But I do think that some of Mr. O’Reily sentiments are correct. It is lamentable that so many skilled developers are working on facebook apps instead of working on problems people and companies face. I run a small business and I really don’t need another venue to advertise. I really could use some of these “collective intelligence” apps if they could lower my labor and infrastructure costs. Everyone that I have used so far has been a disappointment.

When you stated “Facebook Platform is one of the most innovative and exciting technologies to emerge in the past three years” and that the applications based on the “social graph” are “at the core of what’s driving today’s internet startups and their people-powered web services,” were you totally unaware that the vast majority of the applications built for Facebook and similar platforms are completely and utterly useless (”lightweight”)?

Beyond this specific example of how your new perspective doesn’t quite fit in with your old one, one really need look no further than the portfolio of Web 2.0 conferences you’ve run to see your real stripes.

Your conferences have:

• Attracted Web 2.0 so many kool aid drinkers that in 2005, the USA Today’s Kevin Maney wrote, “The industry is still tingling from the loud and sweaty Bubble 2.0 — whoops, excuse me, Web 2.0 — conference here late last week.”
• Offered “sessions” about topics such as widget marketing and “Strategies for Pitching, Financing & Growing Your Web 2.0 Startup.”
• Featured speakers from companies such as Facebook, Digg, Ning, Cyworld, Technorati, Vox, Federated Media, Flickr and Obvious/Twitter.
• Been sponsored by companies like MySpace, OneSite, Profy, Userplane, Rojo, AnswerBag, Yoono and eSnips.
• Taken money from no shortage of consumer Web 2.0 exhibitors including AddThis, Camwii, CatchReviews, Dixero, Friendster, FuseCal, Ifungo, Meetup, Photobucket, Smiley Media, Snap.com, TradeVibes and Vbuzzer.
• Launched consumer-oriented companies such as Rollyo, Wink, Instructables, Stikkit, TripIt, Realius and Sphere.

Frankly, you haven’t put your money where your mouth is. And I don’t blame you for that – if you did, you wouldn’t have much money.

But please don’t try to maintain that your recent statements are consistent with your past actions. They’re not and while I have no doubt that you will continue to fool the dreamers in the Web 2.0 “community,” the bottom line is that you’ve been playing the Web 2.0 hype for all it’s worth. Stick with that and take pride in knowing that you’re probably one of the few people who has made real money from Web 2.0 – putting on conferences, selling reports for $375, etc.

As it relates to “solving the world’s urgent problems,” please save the BS for somebody who actually cares. Civilization has been through a lot of shit over the millennia.

The Internet is a powerful tool but civilization’s problems get solved through action in the real world. They aren’t going to get solved on the Internet and they aren’t going to get solved by people paying thousands of dollars to attend one of your conferences where they sit around listening to talking heads talk about solving problems.

Want to save the world, Tim? Tell people need to log off the Internet and log back into the real world. And tell them that while you appreciate their patronage, they need to stop attending all of your conferences and start actually doing something useful.

By the way, since I noticed that Al Gore is going to be attending this year’s Web 2.0 Summit and you apparently forgot to send me an invitation, maybe you’d be kind enough to ask a few questions on my behalf:

• Has he managed to reduce his electricity bill?
• Did the spike in fuel prices impact his use of private jets?
• In an Inconvenient Truth in 2006, he stated that we had at most 10 years to avert a global catastrophe. This year, he started a push to encourage lawmakers to get the United States to 100% renewable energy within 10 years. By my math, the world will have been destroyed two years before the US is “green.” Can he explain this?

Thanks in advance!

It’s always been about what I call “harnessing collective intelligence.” And I’m urging people to apply the principles learned on the consumer side to business, to science, to politics, and to solving the world’s urgent problems.

This is not new. You’ve not been paying attention.