Web 3.0; Valleywag Fired; 2008 Prez Watch

It was a rough week for Web 2.0. Bloggers like Rough Type declared Web 2.0 sooo over following a dull Web 2.0 Summit last week. Why? Maybe the Summit’s $3,000 price tag kept out everyone but those preaching to the converted, blogs Mark Evans. But over at The New York Times, John Markoff has anointed Web 3.0 as the Next Next Big Thing. More like Psychobabble 3.0, blogs /Message, snarking that Markoff talking about a meme makes people talk about it. Scobleizer blogs that in 50 interviews in the past three months no one ever mentioned a Web 3.0. Looks like the Times is just mentioning a trend in case one emerges. All this leads Ross Mayfield to say that if Web 2.0 is a bubble, Web 3.0 will just be a disaster. After all, Web 2.0 isn’t even a buzzword yet in the real world, as Blog Herald found out.

Speaking of bubbles, owner Nick Denton ejected Valleywag writer Nick Douglas-and wants to focus more on money than sex, blogs Good Morning Silicon Valley. That’s right: Denton will it for now and is looking for an experienced reporter rather than, ahem, another college kid. Old Valleywag: Is Marissa Meyer sleeping with Sergey Brin? New Valleywag: John Batelle gets Farked and Michael Arrington is the new Red Herring.

Could Douglas have been fired for this interview with 10 Zen Monkeys, where he hints that Denton’s bad-boy image is just an act? Douglas made enough enemies while at Valleywag, meaning he did a good job, blogs Deep Jive Interests-but despite the rumors, Douglas is not about to partner with Amanda Congdon. But don’t worry about her – she’s busy with a new TV gig for ABC and will appear on the 24-hour ABC News Now digital channel (via Gawker) and Micro Persuasion reports Congdon will also keep doing her vlog.

Online ad revenues for Q3 2006 hit $4.2 billion, up 2 percent over Q2 and up a heady 33 percent over Q3 2005 (via John Battelle). It’s figures like this that make Google’s Eric Schmidt bullish on the possibility of free, ad-supported mobile phones (via GigaOM). Ad sales notwithstanding, wet blanket Steve Ballmer of Microsoft reminds media companies that money from their copyrights now flows toward Google.

Speaking of Microsoft, the Zune media player launched this week and it didn’t take JANE magazine‘s editors too long to figure out it’s great for meeting boys on the bus. It’s also the first player that will work with the iTunes store-call it iZunes, blogs TechNudge Live but it’s not compatible with Vista. Oops. Also new this week, Confabb which helps conference junkies find over 16,000 conference options (via Next Net), and the relaunch of Jookster, which will let users search MySpace, YouTube and Grouper simultaneously and adds options for digging, del.icio.using and profiling anything you find (via Mashable!). Oh, and Microsoft released Microsoft Firefox 2007 Professional Edition-enjoy the spoof with the coffee you just spit up (via Register).

Finally in politics, While Nancy Pelosi and other Dems pull out the stops to make Jack Murtha the new House Majority Leader (via Huffington Post), Power Line reports the GOP has quietly named Trent Lott its majority whip in the Senate despite Lott’s disgrace for saying a segregationist Strom Thurmond should have won the presidency in ’48. Murtha is no saint either, blogs Riehl World View, considering he barely ducked punishment in the 1980s Abscam scandal. But Skippy the Bush Kangaroo says Murtha was the only Dem with the cojones to stand up on the Iraq war-not Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer or Barack Obama.

’08 Presidential Watch: From Taegan Goddard, John Edwards hints to Jon Stewart that he may run, but The Next Prez says Hillary is twice as popular in the ’08 contest, while Rudy Giuliani and John McCain lead for the GOP.