Thanks for the recent linkage from Glasstire, a web magazine covering visual art in Texas (and named for an artwork by Robert Rauschenberg): Bill Davenport's Dec. 18 Newswire nod to my found seasonal GIF ("Even better after a few eggnogs"), and Ivan Lozano's enthusiastic piece on Net Art 2.0 and the surfing clubs. I have to say I prefer Lozano's take on the scene to the Wall Street Journal's, not just because he mentions this page but because his account is visually lush and gives you a sense of what the fuss is about with net art's second wave*. Also, none of the usual cliches are invoked such as claiming that the art is made by "a generation that grew up with the Net" (beyond a jab at pre-Net-nostalgic "squares" in the opening paragraph) or the all-important "Can these cra-a-azy artists sell this work?"
For more discussion of the latter two issues, please see this Nasty Nets thread. On the issue of age-ism, I think two things are going on here: (a) the same "young is better" media narrative that makes actors washed up at 21, and (b) reinforcing another media script that bloggers are "unruly kids" when in fact the most prominent independent voices come from all age groups. The WSJ article recites a couple of the "pro surfer" artists' ages--one is 23 and one is 33. Are they the same generation? I don't think so. Anyone 33 remembers life before the Net. Whether the art is first or second wave is surely a matter of attitude, not birth year. So, curators, can you please stop saying this?
*the only exception to the "second wave" designation among the works mentioned in Lozano's piece is g_i_o_c_a_t_t_o_l_i's pseudo-pixelated Op Art javascript utility. That is more of an overdetermined net art 1.0 concept, heavy on programming magic and "interactivity" compared to the rather trashy, DIY use of html and GIFs on the surf blogs.
Update, 2012: non-broken link to Ivan Lozano's Glasstire piece (all the image links are broken, though)