The 2.0 Dissection.
Columnist Dennis Pombriant talks about the 2.0 terrible attributes in E-Commerce Minute. The reflections seem to be very well reasoned by his thought, that the evolution from 1.0 to 2.0, however, takes you a step further, but leaves the goods of 1.0, too, behind.  Read on for full story:

I was at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston last week. Good show, nice people, well run, and it was held at a swanky new Westin on the waterfront. It got me thinking, though, about the "two-dot-oh" phenomenon and how badly it needs a rethink.
See, the problem -- whether we're dealing with Enterprise 2.0 or (maybe) CRM 2.0 or Anything 2.0 -- is that the 2.0 is a misnomer, like when Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT)   periodically changes the numbering scheme for Windows. No matter what the numbering scheme says, we're all like the Greek mythological character Sisyphus, starting out in the morning with a boulder and a hill to climb. Try as we might, something in us instinctively knows how to do 1.0 much better than 2.0.

What Was Old Is New Again
To me, the misnomer disconnect goes like this: The numeral informs us that we are no longer in Kansas, metaphorically speaking, and that we have crossed a divide into something that, while new, is an extension or enhancement of whatever was 1.0 before. There is even the inference that we're better off now because 2.0 is greater than 1.0. In reality, it's Groundhog Day and the alarm is just going off, informing us that we have another opportunity to make the same mistakes we made yesterday.
In many of the 2.0 things that I am watching, everything is new again, and we seem to be starting from scratch. By the way, in an evolutionary system, that's really the best way to be; you might inherit your genes from both parents, but you aren't saddled with their mistakes, obligations or debts (unless you are royalty, but that's a very special case). However, the thing about Anything 2.0 is that too often it makes such a clean break with the past that there is little to no inheritance of the good stuff, even if the good stuff can be narrowed down to hard won experience of what not to do.

A telltale sign of 1.0 is that these editions of markets are focused on nouns. Innovative vendors sell things -- disk drives, computers, databases and cars that come in one color -- which buyers buy for their apparent intrinsic worth. In contrast, the 2.0 edition, if you are lucky enough to find one, focuses on active verbs. You buy a 1.0 product to have it -- assuming you'll know what to do with it, which you will not unless you hire a consultant to show you, at which point you will realize that that's not what you wanted -- and you buy the 2.0 version to fill in the blank at the end of this sentence: "So that I can (blank)."

The New 1.0
In a lot of places where the 2.0 moniker has been rushed into place though, we're not really there yet. In my humble opinion -- and please forgive this metaphor -- 2.0 has become the new 1.0. Why the aversion to calling a one, a one? Fear of customer burnout, perhaps? Maybe, but the fact is that for a while we have needed a second act for a lot of what we started in the last couple of decades, and the 2.0 metaphor fits that need perfectly, if we can truly muster up the products.
As you can see, I am conflicted by all this, but I suspect the conflict is attributable to which 2.0 phenomenon I am looking at.
For example, Enterprise 2.0 looks at the social networking phenomenon and says "Yikes! We don't relate to our 30-something and, gulp, sub-30-something employees and customers! Buy some nouns!" And off we trot to the Internet to get some cloud computing, social networking stuff or what have you.

The Case of CRM 2.0
Curiously, though, I think CRM 2.0 presents a very different reaction. Rather than looking at the people, both employees and customers, that we might be challenged to relate to, we look at the same new social technologies and say, "Oh boy!" There we see a rich assortment of cool things that we almost intuitively know how to use, and we say, "Now I can (blank)," basically fulfilling the 2.0 aspiration of buying technology to get things done.
What a stark contrast. I suspect that the guys in the enterprise  will have some success regardless of the numeral they attach to the latest wave, but a lot of that success will be attributable to the CRM 2.0 effort. CRM really is into a 2.0 phase; we've all used CRM 1.0 and watched as its results became more and more limited while the market place changed.
None of this will significantly alter the way countless two-dot-oh initiatives are going to market, but it might cause a few buyers to do a double take, and that can cause change. Remember, the next generation of products is supposed to be about the customer, so stand firm when you go into the marketplace. Tell vendors you've had enough nouns and you want to understand their verbs now.
Denis Pombriant is the managing principal of the Beagle Research Group, a CRM market research firm and consultancy. Pombriant's research concentrates on evolving product ideas and emerging companies in the sales, marketing and call center disciplines. His research is freely distributed through a blog and Web site. He is working on a book and can be reached at

denis.pombriant@beagleresearch.com.
Source: E Commerce Times
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/63447.html?u=malik112&p=ENNSS_4a93aa44c25d140380c805e402508ac2&welcome=1213855486

Headed to Court?
Another political blogger, Claire Celsi, who writes at TheDemoMemo, removed a blog post after being contacted by The AP, which she claims threatened legal action over the post, which referenced information from a second-party source on AP polling on the presidential race.

"I 'unposted' it, which is something I definitely do not take lightly, but felt I did not have a choice," Celsi told the E-Commerce Times. "I try to source the material on my blog as much as possible. This is indeed a very hot topic. ... Some in the blogosphere are talking about boycotting AP material. I don't think that will work. I actually think someone should challenge it in court and get it settled once and for all."

Indeed, it may take a court to clarify the DMCA fair use issues raised by such blog posts. In the case of the Drudge Retort posts, story snippets were as short as 33 words. That's much longer than many items widely believed to enjoy DMCA protection, such as the snippets of content that search engines return after queries are posted.

Further complicating the debate is the fact that The AP often publishes rewrites of content from newspapers that subscribe to its news feeds.

Source: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/edpick/63433.html?welcome=1213704634

Yahoo is working with Web security technology specialist McAfee to alert users about potentially risky Web sites.

The companies launched the beta version of the SearchScan service on Tuesday. Now, Yahoo users will see red exclamation points and warnings next to search results McAfee has identified as offering potentially dangerous downloads, unsolicited e-mails or browser exploits.

The service will help users to mitigate their worries about inadvertently clicking on sites that can infect or damage systems, the companies said.

Available in Multiple Countries
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo's SearchScan is now available to Web users in the U.S., Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Spain.

SiteAdvisor -- the McAfee technology the new system is built on -- tests and rates on an ongoing basis nearly every trafficked site on the Internet for a wide variety of safety issues, including spyware, adware, exploits, known phishing sites, excessive pop-ups and spam.

"Research indicates that four out of five Web site visits start with a search, and consumers who use Yahoo Search will now be alerted to high-risk Web sites," said Tim Dowling, vice president of Santa Clara, Calif.-based McAfee's Web Security Group. "This protects users from known malicious threats such as browser exploits that will wreck their PC with a single click or spyware that can lead to identity theft."

The partnership comes in the wake of Yahoo shares dropping 15 percent only two days after Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) withdrew its bid for the company.

Keeping Up With Google
Yahoo, which has a 21 percent stake of the search engine market, is a distant second behind Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) 60 percent, according to comScore's latest figures.

Google launched its own malware security system in 2006 in the wake of a 10-month study it conducted that found 1.3 percent of its searches returned at least one malicious result.

"Certainly, these deals with security [agencies] are going to become more and more commonplace," Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio told the E-Commerce Times. "Anything that helps customers out where you have two companies partnering to offer alerts to potentially dangerous Web sites is a good thing."

The Yahoo-McAfee initiative also is clearly an attempt by Yahoo to stay apace with Google, she added. "It's certainly also an attempt on Yahoo's part to stay fresh and edgy and keep up with the Joneses. They want more people to click on their site to do search requests. ... If they were in any other market, they would not be under the kind of pressure they are."

A Larger Strategy
Such partnerships are becoming increasingly more common, DiDio noted, pointing to Microsoft's announcement that it is working with Hyundai and Kia to integration voice-activation software into new cars.

"Clearly, that's Microsoft's answer to Apple," she commented. "The analogy here is both Microsoft and Yahoo, as well as other companies, are seeking to extend their reach. After Yahoo's stock dropped 15 percent, they dropped US$6.5 billion of value. So, anything they can do to lure more people to their site to try and take away business from Google they've got to try and do. This is one little piece of a larger strategy."

Yahoo's new security system is more than a gimmick -- it's a necessity these days, DiDio asserted. "It's a good thing to warn people: 'Don't click to this malicious site.' It's a nice feature, and it's one of those things I think consumers and businesses will come to expect."

A Good Move?
It's a good move for McAfee as well, Jonah Stein, CEO of ItsTheROI.com, told the E-Commerce Times. "It makes sense to have relationships with search providers because they're on the front lines of a lot of these Web sites."

However, the flip side is that it could provide a false sense of security. "It's possible that even a site that has been flagged as safe the last time it was checked could have [security problems] now. It's a great thing, but consumers shouldn't feel protected just because they don't see that red X.

source: E commerce Times