I’m really excited and surprised of finding my blog inside the Top 25 Enterprise 2.0 weblogs as ranked by Technorati.

Thanks to Todd Stephens and my friend Luis Suarez for twittering it.

I suspect the reason to be the description that explicitly cites Enteprise 2.0, but really appreciated especially now that I’m launching a second blog completely focused on Enterprise 2.0. My goal is spreading the word on it in Italy as well and that’s why I’m thinking about writing it in italian. Here the entire enterprise 2.0 topic is quite unknown (leaving out Web2oltre.it, the first conference inviting experts on the stage to discuss it). Of course this also means a large opportunity to be taken.

I’m receiving more and more calls… More details soon.

After the initial Web Trend Maps, Oliver Reichenstein from the japanese agency Information Architects recently posted another overview of the most successful web sites worldwide linking them through a number of dimensions such as type of service (line color), web2ness (Web 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5), potential (the weather forecast), reputation (the area).

The map is loosely based on the Tokyo Metro Map and it includes english/american, japanese, german and chinese sites.

Curiously enough, each service location is located in a place depending on its reputation (for example “Yahoo is in Ueno, a nice place but nothing going on there” while “Google has moved from Shibuya, a humming place for young people, to Shinjuku, a suspicious, messy, Yakuza-controlled, but still a pretty cool place to hang out”).

More versions of the map are provided and discussed here.

I was searching for more info about the commenters on the first Blognation post, especially by non italians, while I discovered Four Starters, this blog from Cristiano Betta and others.

I’m slowly catching up with his pieces on Essential Web 2007 but for now I would like to quote a paragraph taken from the post “Why most web start-ups don’t fly“:

99% of all web start-ups die before they fly. That figure is higher than in any other industry. Why is that? Because most web start-ups don’t offer something customers actually need. Many people in the web 2.0 scene seem to disregard this.

I can see why. It’s relatively cheap to build web sites and with a potential worldwide market the prospects are extremely positive. Entrepreneurs, investors and enthusiasts - they all get carried away by the figures.

But if you don’t manage to tap into that worldwide market, it’s a whole different game. It’s not just bad for investors; it might blow up the industry once more (remember bubble 1.0?).

That’s why I believe we all need to be a bit more critical. Virtual communities might be the future of the web, but this doesn’t mean that any community will stand a chance, let alone be profitable. In the end, thinking of a good business model first is cheaper than just building web sites. It will pay off in the long run.

I find this paragraph really true. Web 2.0 introduces new, exciting, accessible and cheap opportunities and so many people believe that launching a new initiative only means putting together some lines of code and xml schemas. I agree that not any service must be a commercial (= profit generating) project but for those who are identifying a customer need and a matching revenue model should be the very first tasks.

I was discussing exactly about this with Alberto and even after some beers (well I only drink Cola Cola) we didn’t reach a common conclusion.

Are business models really mandatory or some sort of optional ingredients to be added accidentally?

Davide Potente wrote me about an intriguing full-immersion course he’s organizing in Rome to learn more about the Ruby on Rails world.

I’m happy to give it a little more visibility because I believe that this kind of events are still quite rare (and expensive) in Italy, while an advanced knowledge of RoR could be a real plus to find/change a job during these web 2.0 months (conferences on the theme are exploding).

The course will be held on August, 5-7th by two of the main RoR experts in Italy, namely Paolo and Jacopo of Seesaw. No gadgets, no frills but a lot of content and experience.

Addressed topics will include a complete overview, MVC paradigm, real applications, the deploy/debug/test cycle and the latest news about the language.

Only two seats are still available and the price will be in the range €270-€340 (depending on the participants’ number).

More information here.

The energetic Amanda Lorenzani, blogger and portal manager at Excite, launched today the italian version of the new Blognation network, a “global river of news” created by Sam Sethi:

Blognation is certainly a “Go Big” ambitious project set to cover the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Iceland, Netherlands, Japan, China / Taiwan / Hong Kong, Australia, Brazil, South America with the help of 16 editors who are ready to start writing and raring to go.

A key differentiator for blognation is the fact that all of these blogs will be written in English and collectively all of these blogs will form part of an advertising network aimed at promoting the startup community.

And proving that I must be totally mad but certainly not lacking in ambition, I am currently close to confirming a further nine more prospective editors to cover Canada, Russia, India, South Africa, South Korea, South-East Asia, Poland, Turkey and Greece.

There is of course one noticeable absentee from this list. That is of course the USA aka Silicon Valley. I took the decision some weeks ago not to cover the USA, simply because there were already enough excellent blogs reporting on the start-up ecosystem over there and one more wouldn’t make the slightest difference.

I deeply believe there was a real need of a stronger connection between local (european and asian) markets and the UK/US world. Language was often a major barrier and a lack of international visibility was a second cause. Now this is over and european startups have a relevant common ground to be presented eventually gaining global exposure, feedbacks and contacts.

Hats off to Amanda for his crystalline, complete and insightful first post. The bottom line for Italy seems to be a live ecosystem struggling to fill the gap with the international scene, a number of startups and groups supporting this change of perspective and big guys waiting to learn more about what is happening. More about my thoughts inside the post (Amanda interviewed me).

This is the same feeling I got from Web2.Oltre, the major web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 conference in our country that I helped organizing for Reed Business Information. I saw managers and companies with a sincere interest and large opportunities for the future.

Goodbye Vecosys, welcome Blognation!