It is Evan Williams‘ (of Blogger and Odeo fame) latest creation, and is currently hosted on TextDrive‘s accelerators. They call it micro-blogging, where you can post plain text of up to 140 characters using either the web site, your phone via SMS (if you are in US), Google Talk, or its web service API. Moreover, it combines with social networking where you get notification whenever your friends posted something.

So there we have it — a bunch of guys and girls writing short snippets of text about what they do everyday.

• Just woken up, on the wrong side of bed (8 hours ago)
• Had Indomie for breakfast. 3rd pack this week, and it is only Tuesday (7 hours ago)
• On the bus to work. Cloudy. 24″C at most. (6 hours ago)
• @friend Yeah that was cool. (3 hours ago)
• Still working. A boring day. (2 hours ago)
• …

Yes — that would be a typical Twitter time line for a made-up individual (definitely not mine). Pretty much useless to those who do not know the person who is posting these. Yet everyone is claiming that Twitter is so addictive. However I just don’t get it (not yet).

Twitter replacing emails? Is scalability and fail-safe delivery in the designing of the protocol? Can I type in long paragraphs, attaching documents and PGP sign my signature? My PGP signature would be more than 140 characters…

Use Twitter productively, as ToDo list, people and business management, a short newsletter, etc. As it is posted on LifeHack, they do look like lots of “hacks” to tweak Twitter into something it wasn’t designed for.

I know. It is a simple product. Cool people behind it. It has an API (but which Web 2.0 app hasn’t?). People love it… Meanwhile, I am twittering here, trying to figure out why people are so crazy about it.

Web 1.0/Sun: “Network is the computer”
Web 3.0: “World wide web is your database”

Web 2.0: Mesh-up of web-services
Web 3.0: Searching the big mesh-up with warm fuzzy term such as “Artificial Intellegence”

Robert Scoble reckoned it should be called Web 2007, obviously because 2007 > 3.0. They might as well call it “Web Vista”. After all, Windows Vista is just an evolved product from Windows XP with a nicer looking shell, marketing PR and lots of hype. So is Web 3.0.

But I guess the market needs it. To prevent bubble from bursting, they need to constantly fuel the fire with hypes and speculations like this. And just ignore nay-sayers like Dave Winer — there will be plenty of start ups riding on this term to differentiate themselves from the old Web 2.0 crowd.

Cuban, co-founder of HDNet and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, also said YouTube would eventually be “sued into oblivion” because of copyright violations.

“They are just breaking the law,” Cuban told a group of advertisers in New York. “The only reason it hasn’t been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue.”

Yes indeed. Besides bleeding huge amount of money of bandwidth cost, all the copyrighted video on YouTube that might attract potential law suits can really scare all the possible buys. Actually, it wasn’t a “might”, but “definitely will”. All the media companies are just waiting for someone with a deep pocket so all the copyright violation can be compensated.

Sounds like a hard time for YouTube. Big monthly expense — and it seems their only way out is acquisition, but no one seems to want to make that move. Maybe profitable high-bandwidth video sharing service that relies on only ads revenue is still years ago?

The beauty of the Internet is software becomes so easy to use that you can hundreds of useful little services without thinking about them… until they’re gone.

The idea of Software as a Service (SaaS) holds the key to Web 2.0. Instead of buying half dozen of software packages to handle everyday needs, you just use applications delivered over the Internet. Nothing needs to be stored on your local hard drive, all upgrades are taken care of, and everything belongs to you can be accessed from anywhere with a browser and Internet connection.

There are so many useful web-based applications out there, and even TechCrunch can’t list them all. People grow to depend on them — imagine a day without Gmail or Del.icio.us? However, the concern Bert has raised is, what if they are suddenly gone?

Long time computer users would have suffered enough pain to remember keeping regular backups of their treasured data on their harddrive. How many of you actually backup everything in your Gmail account, or your photos on Flickr, or your bookmarks in Del.icio.us, or your blog posts on Live Space? Sure, the likeliness of Google, Yahoo! and MSN fold out of sudden is very slim. But what about the smaller players, where you trust your data to them equally?

For example, if you are a Kiko calendar user, wouldn’t you be worried when the site was auctioned eBay? It’s great that Tucows bought them, but what if the auction passed-on and fall through? Well, there’s also Google Calendar that you can move to, but where is that “import from my Kiko account” button that let you recover all your appointments?

As the bubble is more inflated, you’ll likely to see many more declared dead. It is easy for a basement operation to declare defeat, but what about their users? What about the time they spent on your services? What about their valuable data?

I guess moving to SaaS is inevitable. At work we are also delivering software applications via the ASP model, as it is much much easier in maintenance. We too have been challenged with similar questions — “Is our data safe in your hands?” “Will database be provided if we terminate the service?” We have to again and again assure them that “we are backed by a listed company with international operations.” “all your data is safe with us.” etc.

I guess the same when we approach a Web 2.0 company. If you intend to use this service for a few years, instead of just taste-testing the service, then you gotta ask the same question — do you trust this company or organisation over the time span that you intend to use the service?

These days, I usually only rely on services provided by the big boys like Google, Yahoo, MSN or Amazon. There are fancier, more powerful and more “Web 2.0″‘ish implementations out there, which I enjoyed playing with. But no commitment unless I can be firmly assured.

The Web sites and blogs that cover Web 2.0 — sites that I really love — are largely supported by ads from startups that also are hoping to capitalize in the rising interest in online advertising. This creates a vicious cycle that’s unhealthy for the earning potential of bloggers who cover Web 2.0.

When I read the CNN article this morning on the success of various Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, the question “what powers the Web 2.0 economy” jumped straight out from my mind. There’s certainly a lot of money talk in that CNN article. Personal publishing sites are valued at millions of dollars. Blog networks bringing in several millions a year. Where do the revenue come from?

Advertisement. And? That’s about it. Well, mostly.

Where then do the advertisers come from? From Steve’s article he is worrying that a big chunk of advertisement revenue is coming from the other start up companies. No. They are not cheap reciprocal link exchanges — those start up companies actually pay for the advertisement so they can grab a premium spot on those “Web 2.0 technology review sites”.

Guess who the really paid for the advertisement? Other than the very venture capitalists who are funding these start ups? Duncan Riley said in his blog post:

History is a guide, and with a pile of money going into Web 2.0 reporting blogs it really puts the gamble into venture capital funding, doesn’t it.

When VC’s start to gamble their money, what do we have? Bubble, maybe not as badly inflated as last time, but the Bubble 2.0 is surely building up, relying on ads revenue from other start up companies funded by other VC’s who are also trying to squeeze into this crowded game.

Fortunately it is not the whole picture of Web 2.0 economy. It is not a closed system and there are indeed advertisement revenue from sources other than the start up web companies. CNN article mentioned a few old-school enterprises, i.e. Intel, that are shifting their marketing expense from traditional media to the web. We are hoping that those traditional brick-and-mortar business can eventually power the Web 2.0. But at the same time, a traditional company will only be willing to pay for advertisement if it can bring in enough leads/sales to justify the cost. Number of consumers stays pretty much constant — so in order to fuel Web 2.0 economy, traditional companies have to cut marketing expense from other traditional media.

So, who are the biggest losers? TV? Radio? Dead-tree version of news paper? On the other hand, if you think it costs zilch to launch a Web 2.0 media site, how many Web 2.0-style sites can a traditional media company build, with their money and existing resources? They too are moving into this space to reclaim back the ads revenue they are lost to the start ups.

From what I can see, the prime time has already passed. There are already zillions of blogsites, personal publishing houses, social networks and Ajax-filled craps out there (and 2 more born every second) trying to ride on the back of Web 2.0 economy. Guys, enjoy it while you can. Meanwhile, start planning Web 3.0.

1. The Focus of Technology Moves To People With Web 2.0
   Translation: Web 2.0 is people-centred, and they are here to solve people’s problems.
2. Web 2.0 Represents Best Practices
   Translation: “Web 2.0″ actually evolves from “Web 1.0″ (surprise!!!)
3. Web 2.0 Has Excellent Feng Shui
   Translation: “Web 2.0″ has a lot of hype, and swarm of VC are pouring money into it.
4. Quality Is Maximized, Waste Is Minimized
   Translation: It is just a matter picking the hyped right tools so that you can be quick to market. Can’t scale? Just buy more hardware. Damn it!
5. Web 2.0 Has A Ballistic Trajectory
   Translation: More buzz, more hype, bigger bubbles — you might as well take this roller coaster ride and profit from it.

As you can see, he is either stating the obvious, or saying “lol, this is so cool” in a journalistic way. Moreover, have we actually come to a conclusion what “Web 2.0″ really is?