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GigaOm: Level 3 Not a Web 2.0 Company

Telecom vet Om Malik cites Level 3's press releases as an example of Web 2.0 hype.

Om Malik, a veteran scribe who has covered the web/telco industry through boom and bust, is writing about Web 2.0 fatigue, a malady he says can be aggravated by spin. GigaOm, who recently launched his own network of newsblogs, cites recent announcements from Level 3 - which has unveiled connectivity deals with MySpace, YouTube and now Photobucket - as an example. An excerpt from Om:

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. ... Hate to break it to you guys, but you paint a pony with black stripes, it doesn't become a zebra. You are a bandwidth provider, and might become a content delivery network, but you will still remain in the background, and a plumbing company. Not that there is anything wrong with it.

I expect much of the coverage of the Web 2.0 conference to focus on the bubble/hype question, but we'll be on the lookout for meaningful coverage of Infrastructure 2.0. Is the pixie dust working?

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