Essentially, O’Reilly HAS trademarked a term he didn’t even coin, and even goes as far to say that Web 2.0 is a concept he created, and this is A-OK with you? He states [virtually] point-blank in his “letter” to the World that his intent IS to protect the term “Web 2.0″ from being used by anyone other than himself.

“Just to be clear, neither CMP or O’Reilly is claiming the right to all use of the term Web 2.0, as some of the posters assert. We just want to keep other conference companies from putting on events that trade on the name and concept that we created.”

What a joke.

So, by your thoughts, it would be sufficient to trademark the word-term “Mix” for use in conference titles and then send Microsoft a C&D; letter when they throw Mix ‘07..? C’mon, think about it…

You’ve proved the world what an asshole you are. Try spending less time online and less time sucking up.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20060606

I have apologized in the past and I’m sure will need to apologize in the future.

Since I’ve started blogging I’ve written almost 3,300 posts. Almost all of them I stand behind 100%. But a few come to mind where I made mistakes and I think it’s important to own up to them when this is the case.

Some immediate ones come to mind. I once blasted the TiVo blog for being lame corporate blog. TiVo actually subsequently improved their corporate blog and I met with a TiVo manager to discuss ways that TiVo could improve. My initial tone was unusually harsh though and while the TiVo blog was lame I was too strong in my language.

I also recall apologizing about a year ago for blasting flickr when I first started using it and thought that they were restricting people from downloading images when in fact this was an optional setting that is controlled by the flickr user and designed to give them more control over their images.

I may have apologized about other things in the past as well but none come to mind immediately.

But I will make mistakes as we all do and I’ve always believed that the best thing to do when making a mistake is to own up to it. Believe me, I’d rather not be apologizing and am going to be very careful in the future about trying not to be put in a position where I have to apologize.

Oh and I apologized a while back in a Flickr forum for grandstanding and manipulating a new image ranking site just to show that it could be done. It wasn’t the best way to handle that.

But do know that my apology to Tim is quite sincere. The first poster in the comments here. Also is not Tim. Tim wrote me and thanked me for the apology.

I first started reading your blog after you linked to mine, and find that you have some very good content. However, I seem to recall a similar apology in recent past by you. However, I can’t remember what it was all about. I’m starting to believe that these apologies aren’t that heartfelt, and that your initial blasts are just a means to be more sensational and get more readers.

I think that your content is good enough that you really don’t need to provide any sensationalism. That’s just my two cents. Other than that, keep up the good work.

lets all have a group hug.

Thomas – IT@Cork are based in Ireland. ORAs service has no jurisdiction outside of the US.

They might as well have offered to let IT@Cork use the term “conference” in their title. They have as much rights over the term “Conference” outside the US as they do “Web 2.0″