Cam Balzer's Web-Cite

"SHIFD" content between devices

Haven't tried it but looks like a handy way to access notes, links, locations between desktop and phone: SHIFD. Created by R&D team at the NY Times, interestingly.

O'Reilly Radar at GSP/ETech

koan-like notes from Tim O'reilly's "Radar" session at ETech / GSP:

• I love hackers 
• Etech is about the edges
• Received knowl v original knowl 
• Wikipedia: no original research
• Polyani: personal knowl commits us. Like love. Shirt of flame 
• Passion of hackers. Swivel. Choose the cookie!
• Wright brothers. Pythagorus. Joe kittinger. 
• Space hackers.
• Believe and create. 
• Web 2 successes created in yrs after the bust
• Open source hardware. Liam Casey supply chain. 
• Ambient computing added to web 2: sensors and pple away from the keyboard. Openmoko
• Dash express. Swarming internet devices is openmoko. 
• Path intelligence measured by cell phone home signals
• ms photosynth 
• Social graph from cell usage logs: megaphone
• Hackers change the world by having fun.
• Willow garage personal robots 
• Open CV computer visuals
• When you follow the hackers you don't know what it means. You just know something is up. 
• Collective intelligence. Coding against corruption. Matt cutts of govt.
• Worldchanging 
• Rilke. Man watching

Facebook Hires Sandberg to Make Microsoft's $240 Million Investment Pay Off [SearchEngineWatch]

Interesting developments at Facebook, hiring Sheryl Sandberg as COO from Google where she headed up Global Online Ad Sales/Ops. SearchEngineWatch reports that she recently spoke at a conference:

Google cracked the code on monetizing search advertising. Where is advertising heading next? [SearchEngineWatch].

"Ignite" session at GSP/ETech

More koan-like notes:

 

• Breath. Email apnea.
• Jimmy Guterman: secret of success. Screw up. Accidents. Blogger and twitter. 
• Matt Webb. Resist the giant boring planets like the space spiders.
• Virtual to physical: stefan moo. Moo api. Adam koford. Kthxbye 
• Dod acquisition process.
• Saul griffith: howtoons. Childhood is your last chance to be a hero. 
• Social graph api: Kevin marks. Social cloud: make it "someone else's problem field". Stop thinking about self as email address and start as URL. Rel=me. Hidden info? Opensocial. Take your app to their platform. Pple, friends, activities in the api cloud.
• Deborahschultz.com. When we weave cool shut happens. Visualcomplexity.com. 
• Taskiran: sending messageas in innocent cover. Spammimic.com. Iraqi head seeks arms. Mercan.topkara.org
• David orban. Open spime. Contraction of space and time. Know when they are where they are. P2P science. Openspime.org
• Threshold of indignation. Sweet spot simplifies your life. Baroque phase complicates your life. More sweet spot. Less baroque.
• Sarah's walk to work. Intagible method.

Wilco @ Riv Theater, Chicago, Feb 18

Great show on night three of Wilco's five night residency at the Riviera Theater in Chicago. Fine form with a horn section and fiddle on several numbers. Tight, tasty twists on some classics and a few straight up takes. Annotated playlist at the Tribune, but here's the list again for posterity's sake:

1. "Blue Eyed Soul"
2. "Remember the Mountain Bed"
3. "Bob Dylan's 49th Beard"
4. "Hesitating Beauty"
5. "That's Not the Issue"
6. "Wishful Thinking"
7. "You Are My Face"
8. "Side With the Seeds"
9. "A Shot in the Arm"
10. "We're Just Friends"
11. "Kamera"
12. "Handshake Drugs"
13. "How to Fight Loneliness"
14. "Jesus, Etc."
15. "Should've Been In Love"
16. "Pick Up the Change"
17. "Theologians"
18. "Walken"
19. " I'm the Man Who Loves You"

Intermission

20. "Via Chicago
21. "Impossible Germany"
22. "She's a Jar"
23. "Say You Miss Me"
24. "Box Full of Letters"
25. "I'm Always In Love"
26. "Hate It Here"
27. "The Late Greats"
28. "Red-Eyed and Blue"
29. "I Got You (At the End of the Century)"
30. "Monday"
31. "My Darling"

Encore

32. "Can't Stand It"
33. "Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway(again)"

More Social Network Anti-hype that Misses the Point...

I guess this is what counts as "bad news" for social networks. Anecdote reinforcing a single data point spun into a death nell for social networks: Generation MySpace Is Getting Fed Up. This is a bit of buzz backlash: anti-buzz buzz.

While the reporter barely comprehends the social network ad space moderately well (Beacon isn't an ad platform), I agree with the implication that "banners don’t work on social networks"… that is: when they are CPM buys. CPC media looks like it can work. We've got a testing going for instance that is delivering a nice order volume at a CPO half of search. Not as much volume as your average Google campaign but huge impressions and good conversions off of the clicks, even though CTRs are low.

Let's call this "Social Performance Marketing", realize that this doesn't mean flooding users with undifferentiated and untargeted banners and get on with figuring out how to engage and connect with the people now "living" on social networks...

The Coming Ad Revolution - WSJ.com

Now this is more like it, WSJ: The Coming Ad Revolution. Esther Dyson crisply summarizes where the value lies for individuals in trading info for relevance:

The new model creates a more trusted environment for reaching high-value, frequent purchasers, whether of airline tickets, electronics, clothes or other items. Where does that leave the less-frequent purchasers? Probably looking to their friends rather than to advertising for advice. I'm an expert on travel; my friends may look to me for hotel choices. When I'm in the mood to buy a book or a new computer, I'll check out what my friends on Facebook are doing.

This does not mean that traditional online advertising will go away, just that it will become less effective. Value is being created in users' own walled gardens, which they will cultivate for themselves in real estate owned by the social networks. The new value creators are companies -- like Facebook and Dopplr -- that know how to build and support online communities.

An interesting tangent to this is another recent WSJ article on measuring the effectiveness of TV ads:

As the Web's ability to target specific consumers races ahead, TV advertisers, who collectively spend about $70 billion a year in the U.S. alone, are under increasing pressure to demonstrate that their money is well-spent. Couch to Supermarket: Connecting Dots

The tables are turned: web advertising is the de facto standard in accountability. Keep a sharp eye out for a similar piece in 2-5 years touting the highly measurable engagement between consumers and brands on social networks as the standard to which online banner ads... and maybe even search... should be held.

Bill Gates Quits Facebook

And in today's "news unworthy of the WSJ [even its blogs]" category: Bill Gates Quits Facebook. Talk about vacuous buzz mongering. "A week of bad press" for social networks? It's all been journalistic speculation based on vague presumptions and fundamental misunderstandings about the potential of these sites. Sure the hype might be burning off: not in itself a bad thing. But that doesn't mean the sites themselves aren't viable businesses with growing consumer bases who perceive real value in them.

Nothing to see here. No Sir. Social sites definitely aren't going to work for marketers...

That's right, CMOs and CPGs, nothing to see here. Social Sites Don't Deliver Big Ad Gains, says WSJ.com. Move on to the next sexiest thing.

[There... that oughta buy us performance marketers some time. We'll get back to buying highly qualified traffic on a bidded cost per click, working through the kinks some new but promising alpha-grade platforms until we figure out how to spin those clicks into gold at scale. We can use some time below the radar before we re-emerge to take over the world... like we did with search marketing.]

[BTW, did you notice the interesting caveat on Kara Swisher's scoop re FB revenue:

A Kara source suggests that Mark's 2008 projection does not include a successful Beacon-style social-network-advertising product. If this is true, and if Facebook can finally get Beacon working right, perhaps it will yet be able to tap into a Google-like revenue stream. If not, however, it's time to stop talking about Facebook being "the next Google" -- because it isn't. Silicon Alley Insider

That's a lot of if's and perhaps's for a product that is still really an alpha.]

Facebook functionality set free

SeenThis? is a very cool Facebook application that let's you see (anonymously/in aggregate) what your friends are reading on major publisher sites (WSJ, NBC, etc). Facebook network data appears on the publisher site too... FB functionality set free on the web.