I log into my Gmail account this morning, and lo and behold, I see a little red link at the top of the screen desperately trying to get my attention. It tells me that AIM chat is now available on my Gmail! Yay! But wait…. why do I need that exactly?

The quick and easy answer is…. dun dun dun…. I don't! I have Trillian open when I use my sucky Dell, which allows me to use MSN Live, Yahoo, and AIM IMs all at the same time, so I can keep track of all my silly friends who don't use AIM. And no, I don't use ICQ. I've never seen the point, frankly.

When I get my glorious black Macbook next week, I will abandon all things Dell and enjoy the lap of luxury… just me and my Adium back together again… I may need a minute…

Right! So where was I? Oh right! AIM and Gmail. Yeah…. that will work great for anyone who obsessively leaves their Gmail open all day. I personally don't, because I need my Google search results to NOT be skewed by my "personal preferences". In case some of you didn't know, some of your Google search results will be different than everyone else's while you're signed in to Gmail because Google is trying to pinpoint what you specifically want to find. That's the official story, anyhow. So since I usually check Google to see where my stuff or my clients' stuff is ranking, I have to log off Gmail in order to do this. Result: I never stay logged in to Gmail after I'm done reading an email. I suppose this is partly due to the fact that Gmail is not my primary email account either. 

Who exactly does this benefit? I suppose this will probably benefit the massive Indian fanbase of GoogleTalk and Orkut, Google's private networking site that completely sucks. Maybe this is a bit harsh. There are thousands of people out there who don't own a domain which they can use for a primary email. That being the case, Gmail is definitely better than Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, so why not leave a window open all the time to check your Gmail? 

I must confess, I've never used GoogleTalk either. I simply don't have many friends who use GMail. So some of you will love this, most of you will wonder why it's a big deal. The quick and easy answer is… it isn't.  

I'm amazed by how many web 2.0 startups have appeared within the past two years. It seems that everyone smelled success with MySpace, Digg, YouTube, and Del.icio.us, and the race was on. Hundreds of 2.0 ideas have launched in the past year, making for an increasingly crowded space. 

Though there are millions of users to compete for, 30 versions of MySpace can't all be successful (Virb, Facebook, Friendster, Hyves, Hi5, etc). Every successful venture has 15-20 copy cat competitors crop up within a year of publicity. Everyone smells blood and rushes in to get a piece of the action. It's fair to say that billions of VC dollars are being spent right now on startups that will fall flat within five years. Some will take less time than that.

The Web is getting bloated. The variety is great, though difficult to keep up with. Keeping up with 2.0 startups is like drinking water from a fire hydrant. Too much is going on.

Expect two things to happen within the next 16 months: First, VC money for new web 2.0 businesses will dry up after several hundred current ideas flop. Second, we as users will have the opportunity to see which startups are actual improvements. Some companies will provide improved features, style, and usability. Some will be exact copies of other ideas. In all, the users will have the chance to choose which ideas are best. 

Some billionaires are in the making here. But many more ideas are headed toward the abyss.  

When you finally come to the realization that your website absolutely must be rebuilt on a content management system, you then face the challenge of learning about all the CMS options out there and selecting the one that works best for you. While Rand recommends that you build your own for customization purposes, most website owners won't be able to afford that option. There are dozens of open source options, however, now available for you to test drive at Open Source CMS. 

From portals and blog software to e-Commerce and groupware, you can try them on before you install. You sign in to an online demo as the admin and do practically whatever you want. Each sample CMS reboots every 2 hours. Check it out! It's a good way to learn about what you do and don't want from a CMS.