Brad Feld

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Intelligence Amplification

Nov 28, 2006
Category Technology

I hate the phrase Web 3.0.  I’ve never really liked the phrase Web 2.0 either, but I didn’t notice that I didn’t like it until after it had become used in almost every conversation I had with anyone about what they were working on.  As I started making new investments in companies that tried to deal with the TAR problem (such as Me.dium, Lijit, Collective Intellect, and HiveLive), I realized I wanted a name for this.  I came up with the lame name “dynamics of information” as a placeholder.

I’ve been searching for a new name for this and my partner Ryan McIntyre came up with the phrase “Intelligence Amplification” which I love.  It’s especially sweet if you catch the mildly ironic reference to “Artificial Intelligence.” While I still haven’t locked down this label as final for this theme of investing, articles such as “Applying Semantic Web Ideals” from the weblog The Intelligent Enterprise – in addition to highlighting my friend Nick Bradbury as having a major clue around this stuff – reinforce the chocolately goodness of this name in my non-silicon based mind.