So, in a recent post covering the recent Web2.0 Conference, Om Malik wearies over certain companies and what seems like an endless pitch-a-thon:

A perfect example is this news from Level 3 Communications, touting the fact that they had won¹ the contract to provide bandwidth to fast growing photo-video hosting service Photobucket². This is not the first, and I am betting the last news release from Colorado-based backbone provider trumpeting their deal with some “Web 2.0″ company. They had made similar announcements when³ they did deals with YouTube and MySpace.

It is all spin and a blatant attempt to get a little Web 2.0 pixie dust. In fact, Level 3 is spending liberally to get it. They are sponsoring the Web 2.0 conference, and paying top dollars for it. I wonder why they are not one of sponsors (or even an exhibitors at⁴) ISPCon⁵, a conference that is closer to their core business.

What I’ve noticed is a few commenters calling Om out, essentially labelling him a hypocrite, wondering why Mr. Malik is critical of a company trying to catch a little web2.0 pixie dust (not unlike Google using Faerie Magick), when perhaps, Mr. Malik’s GigaOm is a purveyor of said magic (or, perhaps hype).

Here’s one educated response:

If people like L3 were not aligned with internet traffic we would still have to wait for them to lay down fibers for WEB2.0 to exist.

I believe that you would be better off by apologizing for this post. It would really show how good you are.

If you do not apologize you actually would show that Level3 understand the big picture [both pipes and traffic patterns] and you don’t.

Please review your position on this !!!

Whether or not GigaOm hypes Web2.0 companies is debatable (and I find myself on the “not” side), but that’s what GigaOm does — it reports on them. Not tube plumbing bandwidth companies. And I think that’s the point he’s trying to make.
Not that they’re a bad company.

Not that they’re necessarily doing something worthwhile

Not even that what they’re announcing is necessarily newsworthy — in some fashion.

What he’s doing is calling L3 out on trying tie themselves into what the Web2.0 is about, and, quite rightly, L3 has nothing to do with the Web2.0 anymore than say, Verizon, has with the Web2.0, because its really a bandwidth company.
(And as a refresher, there’s a good summary over at Monkey Bits over what a Web2.0 company involves)

Sure Om might be guilty of contributing to the echochamber from time to time — but if he is, aren’t we all?