Ok, emails are literally coming in faster than I can sort them – forget about reading and responding. If I don’t know you there is a zero chance of me responding. If I know you I’m probably not responding either. I am beating myself up over this but there is just no solution right now. I apologize. I am missing some good leads and pissing people off, two things I never wanted to do.

If anyone knows of a person who would make a good research assistant and general office manager type that is willing to work at for a low salary but get in the middle of a growing and exciting industry, please let me know.

My parents are now emailing me and telling me the only way they know I’m still alive is because they see new posts on TechCrunch every once in a while.

(help)

Have you ever received information that is so hot that it’s begging to be blogged about but you can’t write about it because you’ll piss off too many people (and it isn’t the right thing to do)?

Yeah, me neither.

Richard MacManus is writing a multi-part story on Yellowikis, An wikipedia approach to open, group edited business listings.

I love the idea…and ask why it doesn’t have tagging and an open API for the data.

I’m looking forward to Richard’s further posts on Yellowikis – the site has been up since January and has very thin data right now. My recommendation – tweak the model (as I mention above) and get the network effect flowing. I will gladly profile it on TechCrunch at that point.

By the way, I forgot to link to Richard’s Web 2.0 Weekly Wrapup for last week. Check it out (and subscribe) here.

GYM embargo lifting in 20 mins (9:00 PST). Get the goods at TechCrunch.

UPDATE: Yahoo Shoposhere has launched.

Audible announced a new product on Friday that allows podcast publishers significant control over their product. Ad insertion, monitoring of downloads and listening attention, DRM and more. There are some interesting features that add to the podcasting discussion and normally I’d write about it over at TechCrunch. For instance, Much of what Audible is doing is goes way beyond what Fruitcast (TechCrunch profile) is allowing publishers to do. While Fruitcast allow insertion of ads into podcasts and tracks downloads, Audible is able to pingback listening metadata as well (albeit via a closed file format and crazy prices), something that will be very interesting for publishers.

But wow, did they ever screw up the follow up to the announcement. And it sure was entertaining to watch everything unfold today. There is no way I’m going to point TechCrunch traffic at Audible’s new product, given how they’ve handled themselves.

Instead of embracing the bloggers that would normally talk about this, Mitch Ratcliffe (an Audible consultant) went on an unmitigated, unprovoked character assasination romp (with follow up attacks) against Dave Winer (“he’s willing to steal”), Om Malik and others. This sure is an interesting way to engage the sneezers. As Om puts it, Mitch “goes after the dissenters with a verbal baseball bat”.

You can read all of the drama over at the Meme.

My advice to blogging consultants when they find their product under attack is this. First, talk to the guys who care about this stuff first, before the annoucement, to get their input. Second, try to engage in intelligent, constructive dialog, not ad hominem attacks. Realize that you are speaking on behalf of your client, not just yourself. And if you do start a flame war, and pick the kind of opponent who can defend himself, well, I guess you better feel confident that you can come out of it all without losing your head.

One final note. If you find yourself on the other side of a debate with Dave Winer, Om Malik, Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis and others, maybe you should rethink your position. Because it is very likely you are wrong.

As an aside, The most interesting idea I read about today was Jeff Jarvis’ call for a new, open audio standard that pings the publisher when a listener opens the file.

I think this is funny (a spoof on our web2.0workgroup idea), but I think the story behind it isn’t (alleged sexism, groupthink and more). The people who started the publicity around the original drama claimed that they wished it had never started. But they keep doing things to keep it alive. Why?

Dave Winer: A roadmap for my work on OPML reading lists for RSS.

we will release the aggregator under an open source license, the same one we use for the OPML Editor and for the Frontier kernel, so the community can have a go at it, and equally important, to serve as a test-bed for the implementation of OPML reading lists for RSS aggregators.

More on reading lists at TechCrunch.

The Search SIG event tonight was very good. In the first segment Dan Farber interviewed John Battelle on his new book, The Search. I’ve read the book and so a lot of what was said wasn’t new, but John did mention one thing that I had missed – he suggested reading all of the footnotes because there are interesting stories included that weren’t appropriate for the main text but that he wanted to publish. The example he gave was a series of negotiations with Sergey Brin over whether or not Sergey would be allowed to read and edit the book before printing.

I asked John a question that has been bothering me for some time. Google’s business is built on the back of its advertising revenue. Without it, everything else would fail. I also see a large number of companies that I profile on TechCrunch relying either directly or indirectly on Google adwords revenue. Given how cyclical the advertising market is, I asked John what he thougth would happen in the next downturn.

His answer was fairly insightful. He thinks (online) advertising has fundamentally changed since the last downturn as it has moved from a cpm to cpc model, and that a downturn won’t have the same impact as it might have had previously. Ok, I buy that to an extent. And he followed up with something more interesting – saying, in effect, that the ability of companies today to operate on much smaller budgets (easier dev platforms, less people, etc.) will help them weather cyclical storms.

I hope so. Otherwise I’ll have to start a new blog called DeadCrunch.

Ziggs lets professionals create profiles and post them on the web. It’s LinkedIn except you don’t have to be a member to view others’ profiles and it doesn’t have the community aspect. See Brian’s profile of Zigg at Solution Watch.

Going to three events tonight:

Search SIG

Pandora Launch Party

suprcilious Launch Party

Thanks to Yahoo I have point to point directions.

IBD Network is having a really cool event next week (Nov. 16) at Microsoft’s Mountain View headquarters. Some interesting companies will be presenting, including Zimbra. $500…but worth it if you’re into this stuff like me. Details are here.

Dave managed to get copies of the internal Microsoft emails and memos from Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie that went out to top execs at Microsoft before last week’s Live anouncement.

Something weird happened just before midnight Eastern time, first the Wall Street Journal, then the NY Times, then the Seattle Post-Intelligencer all had reports on a memo leaked from inside Microsoft that was sent to top management and direct reports just before the press conference in San Francisco last Tuesday.

Dave isn’t naming his source but is confident they are authentic.

So I pressed several sources inside Microsoft to provide me with copies of the memos and at around 10PM this evening (Pacific time) I got an email containing the memos, with the understanding that I would not name the source. I am absolutely certain that the content is authentic.

This is a very interesting peek into the minds of Bill and Ray. Bill says “We will build our strategies around Internet services and we will provide a broad set of service APIs and use them in all of our key applications. This coming “services wave” will be very disruptive.”

Yeah, I think they may be right. Nice scoop Dave. It’s so much better to read the source material than to rely on big media for their interpretation.

Steve Gillmor and Mike Vizard grilled me yesterday in a short podcast interview. Listen to it here.

It’s hard talking to Steve. He doesn’t let you get away with unsupported statements, he challenges you. The interview didn’t go the way I had planned, but I have the feeling it went exactly as Steve planned. Hope you find it interesting.

Companies or products I discuss: Mechanical Turk, Pandora, Odeo, Inform.com. Windows Live, Yahoo Maps, Goowy.

Richard MacManus has posted last week’s web 2.0 wrapup. There’s some good stuff in there.

It looks like Mind Camp was a hit. See the pictures on Flickr. Damn, I was almost in Seattle this weekend anyway. I would have loved to have gone.

Does anyone know of any video sharing tools besides the ones below?

• CastPost
• ClipShack
• Grouper
• Revver
• YouTube
• Vimeo
• vSocial

UPDATE: Thanks for your comments and emails. I’ve posted a comparison of the services at TechCrunch.

Dave Winer’s brain is coming up with something new. I love that he publishes his thought process on the web in real time. I’m excited about this idea, and I want to find a way to have TechCrunch participate.

HyperCamp. You don’t have to be a geek, just a blogger. Bring your laptop. A long table, lots of connectivity, soft drinks, fast food, and get this — if you have a story you want to tell, a product you want to announce, an idea you want to pitch, at each end of the room there are presentation stations, with 15 chairs in front, a podium and projector. You sign up to brief. Any blogger who wants to listen can, or not; their choice.

I think we have to give this a try, soon. It’s not a BloggerCon, it’s not an unconference, but it is a different structure, and I think it’ll be good. Stay tuned!

OurFacePlace: Welcome to the World’s First Photo Link page for Bloggers, Bands, Podcasters & Regular Joe’s!!!!!

Can you find me?

I just saw this on GMSV:

“Let me make a prediction. Five years from now, the blogosphere will have developed into a powerful economic engine that has all but driven newspapers into oblivion, has morphed (thanks to cell phone cameras) into a video medium that challenges television news, and has created a whole new group of major companies and media superstars. Billions of dollars will be made by those prescient enough to either get on board or invest in these companies. At this point, the industry will then undergo its first shakeout, with the loss of perhaps several million blogs — though the overall industry will continue to grow at a steady pace.

And, at about that moment, Forbes will announce that the blogosphere is the Next Big Thing for investors.”

– Mike Malone, a former editor at large for Forbes ASAP magazine, has the last word on Forbes’ alarmist broadside against bloggers.

Much better. And, I agree.