As a one-time technology journalist and analyst I'm pretty inured to industry jargon. OK the co-opting of "cloud" to mean "Internet-based" made a small vein in my forehead throb, but I recovered.

However every time I hear the phrase "Web 3.0" my inner Howard Beale comes ever-closer to the surface. I want to open a window - probably a window on an IRC client - and yell "I'm as mad as hell and I can't take it any more!" Web 2.0 was bad enough. Tim O'Reilly cleverly popularised it as a catchy title for a conference in 2004, but it took on a life of its own, encompassing a rag-tag collection of Web trends with nothing much in common other than a nice marketing catch-phase.

But Web 3.0 is much worse. It's pure snake-oil. Anyone using it is not to doing so in the service of clear communication. No, they have one or more ulterior motives.

They may want to...

• induce a profitable paranoia in their audience that they, the expert holds the keys to arcane knowledge beyond the ken of the listener..
• sprinkle a little marketing-pixie-dust over an otherwise hum-drum product offering
• be lazy and avoid articulating which particular trend in Web technology or usage they are talking about.
• avoid revealing that they are actually unsure of what they are talking about, so use the catch-all "Web 3.0" to paper over the cracks in their knowledge.

Often it will be a combination of these.

We owe it to ourselves and our children to nip this pernicious marketing drivel in the bud. It's not too late to stop it from taking hold. The next time you hear some self-important stuffed-shirt uncritically trot out the phrase I encourage you to stand up. Point. Have a good laugh Then ask him or her to explain exactly what they meant when they used the term.

If you're lucky they may offer a succinct definition that could encompass:

• The Semantic Web - an effort to evolve the Web into a data source that can be unambiguously parsed by computers, thus aiding information reuse and extraction
• The trend towards open, documented data interfaces that allow information to be mixed and matched into innovative new "mashup" applications
• The trend towards the Web becoming a platform capable of hosting online services capable of competing with desktop software
• The increasing importance of the "realtime Web" - the mass of Tweets and social status updates that let people transmit their feelings, activities, news and location.
• The increasing support for mobile and location-aware Web-based applications, including augmented reality applications.

However they are most likely to opt for

• "That's difficult to explain in a nutshell, but it's cutting edge stuff!"

Force them to explain themselves. It will do them good since once you and they know what they are actually talking about you can have a proper conversation. Join the campaign today!

Google Friend Connect

Pros

Cons

Facebook Connect

This then, is the first entry in the pun-tastically named Information Overlode, blog. And you, dear reader have stumbled upon it. So what's it all about?

First, I spend my working life talking to organisations about the benefits of using appropriate technology to communicate with customers, partners and employees,  so not having a blog is is almost something of a faux pas.  On the other hand, having a blog just for the sake of it, with no rhyme or reason is an even worse error. So like all good blog authors should, I had to consider whether this prospective blog would serve any purpose and whether it would be sustainable. 

 Initially then, I'll be using this blog as primarily a place for me to talk to myself and refine my thinking. As I come across useful tools, novel developments or interesting topics, I'll use this space to note, digest or analyse them.  Hopefully, along the way some of these posts will be helpful to others. 

"But surely", you are saying to yourself "Chris really wants this blog to be monster success with thousands of visitors and commentors every week".

It would be nice wouldn't it?  It is also entirely unrealistic. And it may be instructive to examine why: This blog will break three key rules which are necessary for business or tech blogs to thrive:

1. Keep it focused, serve a well-defined community.

The best corporate blogs serve a well defined purpose and/or a well defined community. The community might be existing customers, in the case of a product support blog. The purpose could be to shape opinion about the company and engage interest in the case of a CEO's blog, but they are well focused.  Which leads us to the relate point

2. Make it best-of-breed

Best of breed? Isn't that a tall order for most people?

Not really. If you are the Acme company selling Widget X, it tremendously easy for a blog to be best-of-breed. You simply make it the place where customers and potential customers learn about developments, support issues and the vision of future development. If you are feeling daring, you can even use the comments sections to back-and-forth with customers about their feelings with regards to your fabulous widget. Of course, by definition, disgruntled punters are likely to be over-represented. But with astute and intelligent handling, it is possible to publicly re-gruntle (most of) them.

3. Blog regularly

You might think that the use of RSS, Atom etc. Had obviated the need to blog regularly. But no. Most people do not currently use feeds. If you're waiting for me to give you some nice sound figures on the absolute numbers or proportion of Web users who use feeds, you are going to be disappointed. A quick browse around suggests a lack of solid research out there. But the figures that I have seen make me more than comfortable with saying that most do not.

Ergo your committed readers will only find your blog entries by regularly browsing to your site and if you regularly disappoint them by slacking off the updates visits will slowly dwindle. 

Initially this blog will assuredly break all three rules. I hope it will contain interesting and valuable items, but it won't be focussed on a particular community or be strongly themed. It won't be best-of-breed in the terms outlined above, and I certainly expect a hiatus or two (or three) in the publishing schedule.