Web 2.0 Buzzword Bingo

from the say-what?!? dept

Fri, May 30th 2008 7:35pm — Mike Masnick

I'm going to remove the names of the two web 2.0 startups that apparently have just merged, according to a recent blog post from Jeff Nolan. I don't really care about the merger at all or either of the two companies. I'm merely posting a short excerpt from the press release announcing the merger with the names redacted (they don't deserve more publicity with a press release like this), because I don't think I've ever seen a paragraph filled with so many web 2.0 buzzwords that says absolutely nothing.

Company A, a universal profile service for the social web that engages communities and enables content discovery, today announced its acquisition of Company B, a provider of semantic intelligence solutions. The integration of Company B's proprietary semantic intelligence-based discovery engine will bring richer, context-based profile and reputation management capabilities to the Company A service. To be useful across different types of social media, profiles and reputation have to be localized and linked to the context of the conversation. In this way, thought leaders emerge within and across communities based on their specific expertise and contributions.

Seriously? From that paragraph, does anyone have the slightest idea what either of these companies do -- or what the merger is for? I've been known to point out stupid PR tricks, which focus mostly on the way they continue to bombard me with pointless and irrelevant press releases. But when the buzzword bingo gets this thick, it's hard to do anything but sit back and laugh. That, and get to work on my latest proprietary universal social widget-enabler intelligence-context-based profiler management integrator. Because, clearly, that's what the market demands.

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Filed Under: buzzwords, press releases, web 2.0

42 Comments

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some old guy, 30 May 2008 @ 7:48pm

just guessing
Just guessing here, will click links to find out later.

Company A is a Digg/Reddit/Deli.ci.ous/wha.tev.er clone

Company B is some kind of forum provider.

(A/B could actually be clones of each other too)
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some old guy, 30 May 2008 @ 7:50pm

Re: just guessing
ok, I was somewhat correct... but now I wish I had never clicked those links.

Curse you Mike! You just made me more stupid!
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Joshua, 30 May 2008 @ 7:51pm

I'll take a shot at it
Company A is a personal profile service that includes a search engine for social networks. Company B has an algorithm for mining relationships, specifically associating names/profiles with topics and attributing relative authority on those topics. They want to combine the two to make it easy to got to a single place to find people knowledgeable in a searched for field regardless of where that person hangs out, be it myspace, techdirt, or facebook.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2008 @ 7:54pm

LMAO! That just made my weekend! Thnx Mike
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Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2008 @ 8:24pm

lol, the last 2 lines killed me
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cram, 30 May 2008 @ 8:31pm

ROTFL:-) Is your integrator in beta or zeta? (www.parm.net/web2.0/)
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John (profile), 30 May 2008 @ 8:34pm

Your forgot some buzzwords
You forgot the part where these two companies will form a synergy that will be beneficial to both parties and enhance the user experience by generating context and keyword-targeted traffic to advertisers by analyzing unique eyeballs.

Seriously, though, what exactly is "richer, context-based profile and reputation management capabilities"?
Could someone run this press release through a netspeak-to-English translator? :)
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Jed, 30 May 2008 @ 8:37pm

SEO
That seems like an SEO trick to me. However with that much keyword density, Google will probably punish them. Praise Google!
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Jo9hn tolbert, 30 May 2008 @ 8:41pm

Merger
I dunno the thought alone really scares me!

JT
http://www.fireme.to/udi
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SDAndrew, 30 May 2008 @ 10:03pm

Did Baskin Robbins and Dairy Queen Merge?
I'm confused. Either my Flurry will now come with 31 Flavors or there are two companies closer to the deadpool today.

I'd like to see how these two actually think they are going to monetize this combined site.
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steveballmer, 30 May 2008 @ 10:35pm

Buzz Word Submission
Latest buzz word:
Vista'd: noun: to be excellent dispite majority opinion that you suck.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2008 @ 10:44pm

Hey!!! I'm going to sue them!!!
I have already patented the idea of putting a bunch of meaningless technology related words together to say absolutely nothing.
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MIchael G, 31 May 2008 @ 1:47am

Was that a Shell Exxon merger they were talking about?
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notthe600, 31 May 2008 @ 6:05am

technobabble
I'm actually good with all of that except reputation management? Is that scary?
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notthe600, 31 May 2008 @ 6:12am

might work
It does mean something but it took far too many words to say so. What the devil is re - Reputation management is the process of tracking an entity's actions and other entities' opinions about those actions; reporting on those actions and opinions; and reacting to that report creating a feedback loop - cadged from Wikipedia, I mean retrieved.

What the new company is attempting is artificial judgment of comments. Judge this!
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2008 @ 6:40am

reputation management
There was a website that claimed the ability to remove bad things about you on the web , are they still aound or maybe they removed themselves.
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John Wilson, 31 May 2008 @ 7:23am

Re: Your forgot some buzzwords
In plain English you'd probably come out with something like this:

"We're rolling the dice here cause neither of us are making any money so we're moving into baffle with bullshit mode so that we can actually pay ourselves and pay off our maxed out credit cards!"

Either that or:

"will someone please buy our stuff?!!!!"

ttfn

John
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Cynic, 31 May 2008 @ 10:13am

Hey, I wonder how much you earn as a "thought leader"? And what are the qualifications (would my Bachelor of Arts be good enough, or do a bunch of anonymous netizens just have to think you make sense, which might or might not leave me out)? Can I do it in my off hours? Is it a union job?
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Jeff Nolan, 31 May 2008 @ 12:06pm

Bingo!
Good one Mike. I have been in this mini-bubble around comment systems for a while now and it just didn't even phase me when I read the blog post about the acquisition. I sometimes sit back and think about whether anyone beyond the 5,000 or so people who are in the serious blogging space (just guessing on that number but it feels right) really gives a shit about things like this. If they don't it is a reflection on our inability to tell most people why they should care using a vocabulary they can identify with.
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chalkboy, 31 May 2008 @ 3:33pm

Cloud computing is missing
I'm very disappointed in the copy writer, they left off all references to the cloud. It would have been a clean sweep.
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JasonD, 31 May 2008 @ 4:01pm

how rich can social network content get
Sounds like they're just trying to shine a turd. It's humorous to note where CompanyB originated...

"Khaitan began [CompanyB] in 2007 as a personal project when he became frustrated reading duplicate content from the 1000+ blogs he had bookmarked"

Seriously who bookmarks thousands of blogs? I simply can't imagine he came across "duplicate content" after reading thousands of blogs...who knew. Maybe he should have written software to manage his bookmarks via an intelligence based bookmark discovery engine.
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Craig, 31 May 2008 @ 5:25pm

buzzword bingo
can't be much of a merger ... no paradigms are shifting
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Jonnyq, 31 May 2008 @ 7:38pm

"Latest buzz word:
Vista'd: noun: to be excellent dispite majority opinion that you suck."

No:
Vista'd: when the lifespan of your product is shorter than the pre-release promotional hype for the product.
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erica, 31 May 2008 @ 9:27pm

trademark
wonder if i can trademark any of that before anyone else does
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Jitedra, 31 May 2008 @ 10:27pm

We got work to do
Hey Guys, This is Jitendra from SezWho...the culprit company behind the pr above...I guess we have work to do here to clean up the messaging and all ideas are welcome.

Thanks, Jitendra
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Nasch, 1 Jun 2008 @ 12:21am

Re: We got work to do
It depends on your audience. If your audience for the press release is anyone, then show it to your aunt (landlord, golf buddy, whoever has no idea what you're about). If they have no f-ing clue what you're trying to say, keep working. OTOH, if you have a more specific audience, bounce it off some of them and see if it makes sense. If your audience is not people like us, then you may even have succeeded already.
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Nasch, 1 Jun 2008 @ 12:26am

Re: Vista
Vista'd: when the lifespan of your product is shorter than the pre-release promotional hype for the product.

Wow, you already know what Vista's lifespan is going to be? Do tell!
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Mike Egbert, 1 Jun 2008 @ 4:52am

Web 2.0 and SOA
I agree with your "Web 2.0 Buzz" analysis. What I read in their announcement was a sales pitch to hit all the salient points of Web 2.0 (i.e., show us all that they understand the philosophy) and reasons (questionable) why I would care about their merger; and most importantly, why we (editorially) would feel compelled to actually participate in their revenue-generation process. I liken it to the marketing of SOA, which parallels this buzz-like, double-tongued language to convince us all that we need to jump in and drive this car, and spend the money to do so. Is this the return to snake-oil marketing?
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VerbMan, 1 Jun 2008 @ 5:28am

Re:
noun? ... maybe a verb!
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VerbMan, 1 Jun 2008 @ 5:33am

Vista'd ... Verb "...to be Vista'd" - "...I've been Vista'd" - "... Micrsoft has Vista'd the unknowing" - "the market is at times Vista'd" - "Yikes! Another Vistar'ing"
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VerbMan, 1 Jun 2008 @ 5:38am

...Yikes! and an adjective - even worse! Maybe it is a noun, a verb, and an adjective - like F'cked (to f'ck, is f'cked, will be f'cking, you are a f'ck"
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Jun 2008 @ 12:02pm

My girlfriend always loves it when my "Thought Leader" emerges.
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JimmyK, 1 Jun 2008 @ 12:45pm

Missing one word....
All I needed was "leverage" and "synergy" and I would have gotten a BINGO
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Chronno S. Trigger, 2 Jun 2008 @ 5:31am

Re: Re: Vista
I hear two things.

1) Vista is dead. even Microsoft has given up on it
2) Vista is being replaced by Windows 7 (Google it) I hear it should be out early July.
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Chronno S. Trigger, 2 Jun 2008 @ 5:33am

Re: Re: Re: Vista
PS: Bingo!!!

(I can't believe no one else has said that.)
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chris (profile), 2 Jun 2008 @ 6:57am

Re: Your forgot some buzzwords
they also forgot to mention "focusing on core competencies", they didn't mention that they were the "leading provider of" something, and they forgot to include a diagram with a cloud that says "internet".
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mobiGeek, 2 Jun 2008 @ 8:10am

Re: I'll take a shot at it
Great, thanks for the clarification. Now that I've seen that the combined companies cannot communicate effectively, where do I go to invest??!!!
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mobiGeek, 2 Jun 2008 @ 8:15am

Re: We got work to do
Ask your (potential) investor base for input. As a potential investor, I wouldn't give your organization a second look. If I need someone to decipher the mish-mash of verbiage describing what your company/ies are out to do, I simply could not have confidence that my investment is in good hands.
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Nasch, 2 Jun 2008 @ 9:03am

Re: Re: Re: Vista
I've never heard anyone say Vista is dead... hard to imagine when it's the primary OS offering from the dominant OS vendor. As for Windows 7: early July of what year? I've heard it may be out in 2010 or 2011. Where do you get your news on this topic anyway? Whether Windows 7 will end Vista remains to be seen. Vista certainly hasn't ended XP.
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Chronno S. Trigger, 2 Jun 2008 @ 1:36pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Vista
The primary OS of Microsoft is XP.
Early July this year. I heard within 40 days last week.
I'd rather not reveal my sources. Hence the "I hear" part, I can't confirm crap. They've been eerily correct so far.
I don't believe that Windows 7 will end XP. It's just a rehashed version of Vista from what I see.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Jun 2008 @ 9:38pm

Company A is a personal profile service that includes a search engine for social networks. Company B has an algorithm for mining relationships, specifically associating names/profiles with topics and attributing relative authority on those topics.

Together they fight crime!
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George Dovel, 5 Sep 2008 @ 3:35pm

Re: We got work to do
Hi Jitedra,

Coming a bit late to this discussion, but my advice would be to start with a short and simple sentence that describes -- in nontechnical terms -- the real-life challenge that this acquisition promises to solve. I gather it's something along the lines of "We figured out a way to identify thought leaders who participate across multiple online communities" (or whatever the precise benefit is).

Express it as simply as possible, without overloading the sentence with secondary or tertiary attributes of the companies and their technologies. This way you give people some solid ground to stand on first, and then you can start (carefully) layering on the technical proof for your claim.

The second half of your opening paragraph starts to explain what is going on, but the first two sentences are so difficult to parse that few readers will survive to the end of the paragraph.

Also, I would take a brutal editing knife to the press release and remove all the vague terms and phrases. For example, "engages communities" and "enables content discovery" could mean so many different things that they don't mean anything here. Some of your terms are certainly valid and meaningful, at least to the right audience (e.g., reputation management), but the good points are getting lost.

My three cents' worth. Good luck!
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