Of the many Web 2.0 startups, Edgeio is my new favorite. With their site having just launched to the public last week, I was able to have a closer look, and I really think these guys (including the brilliant Mike Arrington of TechCrunch fame) are on to something big. It's a distributed version of eBay or craigslist, but I imagine it'll be much more than that. Their tagline is "listings from the edge". The concept is disarmingly simple: webmasters and bloggers could use a simple method of tagging a classified listing posted directly on their website or blog, and Edgeio's engine will identify the listing and display it on their own site or others. They've started out with classified ads, and initially the ad would be identified on blogs by having the word "listing" displayed with it. Edgeio also sends a trackback link to the blog, so that the blogger can go to Edgeio and modify the listing, adding other keyword tags such as "lawn mowers" and other data that will further help the listing appeal to potential buyers.

This idea of allowing classified listings to be syndicated directly from users' websites is killer, and is very "Web 2.0": it works in social tagging, RSS, and consumer-generated content.

By leveraging the interconnectedness of documents, of humans, and of the Internet itself, the potential for "listings on the edge" seems almost limitless. For example, imagine owners of blogs and personal web sites tagging their sites with information corresponding to their LinkedIn account and then allowing shoppers to surf for a digital camera to buy, not from the Great Unwashed, but from someone they feel more comfortable trusting, i.e. sellers within their LinkedIn network plus a couple degrees. I could go on with more ideas but I'll wait for Edgeio to contact me personally asking for 'em. ;-)

I imagine that Edgeio will have some early issues to deal with, such as: having enough bandwidth to handle traffic bursts, expanding/formalizing their tags early to try to keep from adding junk/non-listing content into their directory, and keeping the massive amounts of spam out of their indices (something that services like Technorati are struggling with).

But, this is the sort of simple, basic idea that has potential to grow very fast among the blogging community initially. If they are successful with bloggers, I imagine they'd be able to easily expand out to encompass general sites as well. That's when things get really interesting. Go, Edgeio!

Following on from my last post on Larry Chase's predictions for how online marketing in 2006 will evolve...

I can't stress enough how important it is to experiment with the new technologies that Larry discussed (RSS, podcasting, video downloads, mapping applications, etc.) so you're not left in the dust. Sure, RSS or podcasts or video downloads won't take over the world in 2006, but you can be sure you'll be on the back foot if you do nothing and let your competitors establish a foothold with a popular podcast show or video blog.

What I'm talking about here is first mover advantage. Once your competitor becomes the next RocketBoom.com (a popular video blog which auctioned off their first video ad on eBay for $40,000!) or the next FrenchPodclass (a podcast of French language lessons offered by 26-year-old Sebastian Babolat, who recorded them in his living room and within several months had 10,000+ subscribers), it'll be hard to catch up and overtake them.

Our client Steve Spangler is podcasting audio commentary, audio interviews, and video clips demonstrating some very cool science experiments to teachers and parents (his target audience). I reckon that his competitors won't be upstaging him anytime soon, given the loyal following and buzz he's already built up. And most importantly, now he's got the momentum to keep evolving his podcasting/vodcasting at a faster and faster clip.

What are you doing to differentiate your brand and position yourself to capitalize on the whole "Web 2.0" thing going forward?

Ever feel like you blinked and you missed some hugely important new trend online? I admit it; sometimes I feel that way. I take a break from my RSS aggregator for a day and I feel totally out of the loop. But I usually catch up pretty quickly.

For those of you who don't live and die by your RSS aggregator (i.e. you have a life outside of your computer), there's some exciting stuff happening:

• Flock is reinventing the web browser
• 37 Signals' Writeboard is reinventing collaborative authoring
• Rollyo and Eurekster's Swicki are reinventing vertical search
• Memeorandum is reinventing how we consume tech news and spot trends
• Ning is reinventing the way we build complex, socially networked web applications

I love it when disruptive technologies leave "old school" companies wondering "Wha' happen'd?". One behemoth that won't be left in the dust, though, is Yahoo. Despite Yahoo's size, they are poised to cash in big-time to the transition of the Web from passive browsing to a platform for collaboration and social networking (in other words, Web 2.0). Yahoo!'s made some really smart Web 2.0-ish purchases lately, including Flickr and Upcoming.org. Not to be outdone there's also Ebay who just bought Skype and AOL who just bought Weblogs, Inc.

No secret that I think Flickr is hot stuff (just refer back to my recent posts about Flickr here and here). It's definitely Web 2.0 material. Flickr investors like Esther Dyson must be pretty happy right now, but Yahoo! stockholders should be even happier. John Battelle says his sources estimate the deal to be worth around $15-$17 million, while Om Malik says his sources figure $35 million. Either way, that's one hell of a deal for Yahoo!, particularly when you consider that Ask Jeeves also just got bought — for over $1 billion! Jeremy Zawodny at Yahoo! has some interesting things to say about the Flickr acquisition.

John Battelle shared some interesting search engine usage stats courtesy of Gian Fulgoni of comScore. According to John's source at comScore, 28% of searchers account for 68% of searches. This comes close to following the 80/20 rule — a bit surprising, don't you think?

Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine expounds further on comScore findings, thanks to the notes he took while attending Gian's presentation last month at the Web 2.0 conference. According to Jeff, comScore also analyzed brandshare among different types of searchers. They found that heavy searchers look at online retail sites like Walmart, Overstock, Cosco and Amazon, with the low-cost leaders on top. So, I guess you can conclude that heavy searchers are bargain hunters. But do they have a high customer lifetime value, or not? THAT'S the question I'd really like answered!

Peter Norvig, Google's Director of Search Quality, was quoted as saying at the Web 2.0 conference last week that Google is using the largest database of clustering in the world. Norvig also went on to say that:

the problem with web search is that an entered keyword could be associated with different meanings, but the results displayed may not be the meaning you want. This is why Google is working on the largest bayesian database of clusters to determine the most likely meaning for any given search request.

Read Andy Beal's account of Norvig's exclusive demonstration of Google's clustering technology at Web 2.0.