IF Web 2.0 > Web 1.0 THEN Yahoo > Google

I think the most profound issue in the online world right NOW is "where are we going with web 2.0"?

I hope to answer this question, at least in part, at next week's mashup camp
in the heart of Silicon Valley. The event is really shaping up to be great, with 300 developers, observers, and API providers coming in from all over the country to share ideas, mashups, and a few beers. In addition to API folks from Google, Yahoo, Amazon, ASK, and others two of my favorite bloggers will be there - Robert Scoble from MSN and Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo. These guys are among the best known tech evangelists for their companies and what THEY blog about is often what *everybody else* will be talking about in a few weeks or months.

Digg.com .... NOT FUNNY

WoW, I posted my mildly offensive parody of the Dick Cheney shooting incident at Digg.com and you would have thought I'd shot somebody myself! Spam! cried most of the commenters, suggesting that it was inappropriate to place a parody in the pristine Digg "security" section.

I've never really understood the Digg.com community or, more importantly, why people think Digg is such a big deal. The stories are typically weak and of only minor significance.

I think my recent incident shows that that this particular niche is a very curious combination of people who 1) love trivial BS stories about silly but true things 2) Love gaming and junk computing items 3) are rabidly protective of keeping the community free from anything that does not fall into their subjective categorizations of what makes the world relevant.

So, the question is "can Digg scale to mainstream success?". I say probably NOT. In fact I think the challenge for Yahoo, which is adopting Web 2.0 like it found it's own long lost relative, is sorting the few wheaty items from the huge amount of chaff. If they succeed they could leapfrog Google which is offering more standard 2.0 fare like mapping APIs and minor mashup support. More about "is Web 2.0 > Web 1.0" later.