Web 3.0 ...or, If You're Ever In Vancouver

The big buzzword about the Internet these days is Web 2.0... like that's really happening. Let me tell you something about the Internet: if they're talking about it in magazines and at lectures and forums it's already happened, it's over! Web 2.0? Nope, I'm here to tell you we're now at Web 3.0! Quick..... somebody put me on the lecture circuit before my expertise lapses.

Anyway, you all know me, you know I want to be where it's happening, I want to be on the cutting edge. Hey, I'm into all sorts of social media networks now: LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook and... something I started with a couple of months ago... flickr. I like flickr. flickr is cool, flickr is hip, flickr is where the younger ADs and editors are looking for pictures these days. Using flickr is so 3.0!

Well, I met the younger, cooler, hipper set. No, not ADs and editors... Thieves who think they're younger, cooler, hipper ADs and editors.

I've got to stop here for a moment and bring you up to speed on a new Internet business model. According to Mark Cuban in this week's issue of Newsweek (you know Cuban, don't you? Internet entrepreneur, owner of the Dallas Mavs and the HDNet cable network?), well Cuban thnks the only way to really make money on the internet is to stop what he calls aggregators from linking to your content. Cuban says you have to tightly control your content to keep others from monetizing your content (capitalizing on your work) so you can monetize your content.

So, back to my rant... just about the time I was reading Cuban's article in Newsweek my web site access log told me that someone had found my web site by searching a common misspelling of my name. I ran the search out of curiosity, to see what you get when you misspell my name, and guess what? There's a whole bunch of links to web sites illegally using my pictures and giving me a misspelled photo credit for the unauthorized use. Typically, the credit reads photo courtesy of poberskin.

I got a good laugh out of that because for a photo to be courtesy of, somebody has to have done the courtesy of asking me for permission. (or they could pay me)

My friend Eliot once told me to let them steal all they want, then I could sue them. The problem is that most of these people don't have any money to sue for, and the one that does is in Canada! How the hell am I going to bring a copyright infringement suit in freakin' Canada?? No, I just reset my permissions so that nobody can see, or link to, my pictures on flickr.com, I've gone dark.

I made the small frys take my pictures down, got the big fish in Canada to do the same. The Canadian magazine guys were such thieves that they were obviously stealing all their pictures from flickr pages, even the stuff in their print edition.... it all disappeared from the web, including the cover of the current issue of the magazine, Westworld. Well, if I can't sue them at least I can out them!

So, if you're ever in Vancouver and you're driving down the road and you see a car with a BCAA... British Columbia Automobile Association... sticker, flip 'em the bird for me!