I’m at the amazing D conference in SoCal this week. It’s an amazing conference… you never know who you’re going to bump into. Last night I was talking to a friend and bumped into someone and we both turned around it was Bill Gates. Sorry Bill! I didn’t try to get any face time with Bill this year (last year we talked twice).

Gates was the opening interview last night and he demoed a very cool version of Office that had a very clean–but still packed–GUI. One thing I noticed while the demo was going on was that Gates was smiling like a kid on Christmas. As the audience oooed and ahhhhed you could see him get more excited and smile more. I thought to myself, “wow, this guys been building the same pieces of software for over 20 years and he is still excited about it–that’s pretty cool.”

Someone speculated to me that since Gates got married and started a family he’s become less aggressive and happier. He does seem very happy and at peace. I think the world looking at him as the personification of Evil for so long has turned around. Microsoft is playing nice in the ecosystem, and when Walt and Kara dogged him about not gaining marketshare vs. iTunes and Google search he sort shruged and said “we’ll get there.” He’s clearly not happy that search has not grown for them, but he said it was a five year race–which is true.

One attendee told me Gates seemed upset by every question Walt and Kara asked him, which was true. It wasn’t that they asked bad questions, but Gates has this habit of shaking his head and rolling his eyes ever time they ask him a question. After he does that he rephrases their question, and admittedly, makes the question better. I guess that’s what life is like when you’re that brilliant.

My big takeaways:

1. He’s defiantly building an iPod killer (sorry, viable co-exister) into the XBOX platform. Gates is very easy to read, unlike Jobs who last year told me to my face “Jason, no one wants to watch video on their iPod” only to annouce the product shortly after. When Gates is asked about a product he smiles and moves on, when Steve Jobs is asked a question he gets a kick out bluffing you. I’d love to play poker with one of them. BTW: are we playing poker tonight or what?!?

2. He sees the closed hardware system model (Apple’s model) as attractive in some places–like XBOX. When Walt told him the XBOX group was more like Apple he responded by saying something to the effect of a “very, very big Apple.” That got a laugh. I could see Microsoft doing more hardware based on what he said. Not a PC, but I could see him doing the iPod thing and maybe some other stuff (they do keyboards and they used to do routers I believe).

3. He dismissed the web-based office concept, which I thought was in-authentic. Clearly for some folks–perhaps most–a web-based solution is better. However, their earnings are based on Office so I can understand his position.
4. This was the big one for me: Microsoft is gonna built free and paid storage in the sky and synch them with their applications/OS.

Some folks say I’m out of line by talking about our problems. I point them to this post, by a hard working developer at AOL:

Jason takes care not to disparage the talented engineers that work on our products. I bet if you ask him, he’ll tell you that he respects them all a great deal. But, our products are a different story. He takes an objective look at the products, focuses on a metric that’s measurable (i.e., placement of first organic search result, memory footprint of Triton), and then asks for change and improvement. How many times have you had your management make vague and overarching edicts like “make it better” without any clue what “better” is? Jason at least gives feedback where improvements are straight-forward to evaluate and measure. That’s golden, in my book.

This AOLer, who I don’t think I’ve met yet, is taken back by blunt posts:

This isn’t my first discussion about Jason and his blog. I use him as an example with others that execs can blog…and maybe should. However I often times get replies back about Jason like “He works for us?”, and “I wonder if Ted (Leonsis) has yelled at him yet?”. I dunno but I certainly would like to know more about WHY he post the way he does…

For the record, I don’t think it’s in Ted’s nature to yell, and if he did I think he would say “Rock on dude!!!!”

Shawn continues: Now I’m not going to personally jump the chain of command here to IM/E-mail Jason however maybe these things should be handled in house.

Chain of command?!?! You can comment on my blog any time and you can IM or call me any time! You can come to any of my open office hours and I welcome any debate that makes our products better.

In terms of AIM I have talked to folks and I understand exactly why AIM is so fat and crashes my machine. I know they are working on it, and I’m hosting the public discussion of making that product better.

In terms of search I’ve had many (many, MANY) discussions with the search team about why our search is so bad. It is gonna get better, and when it does I will be the first one running up the hill with the flag. However, I’m not willing to send our people up that hill to be shot–so to speak.

As Dossy says. AOL was just named the WORST TECH PRODUCT OF ALL TIME. A totally unfair label for the brand that brought 75M+ people onto the Internet, but that is what we’re up against. Now is the time for open discourse and investment in our products.

Thanks to one of my readers for pointing our Microsoft’s Live search beats every search engine out there in terms of the placement of the first organic result: 192 pixels from the top! That’s about 20% better than Google for the iPod search.

Wow…. nice job Microsoft!

Check it out here: http://www.live.com/#q=ipod

Let me start off by saying that, as most folks already know, Tim and John and I are not BFF–we’ve had our own little run ins over the years. Second, sending lawyers to attack a non-profit is just straight-up dumb. Especially when you’ve made tens of millions of dollars being the proponent of the open source and Web 2.0 memes like Tim has.

However, Tim clearly has some rights to the Web 2.0 mark in the *title* of a conference name. Battelle points this out, and that it makes business sense to defend your brand.

Regardless of who made up the Web 2.0 term (Tim didn’t invent–I heard people say Web 2.0 back in 98.. it was one of the terms that was just out there for a long time), it’s pretty well established that Tim made the Web 2.0 term *stick* and he certainly was the first to do an event based on the Web 2.0 name.

If someone comes along and does a “Web 2.0″ event that is dilutive of the brand that Tim and John have built (i.e. confusing to users) that’s is just not fair. Now, I’m not saying that in *this* case folks wouldn’t know the difference, but we all know that our legal systems is designed so that you have defend yourself consistently if you want protection. Every time you let something slide the evil folks can use that as ammunition for you to lose your rights. Our trademark system isn’t perfect–we all know that. Of course, a call to the IT@Cork folks would have solved the problem I think (and so does JBAT).

Now, if someone uses Web 2.0 in the tag line, or is really, really clear that it’s not an O’Reilly event with the naming of the event, then I think that’s fine. For example, if someone does the Web 2.0 Summit or The Web 2.0 Expo I think that’s OK. However, if they just do a “Web 2.0″ conference that’s not cool because some folks might actually think it is Tim or John’s event.

When I was running Silicon Alley Reporter we had a similar issue. We had the double edge sword of having a buzzword in our brand name: Silicon Alley. Every time Silicon Alley was mentioned in the news or in a magazine got a bump in brand recognition. However, other folks would make Silicon Alley branded magazines and take a little of our thunder. We had conferences in addition to our magazine that used the format Silicon Alley YEARNAME (i.e. Silicon Alley 97, 98, 99, 2000, etc), and we had to defend those because some folks would come along and say “we’re doing a ‘Silicon Alley’ conference too!” Our position was just don’t call it Silicon Alley YEARNAME. Call it the Silicon Alley SOMETHING. People did, everyone got on with their life.

Tim *doesn’t* seem to want it both ways. He understands he doesn’t own the name. He just had some bonehead lawyer do what bonehead lawyers do–write bonehead letters. I wish lawyers would start thinking like humans, and I’m sure Tim would too. It’s Tim’s job to set the tone with his legal folks, and he’s dropped the ball on this one. I’m sure he’s fixed it and it won’t happen again.

We all know Tim’s a brilliant guy (and so is John), and they put on a good show–I’m gonna give him the benefit of the doubt here.

At the end of the day, if people want to leave this Web 2.0 meme behind they should just start a Web 3.0 Conference… no one’s trademarked that already right

Update: Right after I hit publish on this post I went to clear out my RSS reader and noticed that Dave had come to similar conclusions and made the good point that people are forgetting that this is a business. One thing I thought was interesting: both Dave and I waited three or four days to comment on this. I think the longer you’ve blogged the more time you wait before commenting on something. The blogosphere is becoming more and more wild as the months and years progress. People are guilty-first, and everyone loves to pile-on…. yet you rarely see folks wait a couple of days to post about something. The take away for me is that waiting to hit the publish button is the new virtue.

Is there a tool to synch Google Calendar and my Blackberry out there yet?

I was just told by me peoples that on the weekend it takes 24 votes to get to the DIGG homepage, and that during the week it takes 40.

Six months ago it took 15.

Working on setting up a vacation for the summer and thinking about the South of France and/or South of Spain… perhaps Provence and Andalusia.

Anyone have thoughts?

I’ve created a group on Ma.nolia on South of France/Spain for tips/links:
http://ma.gnolia.com/groups/SouthofFrance
and
http://ma.gnolia.com/groups/SouthofSpain

Also tracking Gadling stories:
http://www.gadling.com/category/france/
http://www.gadling.com/tag/france/
http://www.gadling.com/tag/provence/
http://www.gadling.com/category/spain/
http://www.gadling.com/tag/spain/

May 30, 31, and June 1st: WSJ D Conference.

June 8th: 12-2PM, Office hours at AOL’s Mountain View Office.

June 9th: San Francsico for the day/Office Hours at AOL’s San Fran Office.

June 12-26th: New York City Trip.

June 16th: Dulles for the day.

One full episode after joining the Gillmor Gang it seems I’ve caused a massive brouhaha. [Note: The Gillmor Gang is a rambling, brilliant, stream of consciousness podcast that looks at the Web 2.0 world. ]

In part II of the “Argonauts Gang” show I talk about TechCrunch, a very well-done blog that reviews Web 2.0 software. I mention that at a party someone came up to me–and some others at E3–and said that you could buy a review on TechCrunch and that Michael Arrington who owns TechCrunch writes about companies he consults for.

I said “no way,” the person said “yes way.”

On the postcast (the discussion starts at minute 21:30) I say “Someone told me you could buy a post on his site–is that true?” and quickly follow up with “That can’t possibly be true right?”

I was shocked when I heard the accusation of TechCrunch I brought it up more to debunk it then any other reason.

Mike has done a post attacking me for bringing up the rumor–which seems to be going around (and around) in various forms for a long time now–on his blog. I tried to respond over there in his comments but it seems that he limits the length of comments.

So, I’m responding to Mike here.

Mike,

I certainly didn’t bring up the rumor for some nefarious reason. I really don’t consider Weblogs, Inc. and TechCrunch competitors. How do you see us as competitors? We only have one blog that would be in any way competitive with TechCrunch and that’s DownloadSquad: which is < 1% of WIN’s traffic and <.1% of our revenue. Note: We don’t really do the b2b thing any more. The small amount of b2b stuff we do at WIN at this point is for fun and for the diversity of our network (and in some cases things are grandfathered in). We’re more about the big categories now (autoblog, joystiq, tvsquad, cinematical, luxist, etc).

Now, in the podcast when I say “the appearance of impropriety is impropriety” I was referring to the *problem* of conflicts and *NOT* saying you were guilty. I’m sorry you took it that way. I am, in fact, making a very similar point that you are making in your post: in our world–the blog world–you’re guilty if it even *looks* like you *might* be guilty.

That’s a bad thing.

The users of social news sites like DIGG run up salacious stories to their first position without ever knowing if they are correct–it’s the madness of the mobs (as opposed to the wisdom of the crowds). It’s the con to the pro of social news. If you want to uncover good stuff quicker than anyone, you’re going to promote false stuff just as fast sometimes. You win and lose the battle with your speed in the DIGG/Delicious world.

Of course, the corrections never make it to the top of the list. So, the guilty remain guilty to those who scan the headlines.

TechMeme has been filled with Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 trademark fiasco for days. Will it be filled with him doing the right thing when he gets back from vacation (assuming that he will do the right thing and fall on the sword)? Probably not. So, Tim will now have the blackeye of being a bully for the rest of his career. Does he deserve the reputation the headlines have given him? I don’t know, you tell me.

We have this huge pile on effect happening here and it’s the manifestation of “the appearance of impropriety” statement I made on the show. Blogs and social news sites like TechMeme and DIGG are the places where this “appearance of…” phenomenon gels. It never gelled anywhere before. This was previously the domain of rumors at cocktail parties–now it’s the front page.

Things have changed–as lot.

Now, in terms of my conflict with reviewing AOL products the way I handle it is that a) I make sure everyone knows I’m an employee and b) I spank bad AOL products on a regular basis (check my previous rips on AIM and our AOLSearch product–trust me, I didn’t win anyone over with those posts).

The way I keep my authenticity is by being up front that I work for AOL and by talking about the good and bad.

In terms of AIMPages I think it is great when compared to MySpace. It is amazing that it has Flickr, YouTube and Delicious integration day one. Maybe not amazing for a Web 2.0 company, and maybe not the best technology on the planet, but for a big portal to have a Flickr Module in an Alpaha product is HUGE. You don’t see an AIM or MySpace module built into My.Yahoo or Start.com do you?

Mike: You can run your blog however you see fit. However, it *seems* that your success with the blog *combined* with your success as a highly-priced consultant (is that true?) has lead folks to connect the dots between the two.

If I was you I would just be super clear that these are my three current clients and my seven older clients on your site. I did a *huge* disclosure statement for my Sundance coverage a couple of years ago an got a ton of kudos for it.

Anyway, I love your stuff and I didn’t bring it up to slam you… I bring things up on the show that people are talking about. If someone tells you a rumor about me I’d love to know what it is and correct it–by all means bring it up on the next show!

Bottom line: you should be thanking me for bringing up the rumor so you can clear the air about it. Also, keep in mind I assumed you were *not* guilty and said that in my opening statement. I am, in fact, on your side.

Update: Jim talks about my approach to solving problems and I respond.
——————————————————

As everyone knows I like to point out all the good things we’re doing at AOL on my blog as often as I can. Most folks complain that I only point out the good stuff. So, in order to be credible I guess I have to be honest about the things we are doing bad.

A couple of weeks back I called out AIM Triton for being a memory hog, and I’m happy to report that there are some beta version of AIM floating around that are much, much lighter.

Not sure if we will be lighter than Yahoo IM, but we should be much closer. Also, I’m not sure if the AIM people are going to take my advice and create an AIMLight and bundle that with AIM Triton, but I’m gonna keep fighting for that (at least until I’m CEO and I can just mandate it . I mean, why should we lose the top 10% of our users to Trillian and other light clients??! What’s the logic in that?

Today I have to call out our search. I’ve got friends in the search group, and I know they’re working on the issues–but our search is bad. Very, very bad.

Now, it’s not the results that are bad (how could it be… we use Google results which are the best in the business!). The problem is screen real estate.

When I ask folks inside our company what search engine they use they say “Google.” I ask them why, the most common response is “because it’s cleaner.” Sometime folks says it’s faster, but I don’t think that’s the case or the reason. We basically all know that our search is filled with too many ads and too much collateral, yet we haven’t done anything about it for months.

This is a mission critical thing in my mind. We have to clean up our act and start loving our users more than Google.

If I was running Search I would make it my mission to be *better* than Google in terms of screen real estate. Of course, when you’re at a big company like ours you have numbers to hit and sometimes what’s in the best long-term interest of users is not in synch with the short-term goals of shareholder. Regardless, I take a long-term view to our business and the long term view says we are going to get a reputation for being abusive if we don’t clean up our act.

Let’s take a look at a search for iPod on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOLSearch.com.

Google Search: As you can see a Google search for iPod start with two small ads (in light blue) and quickly goes to the iPod page on Apple. I’ve highlighted the first organic search box in yellow and noted the number of pixels from the top (238). Google is very generous with screen real estate and is the #1 search engine in the world.

Yahoo Search: Yahoo’s iPod search has three sponsored links, is 40 pixels from the left, and the first organic result–the one people really want–is 300 pixels down the page. Yahoo is not as generous as Google and they are in second place when it comes to search share.

MSN Search: 285 pixels down, 0 pixels to the right–almost the exact same as Yahoo. MSN is in third place when it comes to search share.

AOLSearch: Ouch! First, we are pushing the search results over 198 pixels to the right so we can have a navigation box that no one really uses. Then we have our “Snapshot” module which features links to iTunes, Apple, a canned news search, and a link to our shopping section–not much value there. Next up is Sponsored Links, and we’re running three to Google’s two. After all that–538 pixels down the page–you get the first organic result. At 538 pixels, our first search result is below the fold on most monitors. This is totally insane considering that AOL users typically have smaller monitors. Bottom line: AOL is much less generous than Google, Yahoo, or MSN. We’re in fourth place in terms of search share (hhmmmmmm….).

Here is a look at the four results side-by-side (click for large version): that tells the story right there. Now, just because search share and screen real estate seems to match up perfectly doesn’t mean it is so. Clearly MSN has a lot of search because of their browser share for example, but how you present the results is *one* of the driving forces in our space.

If I was running a search engine in second, third, or forth place I would put *one* advertisement at the top and give the users (and the advertiser) the best experience out there. That’s how you win in our business: by loving the users more than your competitors do. That’s our big challenge: we (AOLers–the ones who work for the little Yellow Man) need to love our users more.