2.0 3.0 = 4.0?

No-one was quite sure what Web 2.0 was when the term was first used. Did it refer to the technology behind Google Maps? This revolutionary approach allowed the server to update the browser as you dragged your cursor around the map, without having to press Submit to get a new response. Did Web 2.0 refer to user generated content such as blogs and wikis (and much later, social media like Twitter and Facebook)? No one really knew then, or really knows now. (Even Wikipedia, at the end of November 2010, is not sure about it, saying in its Web 2.0 article “This article needs attention from an expert on the subject.”)

But Web 2.0 was exciting, and indeed the subject of trademark claims. We all knew Web 2.0 was not Web 1.0 (which only existed as a counterpoint to Web 2.0 – no-one used Web 1.0 before Web 2.0 was coined). Web 1.0 was the old web, the static web pages, boring forms with submit buttons – nothing changed unless the whole page changed, and basically you read Web 1.0, and someone else wrote it. Web 2.0 was exciting because it was dynamic, and maybe even you helped write it, even if we didn’t know exactly what it was.

Then someone coined the phrase Web 3.0. This is never really caught on except with uber geeks, and I think it refers to semantic web technologies, where computers can read online data and make sense of it. The whole march of 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 then seemed to peter out.

Until now that is … Apparently the Marketplace Economy blog is called “Economy 4.0”. There is just too much wrong with this to spill ink (or bits) on it. Just don’t let me catch anyone doing anything 5.0.

What the hell does a VC do (NSFF)?

Usually you see NSFW, meaning Not Safe For Work (don’t open the video if at work in case it gets you in trouble). I choose NSFF meaning Not Safe for Family because your work site can probably handle a couple of f-bombs, but you may not want your kids to hear it.

It turns out that VCs spend lots of time listening to jargon laden pitches which we barely understand, and this seems to be the case particularly acutely in the advertising technology world.

Click for the YouTube link if this isn’t showing up in the blog feed for you. Hat-tip to Brad Feld, for bringing this to my (and the world’s) attention.

VC:VC Can I offer you a euphemism?

The very excellent Blue Avocado non-profit website and newsletter, issue 56 (with an excellent article on Board-Staff agreement over financial governance), offered this to “decode the code”:

· Charismatic means . . .  bad manager. Example: "We have a charismatic executive director."

· As you know means . . . "as you don't know." "As you know from our grant report . . ."

· Articulate means . . . well-educated, polite African American: "He's very, you know, articulate."

· Bright means . . . young and well-educated. "Will you do an informational interview with my cousin? She's very bright."

· Seasoned means . . . old. "Will you do an informational interview with my cousin. She's quite seasoned."

· Extend the deadline . . . no one is signing up: "We've extended the deadline to be a sponsor for our fall fundraiser!"

· Good reputation . . .  they don't have money troubles: "I want to work for a nonprofit with a good reputation."

· Strategic (from a foundation) . . . less responsive to nonprofits: "Our ten-month planning process has resulted in a decision that our grantmaking will be more strategic."

· Tough decision means . . . unpopular decision: "He just can't make the tough decisions."

· We'll start promptly at 9 means . . "We'll start around 9:15."

It made me think about the equivalent in the high tech world…

AND ITS EXACTLY THE SAME (just insert CEO for Exec Director, VC for foundation, investing for grantmaking, etc).

There are many kinds of database

Bob Metcalfe always used to say there are just two kinds of network: Ethernet and Ethernot. He was commenting that any network not based on Ethernet was going to end up losing to Ethernet in the marketplace. With the demise of AppleTalk (Apple), Token Ring (IBM) and DECnet (Digital), he was more or less proved right.

Bob has an axe to grind, as one of the co-inventors of Ethernet, but that doesn’t make him wrong. This is not Metcalfe’s Law, coined by the same Bob Metcalfe, that the value of a network increases proportionally with the square of the number of participants. Perhaps I can call the Ethernet/Ethernot comment Metcalfe’s Hypothesis (not all his predictions were correct).

Sigma’s investment in Gainspan is a bet that Metcalfe’s Hypothesis will continue to be right, this time with respect to Zigbee and other approaches proposed for sensor networks.

The database world has been dominated by the relational database model for many years, and all the famous commercial databases such as Oracle, Sybase, IBM DB2, MS SQL Server and open source MySQL are relational database management systems (RDBMSs). The relational data model referred to can be thought of as tables of data which are related to each other (like a table of bank accounts is related to a table of banking transactions). These systems are also known as SQL databases because they use Structure Query Language (SQL) for programming, and SQL was created for RDBMSs and is an absolute standard for their use. Separate from the data model and the language to talk to the data, RDBMSs are mostly expected to be able to manage transactions properly (and be ACID compliant). Simply put, this is the capability to ensure that, for example, a money transfer is properly recorded in both the sending and receiving accounts, and making it impossible to record only one side of the transaction without the other.

Now there are a new gang of databases in town, and they have gathered themselves together under the “NoSQL” banner. These are clustered around BigTable and Hadoop technologies made famous most notably because of their Google-related provenance.

Many (most? all?) NoSQL databases do not have transactional or ACID capabilities, and don’t seem to need it, at least for now, because the use cases that prompted their development really are that different. NoSQL databases are not gaining popularity because they are better at the same things as an RDBMS. This is not about more or faster money transfers. This is about new problems which don’t need transactional integrity and do need to analyze data sets bigger than an RDBMS can economically manage (or manage at all). Sigma’s investments with Michael Stonebreaker (see earlier post) are, in many ways, bets on the future of multiple kinds of databases flourishing.

So I am tempted to postulate Dale’s Hypothesis, somewhat in opposition to the idea of Metcalfe’s Hypothesis, that there can be many kinds of database, and you don’t need SQL to have a sequel.