This site here (sorry, I can’t figure out who the author is) recently posted some nonsense about how Web 3.0 is going to be about using AI to create farms of people who think they’re playing games but are actually doing the bidding of corporations for no pay. This is absolutely sick nonsense. Go read the article if you don’t believe me.

My first issue with this idea is that it’s slavery. Game development companies are very good at creating very addictive games. Embedding puzzles or whatever into the game that solve problems for third-party companies will turn gamers into unpaid laborers, or at the very best, underpaid and unskilled laborers. Ya, that’s a pretty glamorous new technology you got there.

My other problem with this article is my usual thing about people wanting to both have and eat their cake.

The author is careful to put in caveats about how he doesn’t like Web “versions” and how this exciting new world of slave-gamers will only happen if we work really hard and don’t get too excited. Tim O’Reilly was saying the same thing last year at the Web 2.0 conference. I find it funny that each time someone invents some idea they want people to get excited about related to the Web, they say that THIS time we’re not going to go overboard with excitement, and that we’re going to be very serious and very professional about it all.

It’s as if people who run Internet companies want people to take them seriously (“we’re a mature industry now and this isn’t just a bubble!”), but they still want people to get wildly excited about their “new paradigm” (to use a phrase no one would dare use to describe their new web version today). What will happen, of course, is that people will get wildly excited and continue to think of the Web as a magic place full of good-looking, super-smart, and super-rich people who just keep on cranking out these great new versions! This isn’t really the truth at all….oh, except the part about us being good looking and super-smart.

Web 3.0 has officially begun — the signs are all around us (here’s one, and here’s another).

I’m ready now to start revealing the details of what exactly will happen during this version and what future versions hold for us. For a first taste of Web 3.0 through Web 8.0, please visit WebEightPointOh.com now.

The stupidly named “Deleting Online Predators Act“, if it becomes law, would require institutions that get federal funding to prevent access to social networking sites except under adult supervision.

This isn’t what I meant when I said that Myspace should go away.

“DOPA” won’t do anything to “delete” online predators. Instead, it’s a twisted attempt to restrict innocent people’s freedom while purporting to protect them. Sound familiar?

If Myspace should be banned from schools for any reason, it’s because it’s owned by News Corp and is saturated with advertising. Banning it because it enables communication (which can sometimes be dangerous) is a bad idea that won’t do anything and could theoretically result in banning the Internet from schools.

A few things I think need to happen soon:

1. Google needs to be taken down several notches. Not that I have anything against google, it’s just that I think too many people see them as the end-all-be-all of companies, technology, and search and too many people in the media and in blog-land have the hots for Sergey and Larry.

2. MySpace needs to go away.

3. Everyone who makes web sites needs to check out the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library and either start using these or create and posting their own patterns somewhere.