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4? That's the fundamental question. What is the Web for? David Weinberger thinks the Web is for us — that it's a new world we're building where we get to rediscover the human voice, so long missing from markets defined as "targets" by those who care only about the sound of "messages" whose "impact" is measured by cash exchanged for consumption. Specifically: No one ordered the Web built. No one owns it. No one is responsible for fixing it. There's no one to call when something goes wrong. There's no automated phone support for the Web. No one gives you permission to get onto the Web or to post materials onto the Web. If you don't like what you see, there's no one to complain to. No one's page carries more inherent weight than anyone else's. No one can certify that what you've said is right. No one protects you from being an asshole in public. Architecturally, the Web is decentralized. Politically, the Web is profoundly unmanaged. Jakob Nielsen thinks the Web is for business. Here's his bottom line: Ultimately, users will benefit from the ability to pay for services. We need a way for Web sites to charge, and we need it fast. Otherwise, the quality of Web service will continue to degrade to the point that users will give up and allocate their attention elsewhere. Let's save the Web: Let's give it real money. I'm flummoxed here. I know Jakob isn't talking about the whole Web. He's only talking about commercial activity on it. And he's a voice in the wilderness on Microsoft's Hailstorm, which has been bashed pretty badly by lots of folks, including me. But I don't think there's a crisis here. Investors and industrialists of many stripes together laid a $trillion fantasy on the Web and it survived as something as a-commercial as the Earth and sky. In other words, it already saved itself. If you don't want your default beliefs about our educational system challenged, don't read Mudsill Theory, The Lancaster Amish and Jaime Escalante, by John Taylor Gatto. Context: Escalante was the heroic teacher whose true story was told in the movie Stand and Deliver a few years back. You may recall that he moved a class full of kids from the poorest (and most Spanish) part of East L.A. from ennui to 800s on their Math SATs. In other words, he blew up the bell curve by moving a heap of kids from the lower slope to a spike on the right. Mudsill's author, John Taylor Gatto, did similar works in Harlem. I love Gatto's style. He's a rhetorical boxer who never stops punching. For instance: All school curricula except the most basic will either secure or disestablish things as they are; it's not a polar thing, of course, but the cumulative effect of centralized curriculum tends in one or another direction: consumption...or production. Mudsill theory prepares the ground for an outlook on ordinary people as "masses," simplified consumption units biologically incompetent for much other than to be held in a low-level narcotized state until public policy decides what to do with them in a micro-chip age. It doesn't require much imagination to figure out what eventually the answer has to be. Jeffrey's in a new preschool in Montecito that seems to come straight from the Gatto/Escalante POV. No wonder he loves it. I shoulda known Deborah Branscum has already written a piece for Fortune on the subject of Google's success as a new breed of advertising medium. Get this: One advertiser, who asks not to be quoted, says Google is the Nordstrom's of online advertising vehicles thanks to proactive customer service. He claims other sites, such as AOL and Yahoo, only try to help him optimize his campaign when the contract is up for renewal. Garrett of JustFlowers.com is even more blunt: "When we talk to everyone else, we say, `Why can't you be more like Google?' Excite@home is a huge company. You would think they would be easy to use like Google, but they're not. And Google's quick; they'll have stuff up within a day. At MSN, you're lucky to have it up in ten days." And this: Google's big-name investors, which include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital, may wind up happy campers. And employees? Visiting privately-held Google HQ is like entering a time warp--it's impossible to tell the Internet bubble has burst. On the day I arrive, the 200- employee company is hiring and the perks are still plentiful while over in San Jose 3000 fellow technology workers are getting the ax. She concludes: In the meantime, nobody's claiming that Google has cracked the code of online advertising... But I'm nominating Google as a candidate. I also submit this question as the code to crack: Is there demand for it by users, and not just by sellers and buyers? Because if there isn't, it's just better spam. In other words, it will succeed only to the extent that it subtracts less value than advertising on other sites. Maybe I should register as a non-prophet "You are so wrong," one email says about my glib prophesy that Eric Schmidt will oversee the sale of Google to Sun. Another adds, "Being a former Sun insider, I wouldn't expect Sun to know what to do with Google. They would probably try to get the service onto Solaris, like Microsoft tried to migrate Hotmail to NT. Ha ha..." And so on. But on the extreme outside chance that it actually happens, remember who said it first. Jabbage at work Jeremie Miller just told me on the phone that he enjoyed getting pointed yesterday to Bob Frankston's writing, especially The Prerogatives of Innovation. Nice to play intellectual cupid between two of the great inventors of our time. I just noticed, among Jeremie's public bookmarks, that we both like Joe Frank. You've got to listen to Joe's stuff. Imagine surreal Kafka, set in modern L.A., read as if by Jack Webb sharing an intimate narrative over strong drinks in a dark bar.
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