So I had changed provider for unemployment insurance and then I received a cheque in the mail from my old provider because I had paid too much due to the change. This got me a bit annoyed. No - not because I got money back (duh) but because I got in as a cheque which meant I had to go to the bank, which I do like once or twice a year ... usually to deposit cheques. Banks are never open so I had to leave early from work to make it as well. What annoys me though is that these people have my account number, and they might as well just post money directly into my bank account without ever needing me to go to the bank. Sure - no doubt they do it this way and hope people forget to deposit the money. But the worst part is that in this day and age of electronic payments companies have started charging a handling fee if you pay money to THEM as anything but electronic payments, for example by giro payments. So that was what made me annoying because they did NOT include a handling fee in the money they refunded to me. It would only be fair if they gave me 20-50 DKK more as well for the inconvenience of having to handle the cheque, just as they expect me to pay them when doing it to them. So I thought of sending a bill for them for handling of the cheque - but well - I visited the bank and deposited the cheque anyway. But what applies for money to them, should in my view also apply for money from them

Financial Times is reporting that many Web 2.0 are failing to create (significant) revenue.
I’m far from surprised, as it is something I’ve argued in many discussions before and wrote about in my blog

Web 2.0 as a concept looks to me to just be a buzzword, and worse – a reminisces of the “happy venture days” in the mid 90s, where mentioning the word e-solution, webpage or something similar had people standing by with a big bag of money, cause it was the “new economy”.

I seriously question all services which does not form their business on some tangible product or stream of income. Information about consumers are valurable, but if the information stands alone and doesn’t create sales, it is doomed to fail. And then there are all the other services which now have to be plastered with advertisements to make a buck.

It seems more and more that Web 2.0 is just the re-emerging of advertise driven content …. Just now the users are better armed and prepared towards advertisements, and so the struggle between users and advertisers continue.

Web 2.0 indeed. It is still Web 1.0, just with faster broadband connections.