Where is the bird when we need her?

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    • by Frank Paynter on May 26, 2024

    Tom Raftery’s complaint…   I wish Shelley was blogging!  She would have an opinion regarding the O’Reilly/CMP Web 2.0 conference trademark!

    { 7 comments… read them below or add one }

    McD 05.26.06 at 1:24

    Frank,

    It would be interesting to hear Shelley’s take on this kerfuffle.

    Personally, I do see value (for the consumer as well) to protecting a product “name”. The O’Reilly/CMP Cease and Desist letter is a standard business practice” they have an obligation to defend a “service mark” or loose the rights to use it exclusively.

    I think O’Reilly drove the use of the label “Web 2.0″ and should be able to be identified with it. They even took some flack for thinking the web was somehow different in a way that others couldn’t see.

    Tim O’Reilly has a flare for marketing waves of change as movements. He also likes brands that are almost “generic” in nature… the “Open Source Conference”…

    Frank Paynter 05.26.06 at 2:23

    Tell me he doesn’t have a trademark on “Open Source…”

    Shelley 05.26.06 at 5:28

    Not open source, but I wouldn’t be surprised if O’Reilly hasn’t trademarked OSCON.

    Frank, I’m afraid you’d be disappointed in my take. I don’t have a high opinion of the term “web 2.0″ and thing it’s overused and confused. If someone wants to trademark conferences with this in their name, I think they’re just hitching their wagon to a dull star anyway.

    I do think that Tim needs to pull in a bit, though. I think he has too many fingers in too many pies, and is involved in too many partnerships and he’s in danger of defusing the O’Reilly brand, and losing the O’Reilly reputation.

    I think this was much ado about nothing, that was then poorly handled.

    Frank Paynter 05.26.06 at 8:17

    I don’t find “Web 2.0″ particularly meaningful either. O’Reilly has originated a lot of cool stuff that he certainly deserves the right to brand — OSCON and FuCamp come to mind — but regardless of who “created” the dull concept Web 2.0, nobody can own it now.

    To me the “O’Reilly brand” remains the publications and all the rest is mere dabbling.

    Shelley 05.27.06 at 7:30

    Now, I do wish I had my weblog still when I read Cory Doctorow’s response to the whole thing (http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/26/can_anyone_own_web_2.html).

    Most self-serving, elitist drivel I’ve heard in ages. Yet I doubt there will be one, not one, voice raised in dissent. After all, he is Cory Doctorow.

    (We make heros out of the most self-serving of us. No wonder we step over dying people on the way to mountain summits.)

    Frank Paynter 05.27.06 at 7:59

    If you want to rant about this, I’d be honored to post it here.

    Cory is enormously bright, reminds me of myself at his age… verbally gifted, overflowing with opinions, stuffed with pop cultural referents to be shared. Hip-Two-Oh. That said, I only wish I had been as confident and capable a self-promoter as Cory is. Perhaps the lack I feel is simply a lament for the lack of engagement that has dogged me since I was a boy.

    Cory belongs to the generation that was raised to value self esteem above a broader awareness I think.

    Shelley 05.27.06 at 9:40

    “Cory belongs to the generation that was raised to value self esteem above a broader awareness I think.”

    That’s a very astute comment, Frank. Which shows that you’re the one to be writing on such in your space.

    I suffer the opposite of Mr. Doctorow: all I have is awareness.

    Thank you, though, for providing me a spot twice removed. For a time.

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