I’m not a guy who hangs on the proceedings of every big confererence and schmooze-fest. But… Today at the Web 2.0 Summit, Mary Meeker, a long-time internet investment analyst at Morgan Stanley, presented her annual Technology / Internet Trends report. Check it out if you’re interested in a macro look at the key trends affecting the internet economy. If you can’t wade through the original slides, Richard MacManus at Read/Write Web has posted a very nice summary.
Via Wired News:
The Wired 40 for 2005. Lots of big companies with big ideas here. Proof positive that the next big thing may come from one of the bigcos – but not a guarantee of that by any stretch of the imagination.
Zeldman:
Tag clouds are the new mullets. “It is of course wrong to compare weighted tag clouds to mullets, mood rings, and similar instances of mindless pop-cultural detritus. Tag clouds are not dumb. Their smartness is why so many have rushed to use them. But ubiquity and repetition quickly turn sweets to ashes.”
Steve Rubel
in his blog, Micro Persuasion: Character Blogs are a Complete Waste of Time. Waste of time, sure, but, even more, a waste of an opportunity.
Everyone loves to hate
advertisers – or at least make fun of ’em, but advertising is important, both for the sheer money that sinks down that hole and for communicating current trends (although they’re often only marginally ahead of Time, which is to say hopelessly behind). Even more interesting is the ad industry as a bellwether in its own right. And, in that vein, Ad Age has noticed people pulling back from advertising in industry rags.
