I probably have one of the most unproductive jobs on the face of this earth. I constantly surf the web looking for content that is interesting and occasionally entertaining. The only problem is that if I find something entertaining, I immediately get sucked in and my entire mission of finding and writing about content gets sidetracked. As such just as my daily life is, this post is going to be a manifestation of A.D.D.

There are now a few top bloggers who can suddenly suck up an entire section of Techmeme to participate in the conversation and make that the news for the day. If Microsoft isn’t acquiring Yahoo, then Mike Arrington ought to be acquiring somebody. So let’s talk about it for a couple days and post videos about it. 24 hour news killed television and I’m starting to think that blogging is turning into the same thing. We are all becoming masters at talking about the same thing over and over again.

This is what killed the T.V. media and I’m guessing that it will kill blogging as well. At some point blogging became about money and the top blogs realized more content=more visitors=more money. I can’t complain because I’ve tested out the model successfully but as Howard Lindzon indirectly concludes, blogging has hit its max. Two years from now it’s going to be pretty much the same thing.

As others have concluded, blogging has lost the fun it once have. I am having a lot of my conversation on Twitter now and I gotta be honest, it’s pretty awesome! The blog is a great place to post my crazy thoughts (such as the one in this post) but aside from that I’m beginning to think it is better to talk where the conversation is happening then trying to force the conversation to come to you.

Then again, I don’t plan on giving up on this blog. Enough of my rant … what do you think the future of blogging holds? Why do you (or don’t you) blog?

Last night I attended the D.C. New Media Meetup. I got into a conversation with a number of people about this drive for building the D.C. technology community and more than building the community (which already exists), building an environment that is supportive of web startups. We already have a number of local web startups that are doing well but there appears to be a significant disconnect from these companies the community and the investors.

LaunchBox Digital, the local early stage investment fund, was a welcomed addition to the D.C. community. Unfortunately not everyone who applies gets selected and this has been discouraging for a few applicants. We are on the verge of something big. There is more buzz surrounding D.C. technology, there are an increasing number of investors and there is also more vocal participants than ever before.

There are still parts of the community that are learning though. As we all know, D.C. is not your traditional web startup community in that we don’t have a local university that is known for technology and we don’t have the risk taking environment. In order to build this environment I think we need a few additional things beyond the things I’ve previously mentioned.

Entrepreneur Education
If we are going to get a thriving group of entrepreneurs we need people to be educated about what it means to take risks, how to approach getting funding and how to know when to quit. I’ve heard a lot of complaints from a number of people about what’s lacking but I also think that there is plenty here and sometimes it is not the community. We read in Techcrunch about new startups getting funding everyday (well frequently at least) and it leads a lot of other people to think that they deserve funding for their crazy internet idea.

I’ve had crazy internet ideas and so far none have received funding but I have learned something from the people that do receive funding: it’s not about the idea, it’s about the team. Also, if you are going to get funding you better start networking like crazy because locally there are a lot of investors that think and act like Warren Buffet. Check out the following video and you’ll know what I mean:

Active Leaders and Educational Events
There are a lot of big named business people in the D.C. area. None of them are at any events. While I don’t expect them to attend the average happy hour, we need to have events where inspirational people can speak. When I saw Mitch Kapor speak at an event with Facebook developers out in California last year, I saw what was different about Silicon Valley. There are leaders that are at the events and are acting at mentors to the community.

I’d like to get a series of events where we have speakers talking to the local entrepreneurs. I’ve already begun planning on one but that hasn’t been announced yet. What events do you think would help build this community further? What else do you think would be helpful to continue building the community?

One week ago AOL announced that they were acquiring Bebo for a whopping $850 million. The blogosphere was surprised by the acquisition and now one week later talk of AOL making a horrible decision is returning. Is this surprising? Not really. While Bebo was the second social platform to market, growth has become relatively stagnant.

According to Henry Blodget, executives at AOL have had some internal conflict over the acquisition. The primary issues highlighted were the inability for AOL to monetize social-network inventory, Bebo’s flattening growth and the belief that the Bebo founders will hit the road. If I was the Bebo founders I definitely would hit the road! We’ve heard stories of how expensive it was for Fox Interactive to keep on the MySpace founders on board.

I have to agree with Henry Blodget when he quotes Glengarry Glen Ross, “first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, second prize is a set of steak knives, third prize is you’re fired.” Many believe that the social networking space is a two horse race and that’s how it will remain. While maintaining a site with millions of active users can be a steady business, you won’t see the type of growth that the leaders are experiencing.

This was a last ditch attempt at joining the social networking game and as I said last week, join the social graph race. What is confusing to me though is why doesn’t AOL simply focus on leveraging their instant messaging service? Building out instant message services that are comparable of competing services such as Trillian or even Facebook’s new IM service would help them to rebuild the failing AOL community.

Then again, I’ve been wondering about why AOL hasn’t reinvented their instant messaging service for years. Do you think AOL’s acquisition made any sense? Do you think leveraging their instant messaging service could prove valuable?

Blogs are strange entities; some people make a killing at them and some plod along blogging for fun. Talking with some friends last night I had a revelation about how blogging and money really work.

Blogging is like collecting coins vs playing the stock market. It may seem like an odd analogy but hear me out. It may have been the sushi and Long Islands talking but this really makes sense.

Basically there are two ways to approach blogging. The first is like playing the stock market. You can take systematic approach to study potential stories, research when is the right time to post, then make your bet that your post will get enough traffic that you can monetize your blog.

The second way, the way I would prefer, is closer to the coin collecting model. Essentially you write about things you enjoy, it is like collecting coins you find interesting, eventually your post will generate interest and people will listen; like finding a coin of value in your set.

Both systems have their pros and cons. The stock market approach, which is taken by larger publications, is great if you have a pool of writers who can toil away like a million monkeys for a million years.

The second approach should be taken by the casual blogger. Essentially someone who isn’t looking to pay the bills from blogging, but would like to see a return from it some day. Write about what you enjoy, never force a story in the hopes of getting a quick return, and you will be writing for years.

I am a coin collector when it comes to blogging. I am lucky enough to have found a great channel to write on while being able to explore topics that interest me. Too often however I hear people complaining that their blog isn’t getting the traffic they would like. From this day forward I will begin explaining blogging as the coin collecting mode and that they have nothing to worry about.
Are you a stock market player or do you consider yourself a coin collector? Or is there a third model for blogging that I have overlooked? Let me know and tell me if any of my coins… posts might be worth anything.

Rafe Needleman has a post up today about a new social bookmarking site called Diigo. I’m always extremely hesitant about installing new tools on my browser but for this article I decided to give it a whirl. After registering (which has an excessive number of steps), I restarted my browser and started testing out the features.

One useful feature that stood out was the ability to share clips from web pages you are visiting with friends as well as other visitors. I immediately went to my own sites to see what other visitors had come to the site. Aside from being able to see their user avatar and view their profile, there wasn’t much additional utility to the browser add-on. As of now del.icio.us takes care of most of my social bookmarking needs. It would be great if del.icio.us could suggest new friends but for now that’s the only feature that I think is lacking.

Rafe came to a different conclusion and is a fan of the new tool. I figure you can only build a social bookmarking utility so many ways but I’m sure there are plenty of people that disagree. While I like being connected with new people via my browsing behavior, I’m not sure how an introduction would proceed. “Hey, so I saw you browsing my blog … you like it?” Alternatively, if you’re browsing a gaming website you could find people that are equally addicted to games such as dolphin olympics 2.

Do you see any need for adding another social bookmarking tool?

Depending on which media source you look at, the latest news today from eMarketer could be seen as positive or worrisome. Alley Insider prefers to point out the downside suggesting that research firms continue to downsize their estimates for future online advertising campaign. Others have been more upbeat and given that Federated Media, a popular online ad network, is about to close $30 million in funding, things aren’t looking to shabby.

No matter how I look at the chart below, it is difficult to come up with any downside. The largest growth over the next 5 years is supposed to come from rich media and video advertising. This isn’t surprising since interactive advertising is becoming more advanced and well, more interactive.

If you are looking are looking at the absolute numbers expected out of each sector of online advertising (search, rich media, sponsorships, lead generation, etc), all of them are expected to grow over the next few years but percentage wise, allocations will be adjusting.

For now, while advertising expenditures are being revised downward, it is still a rosy outlook. While other parts of the economy are sagging, the online industry is still booming and given that advertising dollars are the primary source of web revenue, it’s refreshing to see eMarketer’s new projections.

Creditability is something everyone strives for. We attend classes, gain certificates, become licensed and pretty much find any way possible to lend legitimize what we do. The traditional media have either press passes or freelance contracts to show the world they are legitimate. What about bloggers?

Sure I could carry my phone around with me and show the world that I have indeed made blog post. But what does that prove? And furthermore, does the act of writing a blog actually make me a blogger? I mean just because I give someone drugs doesn’t make me a pharmacist.

This comes up because I spent the morning arguing points on media with a friend of mine who cited a blogger. When I asked what was the blogger’s background my friend was unable to answer. Doing a ChaCha (242242 from my cell) I found out that the blogger was actually high school student from New York City.

I applauded the student for taking the time to study media, but she is simply a casual observer. She has no journalistic background, has not worked in a relating field and for all I know simply watches the daily news to form an opinion.

I know it goes against social media’s core to suggest this, but maybe we need some kind of validation system in the blogging world. Something that can show my creditability and the verity of what I write. Some sort of ranking system that can be applied by readers of a blog to show prominence.

I am not talking about something that tracks link backs or site visits, but something that readers of blogs can actually give a numerical value to a blog on its legitimacy. The blogger could then prominently display his/her rating and let the world know he/she is a certified blogger.

Have any of you seen a system like this? Do you think it is a good idea or should blogging be left the way it is? Now with all this hoopla about creating massive blogging networks I wonder if the blogosphere is ready to adopt something like this? If you need to see my blog pass I left it in my other pants.

For the past few years, the U.S. has been light years behind the rest of the world when it comes to mobile phones and applications. It looks like things are beginning to perk up with the support of three web industry leaders: Google, Apple and Adobe. Today there have been two news stories that illustrate the mobile tipping point domestically. The first is a report is a statement out of Google today which states that we have “hit a watershed moment in terms of internet usage.”

The growth is being fueled by the expansion of unlimited data plans by mobile carriers as well as the launch of the iPhone which Google previously reported as driving a surge in traffic to their various internet properties. While Google’s statement may have been part of a new product launch which “conveniently positions a Google Web search window on the home screen” of Windows Mobile devices, a second announcement fueled the mobile related buzz.

According to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, there will soon be a version of Flash for the iPhone. This is a massive revelation and will surely transform the future of mobile development. For too long it has been overly complex to develop robust applications for mobile devices, but with the launch of a flash support for the iPhone could immediately simply development a start a mobile revolution.

Two weeks ago at the D.C. Mashmeet, Greg Gershman told be the great news about his company being acquired by Odeo. Today, the news is finally being announced. Congratulations to Greg and best of luck at Odeo! Blogdigger, the 5 year old search engine has had an interesting history. A few years ago the company diversified by expanding into digital media search and the result has been nothing but positive.

The most exciting part about this acquisition is the expanding presence of Web 2.0 startups in the D.C. area. I have a few meetings scheduled over the coming weeks with unannounced startups in the area that will be launching soon. It’s an exciting time for D.C. and I have high expectations of the area’s ability to produce great new startups. Greg has posted more details about what we can expect from the acquisition:

A little about the new Odeo: it’s focused on much more than just audio podcasts; we’ve added video and are pulling content from a variety of sources, not just podcasts. I’m really excited about what we’re building and the team we’ve got(which includes the folks from FireAnt and the Odeo guys) is really smart and great to work with. If you’d like to check out the new Odeo, head over to the site and signup for the beta (and ping me and I’ll approve your invite).

I’m excited to see what the Odeo team has up its sleeves and they are a welcomed addition to the D.C. web landscape. Congratulations again to Greg!

Mike Arrington has gone off on a rant about the future of blogs and where all the value is being made or not made. He argues that the most efficient way to generate a lot of value is to roll-up a bunch of blogs into one massive network. The only problem is that the people he references are all talking about the same thing for the most part aside from Alley Insider who give a little more financial perspective within each of their posts.

The issue being brought up by Arrington makes a lot of sense though. Can the individual blogs expect significant valuations and quick exits if they over-value themselves from the get go? According to Arrington, Alley Insider is preparing to raise a round of funding for between $2 and $5 million. This would be one of the largest rounds for a blog in the past few years but given the site’s meteoric growth, it’s not surprising.

I also think that Arrington is getting a little nervous since he sees blogs with one or two writers gaining similar traction that his site has in a short amount of time. If he were to honor the age old maxim “keep your friends close but your enemies closer” it would be best for all to partner. If he laid out a plan for alliances I would imagine that a number of bloggers would be willing to jump at the bait. It’s always better to work with a team to accomplish lofty goals.

Then again, Arrington currently has the largest team and simply building the “Techcrunch” alliance would turn a lot of people off. Would smaller blogs be able to get along with an alliance made up of a few larger entities? Would you be willing to get rolled up into one large blog network?