Friday Five: Purging the RSS feeds

So many interesting links. So little time. I’ve starred so many must-share tidbits in my RSS reader over the past several weeks that I could never share them all with you. So I went through the list, purged the no longer relevant stuff (all that “breaking tech news” that happened in late August), and winnowed it down to something a bit more manageable. Here’s a judicious sampling of linky goodness for your weekend reading pleasure:

  • The end of web 2.0 as we know it, as predicted by CrunchGear columnist Seth Porges. Porges predicts that human laziness will be web 2.0’s undoing, and I’m inclined to agree. We just don’t have the gumption to keep up with all our social networks, RSS feeds, etc. Give us the lazy way out and we’ll take it, every time.
  • Web 3.0 lives in a van — “down by the river,” I’m tempted to add. Marketing Pilgrim points us to two entrepreneurs who are defining web 3.0 on the road.
  • /. turns 10. Hard to believe that Slashdot, the granddaddy of all social networks, precursor of blogs, celebrates a decade on the net this month. Great interview with Slashdot founder CmdrTaco.

    Our desires are incredibly simple: We look for stories that will generate a good discussion. I’m not looking at big-picture, long-term repercussions from our posts. When I look back at 10 years of doing this, it’s nice to see all the good we’ve done. But that’s not the goal. The goal is to provide interesting content for our readers.

  • BuzzMachine ponders: Can we stop seeing it as news when some company opens up an island on Second Life?

  • Google: the 800-pound social networking gorilla?
    This is a couple of weeks old now, but the story is that Google is about to enter the social networking business in a month. Scobleizer pointed to a TechCrunch post about Google testing an app to rival Facebook. According to TC, Google will unveil the new app on Nov. 5.

Attempting a new world speed record

[blatant promo for my university]

s-t-land-speed-vehicle.jpgA group of students from the university where I’m employed (to do flackery, no less) is in a remote and desolate portion of Nevada attempting to break the collegiate human land-speed record. On our Experience This! blog, we’re using video, photos and text to report on the adventures of Jerrod Bouchard and his crew as they attempt to set the new world record.

Bouchard is pedaling a specially designed recumbent bicycle — which looks nothing like any bicycle you’ve ever seen — to speeds (so far) as high as 59 mph. (The record is 61.5 mph.) We’ve got a blogger, a photographer and a videographer on the scene to capture the event. Note the prominent display of the “Missouri S&T” word mark on the team’s vehicle and uniforms.

[/blatant promo for my university]