DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Web 2.0 was a schwagfest. Welcome back to the bubble! Please put the foosball table into the break room.

In order of appearance:

• Conference Sachel
• Yahoo wifi-finder
• AT&T Zigaboo.com CD
• Outcast PR Mints
• Akamai Binder Clip
• Microsoft Music Coupon
• Google Ice
• Google LED Fan

The sachel is not what I was expecting, but more useful, as it turns out, because the shoulder strap on my beloved and near-antique Adobe bag, which I’ve been carrying around since Adobe bought Aldus in 1994, broke on the second day of the conference. And it’s a whole lot flashier than the cotton sacks they used for Etech and the MySQL conference.

The wifi-finder would appear to be a smart choice for the Web 2.0 crowd, but I haven’t actually taken it out of its package yet. It’s useful, but not immediately so. I already know there’s a wifi network in my house.

Akamai’s binder clip, if that is in fact what this thing is, is a hilarious choice. Because, you know, nothing screams “high-speed, high-availability, globally distributed content delivery network” like a binder clip.

The tin of mints from Outcast PR was purely a selfish choice, I think. The Outcast reps were on a mission to sign up as many clients as possible. This meant talking to as many attendees as possible, at length, and shaking hundreds of hands. They probably considered issuing commemorative Web 2.0 Alcohol Swabs too.

Microsoft bought everyone dinner, and put a card worth $20 in free music downloads at every place. I left mine behind. I couldn’t think of $20 worth of music I was eager to get, especially not when I’d have to sell my soul to get it.

Google’s two contributions are utterly useless, but were the most talked-about items of the conference. Who ever heard of faux ice cubes? They’re not cold, but they light up. They represent an unequivocal victory of form over function, yet conference attendees left with pockets bulging (and glowing). OK, maybe that was just me.

The handheld fan is the least-effective fan I’ve ever seen. But! The blade lights up and makes cool geometric patterns as it spins. Who doesn’t need one of these? I ask you.

Read more on conference schwag from Robert Kaye.

Every parent believes that his or her child possesses some special talent.

Most all of them are wrong, of course.

But in Raphael’s case, I have photographic proof. Here he is scaling the front of the bookshelf. He can’t yet walk, but he’s a master of gravity-defying feats of strength.

I guess now we can get rid of that radioactive spider.

Momentarily abandoning rational thought, I picked up a tub of guacamole at the mini-mart at the Mineral Lodge a couple weekends ago. I didn’t give a thought to what might actually be in it until after I’d returned to my room. I mean, guacamole is avocados, right?

Umm…

In a tone suggesting “you don’t want to know what’s in this,” my wife asked, “do you want to know what’s in this?” I remember thinking, “no, not until I swallow!”

As you may know, ingredients on packaged-food labels are listed in descending order by weight, from most to least. Whatever is listed first is basically what you’re eating.

Here’s what “Dean’s Zesty Guacamole” is made of: skim milk, soybean oil, diced tomatoes, water, hydrogenated vegetable oil, and, if there’s any room left in the pot, avocado pulp. Plus literally 46 other items, including five acids (citric, lactic, sodium, ascorbic, acetic), eggs and egg yolks, a rainbow of chemical colorants (yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 1, red 40), and locust bean gum, making this product a tasty way to fulfill the US RDA for mannose residues.

With all due respect to Dean Foods, makers of fine Horizon Organic dairy products, this is not guacamole. This is barely even food.

Therefore we are pleased to present Dean Foods with our prestigious Corinthian Leather Award to celebrate this use of ridiculous, obfuscating marketing language — essentially, for putting the word “guacamole” on the label of this evil green stew. Congratulations all around! Erm, please pass the salsa.

Click for previous Corinthian Leather awards.

One thought was unmistakably on everyone’s mind as they strolled around AT&T’s reception at Web 2.0, with a premium drink in one hand and a plate full of high-concept snacks in the other, like Gazpacho Shrimp Shooters, or Dungeoness Crab Tataki on Nori Chips, or Ahi Tuna Tartare with Ginger and Lime, or Wasabi Mashed Potatoes with Sesame Grilled Salmon, Crispy Leeks, and Black Caviar (served in a martini glass), while Zigaboo Modeliste’s Aahkesstra jammed onstage and the entertainment budget had room not only for a photographer but a flash guy to follow him around.

Robert Kaye of MusicBrainz, eyeing the spread with some amazement, summed it up: “is it just me… or is the Internet boom back?”

The energy at the conference is palpable. New deals are happening every day. Products are getting better. The browser war is being un-lost. Companies are making money. Stock options are — dare I think it?? — emerging from a five-year bath.

I’m not counting my money yet, but I am eating the hell out of the five kinds of Dim Sum at the buffet. And I’m looking forward to the next 12 months.

Jason Fried of 37signals gave an eye-opening presentation at Web 2.0 today: less is more! This was the best, most directly useful presentation I’ve heard so far.

Less is a competitive advantage. Trying to one-up everyone else is a “Cold War” mentality. Instead, try to one-down the competition. Beat them with less.

There are five things software developers need less of:

1. Less money
2. Less people
3. Less time
4. Less abstractions
5. Less software

Less money
Taking on a big investment used to be the way businesses would get started. But all that investment gets you is debt. Debt doesn’t make you build better products. Debt doesn’t make your customers happy.

Money used to buy hardware, but now hardware is cheap. It used to buy software, but now software is cheap. Money could never buy time or passion, and passion is the one thing you need in quantity.

The one thing money could buy is salaries, meaning people. But maybe you don’t need those either…

Less people
You need only three: a designer, a programmer, and a “sweeper” to do everything else (including marketing).

Don’t scale the team up to fit the vision or the feature set. Instead, scale the vision down to fit the size of the team.

Less time
Having less time is a good thing, a huge competitive advantage. Most of the time spent in most companies is wasted: meetings, overbuilding, overanalysing. Having less time forces you to spend it smarter. Spend it only on the important things — building the software.

Less abstractions
Just build things. don’t write about them. Don’t draw pictures. And whatever you do, never never never make a “functional spec.” This is the biggest abstraction of all, and there is nothing functional about it. A long text document has nothing to do with a great piece of software.

Functional specs are political documents. They’re “yes documents” — every feature is a bullet point; it’s easy for people to say “yes, add that.” Worst of all, they create the illusion of agreement. You spend three months hammering out the functional spec, but three months later you find that everybody disagrees about what’s in the functional spec, and the finished product (if and when it is ever finished) looks nothing like the functional spec anyway.

Instead, just build the product. Build the UI first. Then wrap that with the technology. Have the technology fill in the back end. Work on the customer experience first; that’s the most important thing. Have the interface screens be the functional spec.

Building software is an iterative process. Iterate over the built product, not the abstractions.

Less software
Build less (complex) software. You’ll need less support… less help text… less documentation… less sales effort…

There are a million simple problems that need to be solved. Solve those first — but nail them. You won’t succeed at solving the complex problems anyway.

More of what?
The only thing you want more of is constraints. Less time, less money, fewer people, these are all constraints. They’ll squeeze you. But the result will be a higher-quality product.

Update: Jason’s notes are here. And Robert Kaye’s article is here.