Richard Giles

Rick Segal has by far the best post so far regarding Web-2.0-Gate.

Third, always leave room for conspiracy theorists. In this case, Sara gets some points. As the VP of Corporate Communications, what better way to give the company even more room to wiggle around, then to have the big guy himself on a “rare”, off the grid, vacation. Brand currently burning like a Turkish Airport? Simple. Be off the grid, let the corporate PR person take a few bullets, then simply glide back in all rested, ready to show (in no particular order) horror, remorse, and a determination to ensure these types of things don’t happen again.

Tim on vacation? Hah, I say! Okay, I’m kidding. Poor guy probably is on vacation.

Finally, an exercise for the reader. For some fun and homework, grab the list of O’Reilly conference speakers and friends of O’Reilly campers found around the internet. Cross reference those people’s blogs via Ice Rocket, to see how many of them step up and smack O’Reilly over this rather aggressive IP protection move. You won’t find many. You won’t find tons of people boycotting O’Reilly books or conferences. The reason? Brand. Tim has personally been the true good guy face of his company and you can be sure that he is no dummy. Barring a massive overdose of stupid pills, Tim will step up own it and give an apology/explanation that will calm people down. In my view, a bunch of overeager corporate types will get a WTF, wet noodle beating and the rest of us will see a smart business owner take responsibility for this, oopsie. I would expect nothing less.

Hope the vacation was relaxing, Tim.

Read the rest on Rick’s blog.

There are two problems with today’s shit-storm over the term “web 2.0.” (As discussed by Cam and I this morning in G’Day World.)

Firstly, that IT@Cork received a letter from lawyers that not so subtly tells them they have no right to use the term Web 2.0 in the name of their conference. That sucks, especially such a letter that pulls no punches.

This has now been addressed by brady at O’Reilly Radar, the blog of O’Reilly Media. He points out that the letter wasn’t smart, and that they should have called to chat with IT@Cork first.

The second problem, and a much grander one, is the actual application for service trademark of the term “web 2.0.” It’s actually an ironic move. You see, “web 2.0″ is meant to embody the current thinking of the Internet, which is partially about sharing and communities. Trademarking the term, for whatever reason, is exactly the opposite: it strips away any sharing and slaps on control that makes it hard for a community to use it.

As part of my degree I studied trademark law, but not being a lawyer you should take this next thought with a pinch of salt. I think they’d find it hard to prove they are eligible for a trademark on the term. As Tim himself pointed out last September, the term had “9.5 million citations in Google,” now it has 812 million. When a term falls into generic use, its impossible to defend a trademark against it. So, should CMP/O’Reilly own the term “web 2.0,” or should the community?

On a related note, I see that O’Reilly Radar is licensed under Creative Commons, but also claims a Copyright at the bottom of the page. It seems they can’t make up their mind if their open, or closed.

MyHeritage thinks I look like Robert Patrick (a 64% match). I’m not going to argue, mainly because he’s cool as the T1000 and Colonel Tom Ryan in The Unit. We can ignore the last few seasons of the The X Files.

I’m intrigued about other parts of MyHeritage. My mum loves researching our family tree, so I’m hopeful that it’ll turn up some useful features.