John Battelle's Searchblog

I hear you all. What is Battelle on about, all this music stuff, all this non search stuff? I am sorry, but you have to trust me, it's going somewhere. I'm following a hunch, of a sorts.

Today some bankers from Piper Jaffrey came by, and they asked me the same question I was asked by two or three reporters who were writing pieces on Google's 10th anniversary. (When is it, anyway? I am sure it's this year, depending on how you count...).

Anyway, the question is this: So what's next? What might unseat Google?

I find the question interesting, mainly for its lack of historical perspective. The answer, I think, is pretty damn easy.

No company will unseat Google (though ultimately, one company will get credit).

Culture will. Unquestionably, inevitably, Google will be surpassed by a cultural shift it will be incapable of exploiting. And that will be OK.

Why am I so certain of this? Well, history, for one. And my own experience, for the other.

Allow me to explain.

It's my theory that world-changing companies occur when one and only one thing happens: Our culture shifts its relationship to technology. It's a complex set of parameters that allow for such a shift, but it's happened three times in my professional life:

1. IBM and DOS. This is when computers became accessible to determined early adopters, and a democratized culture of digital information storage and retrieval began.

2. Microsoft and Windows. As much as I'd like to give this to Steve and the Mac OS, the winner was Gates and Windows. This is when we went from speaking the arcane language of computerese (.exe? .bat?) to the language of "hunt and poke" via a visual interface. A major step forward in how culture relates to information, and therefore, to itself.

3. Google and search. As I have argued many times, search is our latest interface to information, and it's one based on natural language, albeit typed words, rather than spoken.

So, what might be #4?

Isn't that the hundred billion dollar question?

I have (my own) pretty clear answer to that. Happy to tell you. But I have to write the post I promised here first. Damn. I really miss having the time to write....

Here's the streaming output of CrowdFire:

You can grab your own here.

AFP coverage here.

CrowdFire was consuming. It will take me some time to get back in the groove. I have to say, I'm really, really floored by what our teams did on site at Outside Lands, and what CrowdFire has the potential to be. Check it out, here. And here's my shooting, I'm not even close to finished uploading stuff....

I will be at the festival today, helping to light the CrowdFire. So stoked.

Working on CrowdFire (sorry, I know, but it's a big deal to me), as well as Web 2 and tons of other FM stuff, and trying to not ruin my family's time on Island. So I'm going to be dark on the blog for the most part...

Outside Lands is next week, and folks have been busy uploading photos, videos, and memories of great music over at the CrowdFire site. We're almost at 1000 total media objects, which is amazing. Anyone can feed the fire, which gets lit next week...help us cross into four figures!

Check it out here. And don't forget to feed the Crowdfire here. You can see shots from my Blackberry of the Wailers last night here!

Those of you following my posts around the theme of this year's Web 2 Summit already know that we're expanding the scope of the conference this year, and asking a core question: How can we apply the lessons of the Web to the world at large? From my post outlining the theme:

As we convene the fifth annual Web 2.0 Summit, our world is fraught with problems that engineers might charitably classify as NP hard—from roiling financial markets to global warming, failing healthcare systems to intractable religious wars. In short, it seems as if many of our most complex systems are reaching their limits.

It strikes us that the Web might teach us new ways to address these limits. From harnessing collective intelligence to a bias toward open systems, the Web's greatest inventions are, at their core, social movements. To that end, we're expanding our program this year to include leaders in the fields of healthcare, genetics, finance, global business, and yes, even politics.

Increasingly, the leaders of the Internet economy are turning their attention to the world outside our industry. And conversely, the best minds of our generation are turning to the Web for solutions. At the fifth annual Web 2.0 Summit, we'll endeavor to bring these groups together.

To my mind, no person better exemplifies the merging of these two worlds than former Vice President (and Nobel laureate) Al Gore, the Chairman of Current TV. Gore and CEO Joel Hyatt started Current as "a new breed of media company that works with its young adult audience to create media that informs, enriches and inspires," by integrating online and offline media, a very Web Meets World endeavor indeed. Readers may recall that Gore recently joined Kleiner Perkins as a partner focused on green issues, as well. And we are very pleased to announce that VP Gore will be joining us at the Web 2 Summit this year.

Others joining VP Gore include Elon Musk, of PayPal, Tesla, SolarCity and SpaceX, Larry Brilliant, the head of the Google.org foundation, and Michael Pollan, author of many wonderful books on our relationship to food, including my favorite: The Botany of Desire. The full lineup is truly wonderful, and we're still adding speakers.

Requests for invitations can be found here, this is going to be one special event.

Here's the release. Again, feed the fire at CrowdFire here.

Tim posts here about the auction we're be having as part of the Web 2 Summit this Fall. Given the theme (Web Meets World), we're giving profits to charity, and we're looking for suggestions on what we might auction off. The bigger the idea, the better, of course. For example, Lance Armstrong will be signing a bike and we'll be auctioning that!

Here is the release, and here's the link to the auction page. But I need your help: What should we auction off? When we did this back in the late 90s, we auctioned off John Doerr's tie for like ten grand, as I recall. I think someone paid a lot more than that to throw Meg Whitman, me, Mary Meeker, and Bill Gurley into the pool.

Now those were the days...

Please go to the auction's Facebook page to suggest some great ideas or just comment here! Thanks.

Twitter is again overloaded (Fail Whale, which always reminded me of that scene with James and the Giant Peach where the birds lift the peach out of shark infested waters, anyway...). Follow me here if you can.

So, since I can't entertain you with Tweets and Crowdfire is ripping it up, here's a photo from the National Archaeological Museum of Athens that I took today (I took alot more). This fellow, a philosopher, seems quite bent. I liked him.

If you want to know what I'm up to, read my Twitter feed....back to posting when I'm back in the US...

Have a fair amount of traveling to do today, but once I settle in, late tomorrow, I'll be in a place to write far more...

Susan Bratton interviewed my on any number of topics, and her interview and transcript is here. Thanks, Susan!

A while back I announced the theme of this year's Web 2 Summit: "The Opportunity of Limits: Sustaining, Applying and Expanding the Web's Lessons."

Since announcing that initial theme and lineup, an amazing group of folks have agreed to come and participate, and if you peruse the list, you'll note that it's not just the regular coterie of Internet leaders. Sure, we've got those folks coming, and yes, we'll be focusing just as intently on the opportunities in our industry. But we're also going further afield. As we wrote in the overview:

In the first four years of the Web 2.0 Summit, we've focused on our industry's challenges and opportunities, highlighting in particular the business models and leaders driving the Internet economy. But as we pondered the theme for this year, one clear signal has emerged: our conversation is no longer just about the Web. Now is the time to ask how the Web—its technologies, its values, and its culture—might be tapped to address the world's most pressing limits. Or put another way—and in the true spirit of the Internet entrepreneur—its most pressing opportunities.

As we convene the fifth annual Web 2.0 Summit, our world is fraught with problems that engineers might charitably classify as NP hard—from roiling financial markets to global warming, failing healthcare systems to intractable religious wars. In short, it seems as if many of our most complex systems are reaching their limits.

It strikes us that the Web might teach us new ways to address these limits. From harnessing collective intelligence to a bias toward open systems, the Web's greatest inventions are, at their core, social movements. To that end, we're expanding our program this year to include leaders in the fields of healthcare, genetics, finance, global business, and yes, even politics.

Last week (while I was on vacation, so I missed posting on it) we announced the focus of our annual Launch Pad program, where we focus on promising startups. This year, we've aligned Launch Pad with our theme, and I am very excited by the result. From our description:

For Launch Pad 2008, the focus will be on startups in the fields of alternative energies, social entreprenuerialism, microfinance, developing economies, political action, renewable technologies, and the like. We'll be particularly interested in where these companies display significant cross over with the web, of course, but this will not be required.

Tim wrote a great post summarizing the idea:

This might seem like quite a departure for the Web 2.0 Summit, the conference that made its name by celebrating the revolution in the consumer internet caused by the move to the internet as platform, service based business models, and social media. Or is it? After all, I've argued all along that the real heart of Web 2.0 is the ability of networked applications to harness collective intelligence. Yes, you can harness collective intelligence to build amazing internet businesses, as the past five years have shown us.

But what good is collective intelligence if it doesn't make us smarter?

In an era of looming scarcities, economic disruption, and the possibility of catastrophic ecological change, it's time for us all to wake up, to take our new "superpowers" seriously, and to use them to solve problems that really matter.

Submissions are now open. I hope you can help us spread the word!

I am finding it's taking a while to get my head back into all the things I have to do. The trip was fantastic. Here's a shot of the family heading up the final stretch to Holcomb Lake. We decided to take horses for all - the kids are pretty accomplished riders and my youngest couldn't do the whole walk. We're glad we did, it let us really roam out there in the Sierra.

I hope to be back at posting this week. I am traveling with my family for two more weeks soon, so posting will be light throughout the summer, and my focus is on FM. However, if you follow me on Twitter, I'll keep you updated there as best I can. Searchblog isn't the best place to post personal stuff, but I figured you might want to see what I've been up to...

My family and I are going into the backcountry this week - no email, Twitter, blogging, etc. Here's where we're going, in case any of you might be curious. Click the terrain or satellite tabs to see the amazing country - truly another world back there.

See you in a week!

Clay Felker, a legend in magazines and journalism, died today.

I had to honor to work with Clay Felker for a few years, making magazines and websites as part of my time at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He was in poor health for much of the time we worked together, but never lost his fire or his commitment to the core thesis of a great publication: Voice, Point of View, and Quality. He viewed great magazines as conversations, much of my own theories around FM owe a direct debt to conversations I had with Clay on topics of publishing, the Internet, and business models.

His legacy will live on and multiply in the work of the thousands he hired, worked with, and edited.

(A trail on Mt. Tam)

(Cross posted from the FM blog)
In the past few years, the weekend has taken on a new meaning for me. In short, it's now defined by work. The weekend is when I catch up on work I can't get done during the week, in particular work that requires long form thinking, the kind of thinking that powers drafting considered memos and strategy documents, even posting to this or other blogs.

It's also a time to clear emails and burnish out the odd To Do item that never quite Got Done during the week.

So lately I've been working about three to five hours a day on Saturday, and even more on Sunday, where I work a couple hours in the early morning, and then a shift of four hours or more at night. I check my mail constantly, either while at my desk or on my Blackberry while with my family.

In an odd and most likely not very healthy way, the weekends have become two more workdays, albeit workdays that have a slower pace and breaks here and there for French Toast making, family hikes, and date nights with my wife.

And guess what? It's not working out very well. Turns out that constantly having your mind in work mode can ruin a good session of French toasting. And getting an email bearing potentially bad news while on a date with your wife can really mess with your ability to be the gentleman she deserves you to be.

So I've decided to do something about it. I don't know if it's going to work, but it is off to a good start. Working with my senior team, we've created a weekend program we call "Take 48." The rules are simple, really. The three senior leaders of the company - the CEO, the COO, and the Publisher/CRO - have agreed to not send a single email to any member of the FM team from 6 PM on Friday to 6 PM Sunday. It's hard for us to do - we're used to managing by email, and particularly used to getting "caught up" in the weekend down time.

But there's nothing in the rules saying we can't DO email over the weekend, just that we can't SEND it during the weekend. If the servers blow up in Chicago, well, someone can pick up the phone, after all.

We tried it out last weekend, and by golly, it really worked. Emails from senior staff usually creates orders of magnitudes more email from other staff members, and it folds into itself. But last weekend, it felt as if FM, as an institution, was taking time to breathe, to contemplate, to relax and feed itself. Maybe even take a nice hike on Mt. Tam.

Here's to more of that, not only at FM, but in every organization running hard at a Very Big Goal.

I'm not saying that we need to stop working, even if it means working on the weekend. But perhaps weekends should be sacred when it comes to intruding in the lives of others. Do your work, if you must, but when it comes to asking others to do your work with you, Take 48.

That's the title of my latest post for Amex's Open Forum Blog. From it:

In my experience starting businesses, and in my study of other businesses that have succeeded wildly (like Apple, Google, or eBay), every great business is founded in a thesis, a statement of what should be true. It’s then the business’s job to go prove that thesis - in essence, the business becomes the argument that proves the thesis.

Read the rest and tell me what you think at the Amex blog...