1. Thou shall provide good content for the readers.
2. Thou shall take responsibility for one’s own words.
3. Thou shall not poke fun at other people, because it is not nice.
4. Thou shall not commit libel against a fellow blogger.
5. Thou shall not harass or stalk other people.
6. Thou shall place a warning label at the top of your blog if there are curse words or abusive comments on your blog.
7. Thou shall ignore rude comments about one’s self.
8. Thou shall call the police when you are threatened.
9. Thou shall speak politely to others and inform them if they are acting naughty.
10. Thou shall not vent your anger online.

No, these are not real commandments that need to be followed. These are a few of the ones from Tim O’Reilly’s blogger code of conduct (and a couple of my own). Let’s be serious. Do we really need an industry leader to tell us how to be mature adults? I don’t think so. I am completely empathetic to Kathy Sierra who has been targeted by some “cyber-bullies”, but I don’t think bloggers need an exhaustive list about how to act. We all know how to act, and some people have simply broken the rules as they do in the real world. Simply put, anyone who is threatening another blogger is a criminal.

We all know how to behave. Why then did Tim O’Reilly post an exhaustive list explaining this to us? Well, perhaps he is just making it clear that this behavior should not be tolerated. I agree with his suggestions. We also should understand though that the internet was not always the most friendliest place. There have been and will continue to be plenty of immature statements online that should be ignored. Once the immaturity crosses the line into criminal, it should be handled as such and reported to the police. It is as simple as that. I don’t think we need a list though explaining to us how to act. Controversy creates buzz in media (both new and old). If you don’t like what someone says, than say so and let it be.

At least that’s what Business Week seem to suggest in their article “Is Google Too Powerful?” What’s funny is they may not be far off in suggesting that Google is trying to control the world’s information. A great portion of the article references Larry Page at a 2002 talk at Stanford.

He said Google aims to turn the technology behind its search engine into a true artificial intelligence that could “answer any question, which means you can do basically anything.”

While that may be what they are trying to accomplish, they are going to face some pretty big challenges as they try to index the world information. These challenges are already popping up all over the place, including Viacom’s recent $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube. All in all they will fall short of collecting information way before they can connect wires to my brain given the onslaught of lawsuits coming their way.

I’m personally not opposed to Google storing most of my data except all of my personal company’s documents, etc. Although, I guess they already have that information given that Google desktop is installed on my computer and indexing everything! Oops! Regardless, while Google may be on top of the internet world currently, the world domination that some are concerned about may not be as realistic as they imagine. Due to competitive forces and ongoing legal battles, Google will have some major challenges in it’s quest to index the world.

For many of us in the web industry, we think of Web 2.0 as old news. We don’t realize that there are thousands if not millions of people that know about Web 2.0 and have experienced it but don’t know how to embrace it. Last night at the social media club I was speaking with many individuals who all said the same thing: “I love reading blogs, but half the time I sit there refreshing my favorite blogs only to find that there is no new content.” For many of my readers, Web 2.0 may be passé but for others it is not. This article is not directed at those that heard about my site through Techmeme, but rather those that know about what web 2.0 is, but don’t know all the right tools to take full advantage of it. Here is your 5 step guide to embracing web 2.0.

1. Download and Install Firefox - In order to experience Web 2.0 in all its glory you need to have a web 2.0 browser to handle all of your needs. So go download firefox and take the first step to becoming an official Web 2.0 user.
2. Join Google Reader - Google reader is going to save you from all that annoying page refreshing that you have to suffer on a daily basis. No longer will you have to keep going back to each of your favorite blogs and refreshing the page to see if new content is there. New content will now come to you. So go signup for Google reader and start reading all of your favorite blogs, from the comfort of one page.
3. Start using Del.icio.us - Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking service that allows you to share your bookmarks across computers as well as with different friends. If you aren’t using it, then you aren’t Web 2.0. So go signup for Del.icio.us and then install the Firefox del.icio.us add-on.
4. Install Greasemonkey - Rather than explaining all the intricacies of how this add-on works, just trust me and download it. It is going to make your life a hell of a lot easier momentarily.
5. Install the Greasemonkey RSS Script - Once you’ve restarted your browser after installing the del.icio.us and greasemonkey add-ons, it is time to install the following greasemonkey script. This script will add an easy Google Reader subscribe button at the top right corner of each of the sites that you visit to let you know if you have already subscribed to their feed as illustrated here. Trust me on this one and install it.

Sit back and relax because you are now one efficient Web 2.0 user. No longer will you have to waste your time refreshing pages, remembering URLs of your favorite websites, and searching to find the most fresh content on the web because it will all start coming to you. If you want to have some good content to start reading, go check out my entry from back in December about the “Top 20 Blogs for the Web Industry.” Also don’t forget to subscribe to my feed.

Tonight I attended my first Social Media Club ever. It was a great experience. I met a lot of wonderful people and engaged some great conversation. The main topic of discussion was supposed to be social media measurement but much of the conversation revolved around other topics. Topics discussed included the Viacom lawsuit against Google (as I wrote about a couple weeks ago), and second life. I actually was quite surprised that Second Life was still such a major topic of discussion. In all honesty, I think the PR industry is slightly obsessed with Second Life, perhaps rightly so.

In terms of social media measurement, I learned that it is truly an emerging industry that is still seeking leadership. The PR industry is still trying to adapt to the rapidly changing media environment. In order to advance social media measurement, there will need to be though leaders and advocates of social media measurement within the public relations and communication industry. Just like thought leaders are required for the progression of OpenID, such is the case of social media measurement and monitoring. All in all, my experience with social media club was a positive one and I will definitely attend it again.

As many of you know, it takes a serious amount of time trying to come up with unique content for readers on a daily basis. Much of the time spent is reading RSS feeds through Google Reader, and perusing sites including Techmeme and Megite. While the job of a blogger can be streamlined, much of the focus is on timeliness. If you don’t get in on the conversation early than you might as well not get in at all. As a result many workers spend a chunk of their time at work browsing other websites. While I like to write my posts at night, and have them published throughout the day, many people choose to stay active in the blogosphere round the clock.

As a result of this constant attraction to social media and various websites that aren’t work related, productivity has decreased for many. Last night the Web Worker Daily released statistics on the topic. Surprisingly (or not), just over half of workers spend an hour or more a week on social media sites, and 13 percent spend five hours or more. Depending on what industry you are in this may be acceptable. For instance if you are an industry where monitoring buzz is important, then you should be visiting social media sites on a regular basis. Whereas if your job is in direct sales to executives, spending hours a week (or a day) on YouTube may not be the best idea. Either way, take a look at the statistics, they are pretty interesting.

Not so long ago, the internet startup landscape was driven by individuals who had creative ideas and the determination to create a product. While the startup landscape is still driven by these individuals, they now have teams of people that help turn their visions into a reality. Today, while reading about the launch of MOG TV I began wondering about what happened to the old companies where the technology was developed by one individual (with the help of reused code, I’m sure). Examples include Napster, MySpace, and eBay. While all these technologies have additional programmers that have since improved the systems, all the existing programs were created by a single individual.

Now that the web has become more complex, and new technologies need to be leveraged (AJAX, SOAP, etc) to make a presentable site, start-ups are requiring small teams at a minimum to get off the ground. While this point has been hit on by many other individuals, it suddenly hit home when I saw the success of a new online music community (MOG). I myself tried to single-handedly create an online music community while in college. While the project (Frusic) ultimately failed, I know that it was pretty much up to par at the time (with the exception of some minor kinks that needed to be worked out). While witnessing the change of the startup environment on the web, I have learned a few things.

In the rapidly changing environment of the internet, new startups require a few key components:

1. A well defined product - I have worked for and heard about countless companies that fail to have a well defined product, or companies that have a continuously changing product offering. To get the company off the ground, a well defined product (or service) is critical. Later on, you can afford to introduce new products to the market. In the beginning though, follow the KISS model (Keep it simple stupid).
2. An enthusiastic team - To get over all the initial hurdles that face a startup, the employees should be passionate and enthusiastic about what they are creating. If the employees aren’t excited, it will show in the product. While I will allow this rule a little slack, it is pretty darn important.
3. Rapid execution - This is a critical component of a successful startup. Development models such as agile software development are needed for a startup to succeed. In unsuccessful startups, as new products and technologies become public, the startup will try to adopt the new system into their product that still has not launched. As a result the product ends up in a continuous cycle of adding new features, testing, and back to adding new features without ever launching.

This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of key components of a successful internet startup. It is simply a few of the maxims that I like to follow. Additionally, I do not intend to suggest that going it alone in a startup is ever the right way. It is simply a fact that some of the largest internet businesses were started by one person from the comfort of their own house (or dorm room). Nowadays it is much more challenging for the rare individuals to succeed given the massive influx of venture capital and dynamic teams. While it still is possible, it has become even more rare.

While all the developers in the blogosphere are working themselves into a tizzy over the new Yahoo Mail Service, Frank Gruber forwarded me an even cooler service for developers. Yesterday, Tailrank launched a new service called Spinn3r. Spinn3r provides developers with direct access to the Tailrank spider. I’ve been trying to come up with methods for my social media monitoring application and I think this service may be the best option. While I’m not sure about what the cost is for licensing access, I’m sure it is reasonably priced. While I was going to use Google’s Blogsearch, I quickly realized that any automated crawling of Google’s feeds are prohibited. This is going to open up a new segment in the web crawler marketplace. Now smaller companies can have access to large scaled crawlers. When will Google go open source with their crawler? Doubt I’ll ever live to see the day.

While Google already offered a job board for Google jobs, they haven’t launched a global job board for all jobs. At least not until now. According to threadwatch, Google is entering the job seeker market. As of now, all that you can access is screenshots of the future service, but I’m guessing an official launch is not far away. Are they going head on with Monster.com, Dice.com, Craigslist, etc? Apparently. From the screen shot there is a link that says “Post an item”. That’s an interesting twist on things. How long do you think job boards will allow Google to leverage their job postings to drive recruiters away from their site and toward Google’s job posting site? Not long. I doubt Google can have the best of both worlds. A pethora of existing job content to start with, and a system built to handle an onslaught of new job postings. Or can they?

Yesterday I questioned whether Facebook is near the tipping point, and suggested that they should hurry up and find an exit strategy. Then today a Pali Research analyst suggested that MySpace is generating over $30 million a month in revenues. If that’s the case, maybe Facebook doesn’t need an exit strategy. While Pete Cashmore doesn’t seem surprised, I surely didn’t expect them to make that much money. Although with News Corp’s existing access to television advertisers it makes sense that they could easily monetize their site.

Does this mean Facebook can generate enough revenue to satisfy their existing investors without an exit strategy? Well to satisfy venture capitalists without providing a solid exit strategy, you better pay some pretty serious dividends. Perhaps this is possible though, given that Facebook is expected to generate revenues of over $100 million this year. It would be great if a venture capitalist could provide some insight on this topic. Can a VC backed company satisfy investors via dividends, rather than a quick exit strategy?

Although the buzz about YouTube’s mobile site started months ago when their hidden mobile site was uncovered, an official launch date has been announced. According to Katie Fehrenbacher YouTube will launch their mobile site in June of this year once their exclusive deal with Verizon has ended.

Now everyone can get excited about watching other people make fools of themselves from the comfort of their mobile phone. While my phone doesn’t have high speed internet, I’m sure YouTube has some sort of technology to improve the loading speed on my smartphone. Honestly, I don’t take advantage of my mobile internet to often except when I’m using Google Maps Mobile. According to statistics though, there are millions of users that have the capacity and desire to take advantage of mobile video.

Watch out Gmail, here comes Yahoo! Today, Yahoo announced that they will begin offering unlimited mail space to all their users. Not even Gmail offers infinite space. You need to pay to obtain 10 GB of space with Google Apps for your domain. Now that Yahoo is launching unlimited space, the primary focus of competition will revolve around usability. I am personally a huge fan of Gmail, and love how I can search my mail. Conversely, there are certain features that I would love to see added to Gmail as well. Back at the beginning of January I wrote about 5 things that I’d like to see on Google.

Unfortunately, none of the items that I listed have come true. My friend at Google said that having your Google calendar show up in Gmail is one of the most requested features from users. Why haven’t they launched this feature yet then? Chris Gilmer speculates that this is because Google is going to integrate all of their applications within Jotspot, a wiki company that they recently acquired. Regardless, I think they should have integrated Google calendar long ago. All in all it looks like the battle of the email providers is far from over.

If you haven’t already heard, the blogosphere is buzzing about the death threats that Kathy Sierra has been receiving. The talk has grown so big that even the BBC is covering the story. I think everyone agrees that posting death threats is unacceptable behavior. Much of the discussion focuses on how Kathy is receiving these threats mostly because she is a woman. I’m not sure if that is truly the cause but I’m not quite sure why the death threat comment was allowed to be posted in the first place.

If you are going to post a death threat, please provide your name and address to speed up the process of throwing you in jail. Otherwise, please refrain from leaving nasty comments. While I post my name on the internet, I never post my address. If you are blogger running an online business and you must post your address, I would suggest using a P.O. Box for security purposes. Sorry to hear about the trouble that Kathy is experiencing.