let's Call It Web blah-blah-blah

When censors forced Lenny Bruce to either not say certain words or face jail, he started using the phrase "blah-blah-blah" where those words would actually go.  It made his night club acts even funnier and more devastating than they had been.

I'm sitting here, facing a deadline of tomorrow, for sending my PowerPoint presentation to IT@Cork, who earlier today received a cease and desist order not to use the words "Web 2. uh blah-blah-blah as the name of the conference.  I am to deliver a speech on what Web2.blah-blah-blah s about and how Web 2.blah-blah-blah will change communities, companies and the world in general.

The ironic twist is that my very first slide will quote a bunch of influencers who each say the term is hype, inaccurate and deceptive.  The second slide was going t cite one Tim O'Reilly as the source and author of the word, then say Tim is of Irish extraction and we all know what great storytellers the Irish are... . Another slide was going to mention "generosity" as one of the key characteristics of this Web bah-blah-blah world we are now entering into.

It's obvious, I need a rewrite. I'll probably miss my deadline. And this is probably the least damage the lawyers behind this selfish, banal, bone-headed act of this cease-and-desist letter. In the end, Reilly will be the loser, I believe. Personally, I've hated the term since it began and have been trying to find a better term.  I like "social media." It was popularized by Chris Shipley and I'm pretty sure she would be flattered if everyone starts using it right now.

And if CMP lawyers don't like it, they can all kiss my blah-blah-blah.

Comments

[Randy Charles Morin]

I was thinking Bubble 2.0 :-)

[Richard Pogson]

O'Reilly publish an artical on their website at:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html?page=5

The last paragraph reads:

The next time a company claims that it's "Web 2.0," test their features against the list above. The more points they score, the more they are worthy of the name. Remember, though, that excellence in one area may be more telling than some small steps in all seven.

This rather implies that they expect people to call things Web 2.0 doesn't it?

Perhaps they will change it to read:
The next time a company claims that it's "Web 2.0," let us know so we can sue them. :)

[James Governor]

what ever happened to the o'reilly radar? it must be faulty... i can't believe this cock up - i think we may find CNET is the culprit

[Shel Israel]

James,
You mean CMP, don't you? CNET, my client, has nothing to do with this.

[Paul Watson]

Don't change a thing, Shel. I am coming to the conference to support the Cork lads and the Web 2.0 community in Ireland. I want to hear what you have to think, not what lawyers have influenced you to say.

Plus the Irish will be good at turning this all into a positive spin at the event. We'll be laughing and drinking well into the night on it.

[angelo]

Great article. I can't believe O'Reily would let this happen -- unless they do more than just say they've mishandled this, my opinion of the company and the man will change drastically.

You can't just go around complaining about copyright law, pushing open source and creative commons in principle and then, in practice, act like any other patent mill would.

Had I known O'Reily planned on service marking "Web 2.0" I wouldn't have done my part, however small it was, in helping him popularize and increase the value the of the term. Big, big let down.

[Mick]

Someone should register Web 2.1. That would show him.

[paul@eucap]

O'Reilly is now noticeable for their absence.

Tim should be aggressively responding to this incident. As any communications expert will tell you, absence of communication can be as bad as bad communications.

A double whammy for Tim and Sara; no-communication and bad-communication. Bad to worse conversations !

[Cameron Reilly]

Ah Shel, you cracked me up with this post so much I read it almost verbatim on
the G'Day World podcast today!

The lesson out of all this? Even Tim can't afford to be "off the radar"!

BTW Shel, Belinda (Mrs Reilly) has just got a new job as a web editor and was reading both We The Media and Naked Conv. today, when she pieced together that the famous "Shel Israel" was the same charming gentlemen who helped us find a cab on a lovely New York evening last October! She was quite chuffed to be so connected to Web royalty!

[Shel Israel]

It's nice to hear from you Cameron. Sorry the world tour won't be taking me to Australia. I remember Belinda as both beautiful and gracious. As I recall, I did a very bad job of helping you get a taxi. I hope she enjoys both books. Dan did a great job with We the Media.

[GadgetMan]

We like Web 2.0 because well it's part of the computer culture. It all comes from versioning of software products and OSes like Windows 3.1 or WordPerfect 4.0. And it speaks geek speak, because it says it's about the web and it's the second version of the web where the first version was just about creating content and hyperlinks, whereas the second version is about connecting people and resources using the web and building communities and social networks. It's the human aspect of the web. Unfortunately, the non-techie people don't understand what is meant by Web 2.0 and so are confused.

Should we change what we mean by Web 2.0? I'm not sure, our culture is so used to version numbers. I have the problem with the term "social media", because media doesn't have to refer to hyperlinks or web. Perhaps, a better term may be "social hypertext" as quoted by T. Erickson "Erickson, T. (1996). WWW as Social Hypertext. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 39, No.1, pp 15-17" or "social hypermedia" since media does not have to refer to hypertext, it can be video, audio, pictures, etc.

[Michael O'Connor Clarke]

Let's just call it Web 2.ohffs