John Battelle's Searchblog

Going through the past year in posts, I realized a few things. First, as with 2008, I wrote quite a lot off site. Second, I need way better navigation for this site, as it's got six years of posts in it now, and even I can't remember what the hell I said half the time. And third, I want to write more. A lot more. I'm expecting that will happen in 2010.

But I did get to write quite a bit in '09. Here are some of the posts I'm most proud of.

January, 09

Predictions 2009 (drew the biggest single day crowd ever for Searchblog)

On Alice, Tik Tok, Marketing, CES, and Finding The Ground (in which I propose a our industry had found the bottom)

More on The Future of Print and Journalism

Why No Twitter Search from the Big Guys? (it came, ten months later...)

(Credit, Oil, IT, and) Paper Ain't Free, So Don't Waste It.

February, 09
Twitter = YouTube. (in which I submit that Google must buy Twitter. It did try...)

Wondering Out Loud: The AT&T Network (in which I wonder if AT&T is favoring the iPhone over other devices on its network)

Google Latitude (how *is* that going?!)


March, 09
An "Undifferentiated slush of results" (foreshadowing of things to come)

ExecTweets (the first brand marketing execution done with Twitter)
It's Very Sorta Twitter (Facebook, That Is)

Tim Armstrong To Lead AOL - Further Thoughts

Can Google Find Its Voice?

"Search Is A Pencil" (Twitter is a pencil, Facebook, Photoshop)

The Conversation Is Shifting (in which I note how social is driving traffic around the web)

What's In A Name? Thoughts on what a brand means - as a story.


April, 09
The Twitter Inflection

Will Yahoo And Microsoft Just Do It? If So, How? (well, it didn't quite work out as expected, but it did work out!)

News: Google Lets You Put Yourself Into Results For..Yourself

Breaking: Newscorp to Buy Twitter for $750mm in Cash (April Fools)

May, 09
Liveblogging the Microsoft Search News (Bing)

Twitter's Continued Inflection: Time For Facebook Connect (in which I urge Twitter to implement FB so as to fix its value prop to new users)

As It Inflects, Twitter Must Add Value to New Users, Faster

As We Head Toward A More Conversational Interface, Can AdWords Keep Up?

Earned Followers Are Better Than Junk Circulation

June, 09
Google v. Facebook? What We Learn from Twitter. (in which I urge Facebook to make all data open. It did...)

Twitter Bumps Ceiling

English's Millionth Word: Web 2.0

July, 09
Questions On the Yahoo Bing Deal

The Year's Half Over. So How Are My Predictions Tracking?

August, 09
I Blew It On Facebook

A Preview: This Year's Web 2 Program (Newly Added Speakers!)

Don't Be A Fan Platform Hater

On Using Search for Decisions

Tell Me This Ain't Facebook, Er, Twitter, Er, Both.

Don't Be A Player Platform Hater

Bartz: Yahoo Was "Never a Search Company". Me: Bullsh*t.

Apple: Is The Worm Turning?

September, 09
On Facebook, Comments, and Implications

Why Are Conversations (With the Right Person) So Much Better Than Search?

Watch Out Google, Facebook Is Gaining in PPC

On Complements and Showdowns and TweetSense

The IPO Markets and the Internet: A Thaw's A Comin

Web 2 Preview: DigitalGlobe: The World Is The Index

Search Frustration: It's Still Hit Or Miss On Complex Decisions

October, 09
What "Tweet" Needs to Become: To Share a Moment

Search Does That. Social Does This. Give Me A Reese's Cup Please

November, 09
I Have A Kindle Now. But I Won't Read A Book On It. Discuss. (the second most active post this past year)

Just Give Me One Modal Dialog ....

Thanks For Flying With Us. Please Give Us All Your Money. (the third most active...)

OK, What the Real Phone Map Should Be

December, 09
Predictions 2009: How Did I Do?

The Brewing Privacy Storm

What's Up? (more thoughts on real time search)

Google Is Failing More

This is the Facebook Step We Expected: Default Public

What Are The Conversion Rates for Google's "First Click Free"?

Related:

2009 Predictions

2008 Predictions

2008 How I Did

2007 Predictions

2007 How I Did
2006 Predictions
2006 How I Did
2005 Predictions
2005 How I Did
2004 Predictions
2004 How I Did

First of all, it's either silly or sublime that when you type (or maybe, given Google now personalizes all results, when *I* type) "predictions 2009" into Google my predictions from a year ago are ranked first.  

Of course, when you say "predictions for 2009" it's second.   

But I've already ranted about how the personalization of search is screwing up our collective cultural conscience (search was our social glue, but it's dissolving). Is anyone out there agreeing with me? Anyone?

Anyway. Welcome to my review of how I did in my predictions for 2009. It's been a fun year, because I made some seriously big predictions a year ago, so tracking them is a bit easier than in the past.

So let's get to it.

1. Macro Economy. I predicted: We'll see an end to the recession, taken literally, by Q4 09. In other words, the economy will begin to grow again by the end of the year, but it won't feel like we're out of the woods till next year at the earliest.

I think I got that one right. Not very hard to predict, in hindsight, but remember, this was Jan. 09, and things really, really, really sucked eggs at that moment.

2. The online media space. I predicted: ....will be hit hard by the economic downturn in the first half, but by year's end, will have chalked up moderate gains over last year in terms of gross spend. I think it's possible that Q1 09 will be lower than Q1 08, marking the first time that has happened since 01, if I recall correctly.

Right again. Spending in fact declined year over year in the online space overall. But it has rebounded in the second half.

3. Google. OK, here's one of the biggies. I predicted: Google will see search share decline significantly for the first time ever.

Now, I know many of you will say that I whiffed this one, because Google's search share is higher now than it was a year ago. But before you toss me in the dustbin, remember this: Google did lose share in the middle of the year, though it gained it back. And to my mind, any lose of share is significant. So ... call this one a wash. It didn't last, but it did happen, for a while. Now, watch for my predictions in 2010. Because a lot of deals are up for grabs, and Microsoft does NOT like to lose. AOL, Ask...there's about ten points right there that are a jump ball.

#3 goes on to declare: The media business is more than a demand fulfillment business, and Google must learn to create demand if it's going to diversify. That means playing the brand game - a game that has long been owned by what we call "traditional media companies." Google has become a significant brand advertiser in 2009, in fact, it's a client of FM's in the brand space. And if an ad on the home page isn't about creating demand for a new product, I dunno what is. I go on to prognosticate: Google has a unique opportunity to become a new kind of branded media company. It will fail to do so, mainly for cultural reasons. I think the jury is still out on this. Google is trying to be so many things to so many people, it's hard to say where it's going to land. OS provider? Check. Browser vendor? Check. iPhone competitor? Check. Office suite player? Check. But brand that means anything but search? No check. Yet.

4. In this one I predicted: Google stock will soar in by Q3-4 of 2009, mainly because demand will pick up, and when demand picks up, it's like rain on a field of newly sown wheat.

Well, here's the chart:

I think this one is a big "check."

5. Big one. I predicted: Tied to #3 above, Microsoft will gain at least five points of search share in 2009, perhaps as much as 10. This is a rather radical prediction, I know, but hear me out. I think Redmond is tired of losing in this game, and after trying nearly every trick in the book, Microsoft will start to spend real money to grow share (IE, buying distribution), while at the same time listening to the advice of thoughtful folks who want to help the company improve the product.

Well, it depends on how you do the math, but given the Yahoo deal, I think this one came true. Microsoft did indeed buy share, by doing the deal with Yahoo.

However...

6. I next predicted: Yahoo and AOL will merge.

Oops. I whiffed here. It was a stretch. There's always next year. I could have predicted that AOL would spin out, but that was so damn obvious I decided against it...

7. This one was predicated on #6, so another whiff: in the second half of the year, Microsoft will buy its search monetization from the combined company.

Microsoft in fact is doing search monetization FOR Yahoo. It could have gone the other way, but it didn't. Sometimes the river card doesn't turn your way.

8. OK, my big Apple prediction: Apple will see a significant reversal of recent fortunes. Well, it sure didn't happen in sales or the stock, but I think it's happening with Apple's arrogant attitude toward its app store and network choices. I'd say this one was a push, not wrong, but not entirely right....yet.

9. I predicted: Major brands will continue to struggle with the best way to interact with "social media." They will take budget reserved for media spending (IE buying banners and building out branding campaigns) and start to become publishers in their own right. This was kind of a gimme, in that my company (FM) is doing this for scores of brands, and 2009 was certainly a banner year (no pun intended) for brands as publishers. Open Forum, Starbucks, Microsoft Exectweets, Intel's Lifescoop, P&G's Petside, Asus WePC, and on and on....I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of examples. But I am quite certain this is a major trend and one that is only gaining steam.

10. An agency/publisher prediction: Agencies will increasingly see their role as that of publishers. Publishers will increasingly see their role as that of agencies. ..... It takes both agents to get good media made. A very subjective prediction which again, I think is truly happening. Of course, I can only state that as anecdotal fact. But if you're in the agency or publishing business, I'd love your thoughts in the comments....

11. OK, the Twitter prediction. Now remember, on Jan 1 2009 it was not a slam dunk to say this: Twitter will continue its meteoric rise. This is a very hard prediction to make, because so much depends on the company's ability to execute two crucial - and exceedingly difficult - new features: The integration of search into the service, and the monetization of that integration.

Now, Twitter did have its year of years, growing extraordinarily, but traditional measure of growth flattened and petered out by the second half of the year. Why? Well, third party clients, for the most part, and a failure of the company to convert its media darling status into long term usage. But Twitter has rolled out a cavalcade of new features in the past few months, most aimed at fixing the initial use case problem I've pointed out time and time again.

In this prediction I also said: By the middle of 2009, the integration of Twitter's community and content will become commonplace in well-executed marketing on third party sites. Again, I think this one has occurred, many times over.

12. This is one of my favorites, the Facebook prediction: Facebook will do something entirely shocking and unpredictable. I am not certain what, but it won't have a "status quo" year. It might be a merger with a traditional media company, a major alliance with Google, hiring a head scratcher as CEO, or something else at that level of "WTF!?" As I think about it, it might be as simple as making Facebook Connect truly open, and changing its policies to make it drop dead easy to get data out of the service.

Ummm....check.

However, I also predicted: Facebook will "friend" Twitter and the two companies will become strong partners. Well, you can now updated Twitter from Facebook, so that's a start. But they're not pals yet, so this one is not exactly a hit.

13. My mobile prediction: Lucky #13 is reserved for my eternal mobile prediction: 2009 will see the year mobility becomes presumptive in every aspect of the web. I'm not even going to try to defend this one. I think 2009 was the year mobile eclipsed the PC web in terms of what matters to our industry. If you disagree, I'll see ya in the comments.

14. OK. My last one, well, I whiffed on it - mostly. It was my book prediction. I said: "Lastly, I promise, I will have sold my book and will be hard at work on it. And yes, still running FM too. I think I have a way to do both." Well, I didn't sell the new book to anyone, mainly because once I do, I have to write it. And I can't do that till I feel like FM is really, really in great hands. And guess what...it is. I am still running it as CEO, but now I have a wonderful President/COO, Deanna Brown. And she is a true partner and pro, and I am feeling very, very good about 2010. So give me half a point there...

So, adding it all up, I'd say I did a 10.5 out of 14. What do you think? Did I do alright? And do you agree with my interpretations?

Happy Holidays and New Year to all of you. I can't wait for the next year. I really think it's going to be a big one for all of us.

Google pushing Chrome on the home page.

Worth mentioning...

Videos showing traffic patterns at the NYT.com

News on Gravity, seems to be an updated take on forums/groups from ex Myspace folks.

Yet another reader from the publishing industry, this one called Mag+. They get this part: "Let the Web be the Web." Indeed.

New AOL editorial chief Saul Hansell late of NYT explains how AOL is a journalistic enterprise and has some words for how the sausage got made at the Times.

Reading about this study using Facebook data (original link) gave me some hope that we may see true insights from third party academics doing high integrity fieldwork on top of the Facebook data. My wish for Facebook is that it welcome such work, create parameters and ensure privacy, but allow researchers to really dig in. Much could be learned. The linked study is internal research, however.

"I think it will be transformative," said Duncan Watts, a Yahoo research scientist who recently used Facebook to conclude that people often have inaccurate beliefs about the political convictions of their friends. "In sociology for the last 100 years, we've had the theory, but it hasn't really been possible to test it, because so much of what is important to sociology is individuals interacting to produce" families, friendships and social groups.

Everyone knows Kindle is a closed development platform (IE, there's not an app environment that lets developers make the Kindle platform better). Today I saw the news that Google has doubled the number of publishing partners who are now leveraging the company's "Fast Flip" e-reader software, and it got me to thinking.  

First, Fast Flip is software that runs anywhere the web runs, including mobile apps. It has an Android and iPhone version, and I'm sure there will be a RIM version soon. And when Apple's tablet comes out, and any other ebook/netbook competitor to Kindle, I'm sure Fast Flip will be there. Fast Flip is a web native app, and it plays nice with the web, from what I can see. And Google is clearly interested, as a company, in fostering developers to build out on its various platforms, from Android to Chrome to Google's App Engine.

To my mind, this means Google is now in competition with Amazon not just for books, but for all professional publishing products. While it's true that publishers can and have developed versions for Kindle, the fact that it's not an open platform means Amazon has a chokehold on what gets to be on the device. I doubt FastFlip will ever live on the Kindle - though it'd be a win for all if it did, I imagine. And I also doubt that the Kindle, anytime soon, will work in an easy way with the web ecosystem, the way FastFlip seems to (I need to use it more, but it makes sharing and social actions easy, for example).

Another way to think about it is that both Kindle and FastFlip are operating systems for reading packaged goods content. Hence, they compete for the marketplace of people who need those services. Of course, the web is the underlying OS, but FastFlip works like a newsstand of sorts, letting you easily browse products and dive in when you want.

As I noted in my earlier Kindle rant, I find a e-reader like the Kindle ideal for reading periodicals. I wonder, might Fast Flip might steal that market away from Amazon? Might FastFlip become an OS standard on next generation e-readers, netbooks, and mobile phones? A lot depends on whether publishers feel like they can trust Google as an newsstand agent. That's an open question, to be sure.

I'm not as up to speed on this stuff as I'd like to be, so if I'm missing something, let me know.

Some background reading on all of this: (Credit, Oil, IT, and) Paper Ain't Free, So Don't Waste It.

Everyone's doing it! YouTube's most watched came out this morning. Again, nothing that eye opening. Wish they'd dig deeper.

I wrote my first book after seeing Google Zeitgeist eight years ago. Maybe Twitter's first ever "Trends" will push me to get off the damn couch and finish my second.   

Nah. After reviewing them, it's clear that Twitter's first trends release is, well, a bit predictable. But I am sure there is really interesting data locked behind that rather obvious facade....we just can't see it. Yet.

We're pushing it as an industry, I think. Google making all search personal and its leadership claiming privacy is for those with something to hide. Facebook pushing all data out into the world (and ticking off Danny, of all people). The advertising ecosystem leveraging more and more data, but not thinking hard enough about how that data is controlled. All of this is drawing the attention of major media and the folks who read it - IE, Congress.

We're getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

And we need to stop and take a breath before something happens we'll all regret.

I'm heartened by all the privacy dashboards that Google, Yahoo, Facebook and others are creating and making available. But I think it's time for us as an industry to really stop and think about this issue and address it. Because we can't afford a conservative (and I mean that in the catholic sense of the word) backlash on this issue.

Just leaving a note here on this, as much to remind myself to spend time on this issue in the new year as anything...

(This piece was written for the BingTweets blog and is part of an ongoing exploration of search underwritten by Microsoft. See my series on the interplay of search and decisions here, here, and here. I wrote the piece below before today's web-wide conversation about content farms, but I think it's related. We need new frameworks for search, and real time points us toward one potential path.)

---------

The rise of real time search (just this past week, Google rolled Twitter, Facebook and Myspace data into its results) has everyone buzzing. Of course, BingTweets was the first real time mashup from a major player in search (and Microsoft has already announced its intentions to go further), but we're just at the start of where real time search might go. What might things look like a few years from now?

In my last BingTweets post (Decisions Are Never Easy) I posited the idea of a real time service that connects us to each other based on expertise. So if I wanted to talk with someone who was an expert in buying classic cars, the service would find that expert and connect me to him or her.

I think real time search is a step toward building an ecosystem that makes such a service possible. But we have to get out of our current modes of understanding search interfaces to really grok how this might work. At present, we still see search as a modal dialog box, where we type in a request, then wait for an answer. As different search interfaces develop, new opportunities arise. We've seen a fair amount of innovation in search interfaces lately (here's more on Pivot, for example), but real time data presents a significant challenge.

We can see the challenge in the companies most directly responsible for feeding data into the real time search index. Twitter recently changed its opening question from "What are you doing?" to "What's happening?" That subtle shift invited a much more robust set of potential responses to be poured into the service (and subsequently parsed by search services). And Facebook just this week announced it will make all of its members' status updates part of its universally public feed. Its question? "What's on your mind?"

I recently heard from a reliable source inside Facebook that there are 40 times more status updates daily on Facebook's network than on Twitter. That's a lot of data to parse, whether you are a search service, or a consumer of that service's product. What might it look like?

Well, start with the use case. Why might we want to query a real time search index? My first answer is simply this: To find out "what's up." Now, there are nearly endless refinements of that general concept: What's up with the smoke I can see in the mountains behind my house? What do people who bought the Palm Pre recently think of their new phone? What bands are playing in Chicago this weekend that I might like? What's up with Jahvid Best, will he play in Cal's bowl game? All of these questions are variations on the theme of "What's up?"

Given the right approach to interface, algorithms and filters, all of these queries can be answered by real time search....

(more at BingTweets....)

Paul points it out as a failed dishwasher search. Mike complains about automated content as does RWW. And we all have experienced it: The Google ecosystem is failing more - failing to get us what we think we want. Failing to not frustrate us. Failing at the more complicated queries we are throwing at it. Failing to be the Google that we came to love back when the web was small and Facebook was a way for Harvard geeks to try to get laid.

Now, Google's ecosystem is ripe for a quick buck - "content farms" that build article pages cheaply to make a quick buck off AdWords. But these articles, at least for a portion of us, don't really provide the answers we are looking for. (thanks @thejames for the pointers.)

As Paul puts it in bemoaning his fruitless attempt to use Google for a researching a dishwasher purchase:

This is, of course, merely a personal example of the drive-by damage done by keyword-driven content -- material created to be consumed like info-krill by Google's algorithms. Find some popular keywords that lead to traffic and transactions, wrap some anodyne and regularly-changing content around the keywords so Google doesn't kick you out of search results, and watch the dollars roll in as Google steers you life-support systems connected to wallets, i.e, idiot humans.

Google has become a snake that too readily consumes its own keyword tail. Identify some words that show up in profitable searches -- from appliances, to mesothelioma suits, to kayak lessons -- churn out content cheaply and regularly, and you're done. On the web, no-one knows you're a content-grinder.

The result, however, is awful.

Yes, it often is. But I'm not worried about this. Audiences always route around that which they don't want, and when something better comes along as a navigational interface, we'll pick it up, and quick. If Google doesn't figure this out, someone else will, and the cycle will repeat.

The truth is, we're asking far more complicated questions of search than we used to, and we're expecting the same magic we used to get back when the web had magnitudes of order less content. Back in 2002, when we put "dishwashers" into Google, we'd probably find someone's blog who was talking about his favorite models. Now, we have five hundred or more attempts at gaming the keyword itself, each promising a potential answer, but rarely delivering it - at least not if we have a complicated question in mind. For simple answers, content farms most likely do a fine job. But the truth is, we are not asking many simple questions of search. We're expecting a lot more.

And in the end, this is a good thing. Our expectations drive innovation, and I can sense a major breakthrough is coming. To my mind, the essential element required for that breakthrough is human in nature. We need a new framework for search, one that allows us to leverage our inherent ability to converse. And from what I can tell, it's closer than we might think.

2010 is going to be a very interesting year.

You know, I just realized I suggested that Facebook do exactly what it's doing. Read this post from back in June, deconstructing an article in Wired about the emerging Facebook v. Google battle. In it I say:

I think it's a major strategic mistake to not offer [as much information on Facebook as possible] to Google (and anyone else that wants to crawl it.) In fact, I'd argue that the right thing to do is to make just about everything possible available to Google to crawl, then sit back and watch while Google struggles with whether or not to "organize it and make it universally available." A regular damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario, that....

The angle here is that Facebook, by making everything public, will force Google's hand in search, and potentially dilute Google's ability to compete in the social graph game (because Facebook will own the results on Google). If, on the other hand, Google decides to de-prioritize Facebook data in its results, Google's brand will clearly be tarnished as favoring its own solutions (remember when Google announced its incorporation of Google accounts into search? Yep.)

Interesting. The chess is getting really interesting.

This is a big deal. Facebook is taking the final step to become more like Twitter. Thanks to RWW for pointing it out. I've been traveling and had not had a chance to read the new privacy settings, which state:

...we'll be recommending that you make available to everyone a limited set of information that helps people find and connect with you, information like "About Me" and where you work or go to school.... This information is name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, friend list, and Pages....

The blog post explaining the changes amounts to a massive act of "burying the lead", to use a journalistic phrase. The lead is "the core of the story." To me, the fact that your status updates and other info will now be public is a pretty big story. But Facebook leads with this:

Today, we're launching new tools to give you even greater control over the information you share.

This is true, and having a more instrumented cockpit for privacy is really cool (and a big deal on a site with 350mm folks). But nowhere in the post is the status message shift mentioned. RWW found it in the video explaining the changes in more detail:

According to the video explaining the changes, the new default for status messages is "everyone." That's a huge change. Of course it's not hard for people to keep their existing privacy settings, but confusion around what those settings are is hardly resolved by the phrase "old settings" and a tool-tip phrase appearing when you hover over that option.

A substantial backlash has already begun in comments on the Facebook blog post about the announcement. Previous moves by the company, like the introduction of the news feed, have seen user resistance as well - but this move cuts against the fundamental proposition of Facebook: that your status updates are only visible to those you opt-in to exposing them to. You'll now have to opt-out of being public and opt-in to communicating only with people you've given permission to see your content.

Clearly, this change was not made lightly. And clearly, this is a move that pushes Facebook more toward embracing and extending a Twitter like model in the future.

What's next? Well, if the changes stand, expect a hell of a lot of action in the third party Facebook developer world....

AOL was finally set free today, years after it should have been. Congrats to the AOL team and Tim Armstrong, and I imagine, to the Time Warner folks who managed to destroy so much value by blaming everything on the merger in the first place (sure, it was a bad deal, but man, AOL was not the reason Time Inc. went south!).

Read my rant asking Time Warner to set it free back in March of 2004 here.

Twitter is rolling a ton of features and announcements this week, coinciding both with Le Web in Paris and its own ongoing development as a platform. A roundup:

- Twitter is opening up its "firehose" of tweets to all comers "in early 2010". This is a very big deal. Before, developers had limited access to the Twitterverse. This means the ecosystem has tons more oxygen to work with.

- New sign up approach. This fixes a problem where it was hard for developers to sign up and in folks from third party sites (you had to send folks back to Twitter before). This will aid in Twitter sign ups from third party developers. A big deal.

- Twitter is embracing its own developer community by underwriting a developer conference, Chirp, which has been key to nearly every major tech platform in the history of the Valley.

The company is clearly gearing up for a big 2010 in terms of features, and had decided that developers and the developer ecosystem is key to its growth. I agree completely.

Google's real time search integration, announced at Web 2 in October, is rolling out (good coverage from SEL). It'll be integrated as "Latest results." I'll be watching how this effects the traffic referral ecosystem across the web - that's the key. Will Twitter grow? Will Google start to obviate some refers it's now sending to Facebook? Or will the opposite occur?

Google's announcement is here. NYT coverage is here.

Google has launched a "Favorite Places" program to jumpstart its local search business. I like the moxy, but the ecosystem is lacking a clear dose of "Why Should I Do This," at least from the point of view of the business. Or the customer, for that matter. The program has the same "Church lady dancing to rap" feeling that marks nearly all of Google's socially-driven products.  

If Google is serious about this space, they best buy Foursquare, pronto, and let the folks there take over.

AT&T today released an iPhone app that reports wireless issues. It's called Mark the Spot. Very cool. This is a step toward the crowdsourced, conversational, map-driven go to market strategy I outlined here....this app was not done by AT&T marketing, but rather labs, I was told, though that is not totally confirmed.

From the Google Social Web Blog (I have to admit it's hard for me to see those four words together without busting out a silly grin):

Today, we're bringing Twitter and Friend Connect even closer together. Now you can join one of over nine million Google Friend Connect sites using your Twitter login. Once signed in, your Twitter profile will be automatically linked and you can tweet your new site membership, share discussions from the comments gadget, and invite your friends via Twitter.

So what to make of this?
The snarky approach might be to rewrite the news this way:
Today, we're bringing Not Facebook and Friend Connect even closer together. Now you can join one of over nine million Google Friend Connect sites using your Not Facebook Connect login. Once signed in, your Not Facebook profile will be automatically linked and you can Not Update Your Facebook Status with your new site membership, share discussions from the comments gadget, and invite your friends via Not Facebook Connect.

But that would be very snarky. And usually my snarkiness is so damn buried in inference and linked nuance that no one gets it. I'm not trying to infer that Twitter integration isn't important, it is. But honestly, if Google really wants to get social, why doesn't it do what Yahoo's already done, and admit Facebook pretty much owns the social graph? After all, Facebook has already admitted Google owns search. And it's using Google to leverage its own platform, in many ways. Google might do the same...
It's interesting that the ouroborosphere seems relatively unmoved by this news - it didn't make Techmeme, like nearly everything else that Twitter or Google does. Coverage so far has been pretty straightforward.
But I do think this move marks another play in the ongoing chess match between Google and Facebook. What I'd like to know is whether anyone is really using Google Friend Connect in ways that matter? Or is it on its way to becoming for social what Yahoo is to search?

Google today announced a new policy in its ongoing attempt to reach detente with an increasingly querulous publishing industry. (For background, read Mashable's piece).  

A key piece of the new policy has to do with changes to Google's "First Click Free" program. From Google's announcement:

One way we overcome this is through a program called First Click Free. Participating publishers allow the crawler to index their subscription content, then allow users who find one of those articles through Google News or Google Search to see the full page without requiring them to register or subscribe. The user's first click to the content is free, but when a user clicks on additional links on the site, the publisher can show a payment or registration request. First Click Free is a great way for publishers to promote their content and for users to check out a news source before deciding whether to pay. Previously, each click from a user would be treated as free. Now, we've updated the program so that publishers can limit users to no more than five pages per day without registering or subscribing. If you're a Google user, this means that you may start to see a registration page after you've clicked through to more than five articles on the website of a publisher using First Click Free in a day.

OK, I have some issues with all of this. First, why on earth do publishers need Google doing this for them? Google passes them a refer, and they can take that and do what they want with it. And they can surely create index-able "teaser pages" for their paid content as well. Publishers, stop asking Google to do the work you can and should own yourselves! Do you really need Google's help here?

But that's not what's got me scratching my head this evening. My real question comes down to the whole "First Click Free" program itself.

Google clearly created this program to appease (or OK, if you want to spin it that way, to help) the publishing industry. Now it's adding features that it says should help publishers close a loophole that is allowing Google users to get content for free.

That implies that folks are actively using Google as a tool to get free content. Is this really the case?

Perhaps, but I'd guess it's a pretty low percentage of folks who actively try to get the Wall Street Journal by repeatedly searching on Google.

The really interesting question is this: Does "First Click Free" actually deliver a decent conversion of paid customers to media companies? (Know that by traditional marketing metrics, a decent conversion is pretty damn low - IE less than one half of one percent of people who see a paid offer actually converting).

Anyone out there have an answer?

Microsoft has been kind enough to give me a limited number of invitations for readers of Searchblog to grok Pivot, which I wrote about here last week.  

In that post I promised to grok Pivot, then report back more here. Alas, Pivot is currently Windows only, and - alas - I am currently Mac only. I do have a couple of PCs in my house, but they are owned by my son and my wife, and it's fair to say I'm not eager to to use them for experimental installs. My son in particular will kill me if I touch his machine (though I'm pretty sure he's going to download Pivot before I ever do).

Anyway, those of you with a PC and a desire to check out a new approach to search, you're in luck.

Head to the Live Lab's Pivot page, and when you hit the download button, enter this code during the install process:

A1C8 7318 57F3 E92C

But hurry. This code expires after a certain number of you use it.....Tell 'em Searchblog sent ya, and please, let me know what you think. I wish I could play with it...

Update: There are some international use issues, from Gary's email explaining it:

...we think your readers are encountering another issue which is summarized with a work-around at:

  http://www.getsatisfaction.com/live_labs_pivot/topics/no_setup_internet_connection

Basically, in order to release the Pivot as early as we did, we chose to defer fully internationalizing the code. As a result, Pivot will not cooperate with a system that is non-English and non-US. However, some of our users have reported that by changing the system defaults for language and location, they have been able to successfully install and use Pivot.

I never did understand why everyone releases the "top Searches of 2009" with one month yet to go. It's as if nothing happens in December. Anyway, here are the sites:

Bing.

Yahoo.

Google.