Okay, it’s the middle of February. Macworld Expo and CES are long over. Windows Vista has been out for more than two weeks. Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Music has been discussed so much that it’s been beaten to a bloody pulp. That’s right, it’s the tech doldrums right now. What’s a techie to do?

Why, write an article about what irks him, of course! A good number of the coolest geek toys out there involve Web 2.0. Not surprisingly, elements of Web 2.0 come up on this list quite a lot! Let’s get started. Here are some of the most worn out, most obnoxious trends in the tech universe.

Beta, beta everywhere...

It seems like no site or product churned out these days can be considered hip unless it has a “beta” tag somewhere on the page. Flickr is a great example, and has actually gone above and beyond “beta” and is now “Gamma”! Whoa! I don’t know what Flickr is trying to accomplish with “gamma,” as the site seems pretty polished to me. Maybe they are parodying the “Beta” tags everywhere?

Speaking of Flickr…

Stp drppng vowls frm wrds

Okay, I’ll admit, RAZR was a cool name at first. Flickr was OK, even. These days, though, we have to contend with dropped vowels everywhere. I can pronounce ROKR. SLVR was a little difficult; where should the vowels go? And what vowels should be used? Is it supposed to be “Slover”? When multi-billion dollar corporations start dropping vowels in their product names, you know it’s time to move on and create a new meme.

Also, check out the Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator, also known as “Bullshittr.”

Okay, one more naming complaint before I move along…

iGetItAlready, thankYouVeryMuch.

As clever as the iThing was when Apple started using the lower-case i naming idea with the iMac, it’s been around for nearly ten years now. I can understand Apple’s reasoning behind keeping the iThing around for so long—it is synonymous with the company, and it is a direct tie-in with the iPod. But Apple’s rebranded before, and they can certainly do it again.

Month of bug bites

As much as I appreciate it when people make security a priority, this is one method of raising security awareness I can’t wait to see disappear forever. I question the ethics of those behind these stunts; any self-respecting security expert goes to the developer first before exposing security flaws for the general public. In then end, these stunts—and let’s not mince words here, they are stunts—do nothing for the developers or end users. All the Months of Bugs do is promote the people behind it. I am not the first to say this; I will not be the last.

Look at me, I’m a link! No, I’m an ad! Ha-ha, fooled ya!

Intellitxt, I am looking in your general direction.

Mouseover pop-up ads are certainly less obnoxious than pop-ups, but I still have little tolerance for them. Depending on who serves them, these ads will pop up after a short pause (preferred), or pop up even when you just run your mouse down the page (horribly annoying). Some sites go easy on these ads while others have every other word double-underlined. I will actually avoid sites that heavily employ mouseover ads. As for DT, don’t worry; we will continue to keep our ads as unobtrusive as possible.

Web 2.overload

I dig Digg. Personally, I like many sites that rely on user-generated content. The problem I have, however, can be summed up with this screenshot from a web site I won’t name:

Just try to name all of those sites without looking it up. I dare you.

As someone who is involved with operating a web site, I understand a webmaster’s need to get the word out about their site. Deep Thought has benefitted from Web 2.0 sites a number of times. It’s a good thing. But damn, at some point, enough is enough! Web 2.0 can be an overload at times. Whether it’s an overload of links to social bookmarking sites or a laundry list of tags, or, well, this entire site, Web 2.0 can become a bit much. Is it really necessary to pimp one’s site on every social networking or social bookmarking site in existence? What good comes of that? How effective are these sites at generating new regular readership? Unless you become lucky and one article spreads like wildfire, not very. And in the end you end up hurting yourself as such sites can take away commenting activity on your own site.

I think that’s enough complaining for one article. You’ll notice that much of what I discussed here involves great ideas taken to an extreme. That’s precisely the problem. I have nothing against a site here and there using a “Beta” tag when the site or service is still indeed incomplete. Or when one site drops an “E” from its name. Or when a handful of Apple products use a lower-case “i” prefix. Or when a site includes links to a handful of social networking sites. Heck, even the Month of xxx Bugs idea was creative at first. I’ll leave you with one final thought: moderation is your friend.