Comments on: Web 2.0 Heroes

By: Bradley Jones

Bradley Jones — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:29:33 +0000

“Why read about heroes profiles and how they got there then to make yourself a hero?”

To learn from them.
To avoid making mistakes they made.
To do better than what they did.
To have the next site that is recognized when people see it listed.
And yes, to cut the amount of time it might take to make yourself or your site/company a hero as well….

Read the book. If you don’t find at least one tip or tidbit worth the cost, I’d be surprised.

By: Danny Foo

Danny Foo — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:03:14 +0000

Why read about heroes profiles and how they got there then to make yourself a hero? At least that’s what I feel.

My heroes are Steve Krugg, Robert Hoekman Jr., Jacob Nielsen and 37signals. These are the people who influence my work by sharing their knowledge, giving me inspiration and keeps my beliefs up to improve the web.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:15:30 +0000

one of the last things you said stuck in my mind, I hadn’t heard of many of those names, but then again I’m not sure who I would expect to find on there. Tom maybe?

By: Bradley Jones

Bradley Jones — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:32:25 +0000

A hero is not necessarily a famous, well known person. There are heroes every day. Rather a hero is someone that has done something special and generally above the ordinary. As you stated, you recognized the sites and companies. Chances are you would recognize what a majority of the listed people had done. It is what they have done that makes them – and their companies often times – heroes in the Web 2.0 community.

Some of them, such as Gina Bianchini don’t even agree with the term “Web 2.0″, yet she has helped redefine the potential of social networking with Ning. Others have similar stories.

The people in this book were choosen based on the sites and companies they are involved in running. There were several other people that simply didn’t make it into the book. Read the book and you’ll learn what they’ve done and what they learned. You’ll also learn about more than just Web 2.0. You’ll learn what many of these people see as the next big thing in the industry.

You make a good point though – maybe the companies should have been listed on the cover instead of the people!

By: Andrea

Andrea — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:58:30 +0000

I believe Scoble made the blogging heroes book.. I would be interested to know how they determined who fit into which category..

By: Tim Wilson

Tim Wilson — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:41:38 +0000

Great post! I had the same reaction to the image as it sounds like you did — who are these people?

I’ll second Gary and put Chris Brogan on my list. And, I’d add to that with Geoff Livingston, Jeremiah Owyang, Jim Long, Connie Bensen, and Gary Vaynerchuck — they’re all people who, although I don’t read/watch everything they do, I’m generally struck with the depth and insights they provide when I do.

If I used technology better, I would include Brian Solis and Robert Scoble on the list…but I just haven’t managed to get hooked in as well as I should there.

And, on the niche-ish front, Avinash Kaushik — Occam’s Razor is the best web analytics blog on the planet, in my book — and Eric T. Peterson — not only as a recognized web analytics guru, but as the creator of the webanalytics Yahoo! group long before “social media” was a term…and then the creator of Web Analytics Wednesdays (and technology to facilitate them) lonnnnnnngggggg before Twitter was a twinkle in anyone’s eye, much less the possibility of tweetups.

By: Gary Moneysmith

Gary Moneysmith — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:05:25 +0000

Andrea:

Chris Brogan has to be considered a “hero” for Web 2.0/Social Media primarily because of his super-helpful, prolific blogging @ http://www.chrisbrogan.com.

If I had to pick JUST ONE blog to follow for thought-provoking, actionable advice, this would be it.