Spoiler for Lost fans - Do not read this post until you’ve watched the 4/3 (make that, 5/3) episode: However, if you have watched it, all I can say is this: If you get a DUI while working on this show, then watch out.

I’m sorry, this blog is looping: A few minutes ago, one of the original seven readers of this weblog, Doug Shore, emailed me a link to the this WSJ.com story about the “best of the worst” technology from the past decade as it features the CueCat, a swell bit of convergence technology that I’ve mentioned a few times over the years. And then, I saw where Rafat (who must be staying up all night in London) was pointing to a story at Adage.com reporting that Forbes is “quietly seeking investors”…And that reminded me of the last time I blooged about the Forbes family selling something and low and behold, that post also mentioned the CueCat, which Forbes invested in before the bust that I’ve been blogging about today.

Steve Gillmor: ““Why don’t they get that the iPod broke the back of the record monopoly, just like the VCR broke the back of the projectionist’s union?“

I agree. Why is so hard to understand that it’s all about “the model”? If you try to explain Apple’s success (or what will “kill” it) in the music (and now video) category, you’re hopeless if you try to isolate your explanation to one aspect of what they’ve done. “It’s the model.” It’s not just the iPod, it’s the iTunes/iPod/iTunes Store juggernaut. It’s the business model that allows them to generate high margins on selling iPods while squeaking by (if making money at all) on the distribution of music and video. Others may replicate the low-margin music and video distribution business — sell it, sell subscriptions to it, give it away for free, it doesn’t matter. Others may one day offer the next, coolest whatever playing device. But can Apple’s model be replicated? And by whom? It’s what Steve Gillmor said.

Technorati Tags: apple, ipod

The coming bust in Web 2.0 names: I argued this morning that boom and bust aren’t necessarily applicable tags to apply to the current proliferation (and inevitable failure of many) of the web applications and new media experiments that fit under that biggest of big tents called Web 2.0.

However, in the last few moments, I’ve been glancing over all the names on the website/blog called categoriz and I must say that after a while, all of the names run together. Looking over that page reminded me of the recent meme quiz, “Web 2.0 or Star Wars Character?” Except the quiz just scratched the surface.

In the magazine world, it’s thought that most “categories” can sustain two, maybe three brands. However, in the magazine world, publishers have a genius for creating new niches in which they can be number one or two. When it comes to Web 2.0, rather than explore new categories, it seems to me that developers feel compelled to createt the tenth or twentieth version (but better than the others) of the same thing. Wouldn’t it make more sense to go climb a new mountain than for everyone to keep trying to climb the same old ones?

Technorati Tags: web2.0

A book I won’t be reading: Paul Conley points to a B2B media-related book he’s learned about, a self-published graphic novel that “satirizes the compromised ethics at play in the fictional offices of American Tractor Times magazine.” In the past I may have ordered it, but I recently became a member of the Church of Kathy Sierra and one of its doctrines is to admit I’ll never get around to reading a book like this so why have it sitting on my desk reminding me what a loser I am for not keeping up with everything I think I want to read or see or do.

Technorati Tags: B2B, magazines

Wasted space: When I see an analysis like this in Advertising Age regarding MySpace and Facebook, it makes me realize why reporters aren’t entrepreneurs, VCs or successful investors — and don’t quite get what’s going on with Facebook or MySpace, either.

First, they still don’t understand what the dot.com bust was all about (a collapse of a run-away speculative public financial market — not a bust in the potential business opportunities the Internet offers). Second, they fail to understand that when sites like Facebook or MySpace reach the scale and niche dominance they’ve achieved, they become a platform (or network) that is more than merely a media channel, but is an entire media ecosystem. MySpace has reached a critical mass among independent (and even “signed”) musicians in several genres. As lame as some people may think it is, when artists couple their MySpace address with their website address when they market themselves, the “network” value has already left the stratosphere. The same is true with the university (and now high school) “market.” Facebook is the platform, not a media channel, for these folks. (For the record, I doubt they’ll replicate such success with the corporate marketplace.)

As for media companies or VCs losing money on investments in social media…So what? As long as these un-profit companies are kept out of the public financial marketplace, the folks who will lose their shirts know their risks — and their potential for return. They know the odds. They know they’re placing bets.

Bottomline: I think “marketers” and “advertisers” and those who write from them should not confuse the financial aspects related to current and potential valuations of such companies when trying to understand the role such social media ecosystems play in the lives of those who live within them. Some will succeed as financial ventures, others will fail miserably. But the “platforms” and “networks” being created today will not go away even when they become the DNA for whatever follows them…and savvy advertisers and marketers and media companies can’t wait around for everything to sort itself out.

One last thing: Despite my conviction that we’re not in a “repeat” of the specific type of boom we saw in the late 1990s (as it relates to public markets), I do find some amusing (alarming?) similarities to what’s taking place today and then. But that is another topic for another day and another post. It’s about the business of what’s taking place: not the phenomenon of what’s taking place.

Technorati Tags: facebook, myspace, socialmedia