John Battelle's Searchblog

That's the rumor (BI via WSJ). The idea is to let Gmail become your portal into status update.  

It won't work, period, unless it connects to Facebook and Twitter. And so far, as I've pointed out before, Google won't do that, at least, not yet, and and certainly not in the way it should be done.

Google is simply not understood by consumers to be a place where they can connect with friends and colleagues. If it intends to become that, it has some DNA mutation in its future.

This one should be interesting.  

Was it really as simple as that? Google CEO Eric Schmidt took to the blogwaves after the Super Bowl yesterday to explain Google's surprising decision to purchase an ad thusly:

We didn't set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search. Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it's had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience.

If there's one thing Google's consistent about, it's the company's approach to PR: it always sounds reasonable and intellectually defensible, but it's never really the whole story. Google didn't set out to run a Super Bowl ad, that's for sure. But somewhere in the last five or so years, it became the kind of company that would. And that's the point. I mean....is Eric serious when he implies somehow he needs television to find a "wider audience." I mean, seriously?!

I'll have more thoughts on Google the Super Bowl ad runnin' company after the Monday hoo-ha of meetings ends. Er....stay tuned.

Meanwhile, some other news worth grokkin' as you sip your Monday morning beverage:

Enhanced Cooperation with Facebook on Search (Bing blog) - Or, put another way, Facebook and Microsoft Cancel Display Ad Relationship (ClickZ).

Moms on Facebook Are Savvy to Marketers [STATS] (Mashable) Well what do you know, Moms and marketers are a match, and what do you know, Facebook Emerges as News-Content Provider (Marketing Profs). Facebook is ubiquitous, folks. The question now, is what they do with that fact....perhaps a Super Bowl ad? Meanwhile, there are now books on the company (NY Review).

How To Get Our Democracy Back (Larry Lessig, the Nation) A rather outrageous proposal from one of technology's best policy minds.

Plentiful Content, So Cheap (NYT) Carr marvels at Demand's model.

FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited (Cnet). Watch this story. I will be (and have been for years).

Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy (Technology Review) Just cool.

Remember when I wrote about the new "Search Stories" ads for Google's core search offerings?

In that post, I noted "It's truly a brand campaign: Google is not selling anything here other than its own brand - that ephemeral sensibility that resides between its customers' ears." Well I've got a pretty reliable source who is telling me Google plans to hit the branded advertising big leagues this Sunday - the source says Google's "Parisian Love" ad (below) will air during the third quarter of the Super Bowl.

Now that would be a true turning point for the brand - a brand that, for nearly ten years, dismissed brand advertising as a waste of money ("The last bastion of unaccountable spending in corporate America," in Eric Schmidt's words back in 2006), and built its entire fortune on turning the advertising model upside down.

I emailed folks at Google for comment today, and a spokesperson said "Watch the Super Bowl!" That ain't a no, folks. (It's not a yes, either, but...)

I can't find the ad in this lineup of SuperBowl advertisers, but I'd not be surprised if Google had asked CBS to keep their name out of the pre-game hype (my source was told Google was keeping this quiet). File this as a strong rumor for now, as I can't get a secondary confirmation - though Google's response was pretty telling.

Needless to say, I'll be Tivo'ing the game....Here's the ad.

UPDATE: After I emailed Google for comment, Eric Schmidt tweeted this out:

Can't wait to watch the Superbowl tomorrow. Be sure to watch the ads in the 3rd quarter (someone said "Hell has indeed frozen over.")

Eric, you trying to scoop my scoop?! Who ever would have thunk it?

Today is all about checking in. Not so much driven by anything in today's news, but every week or so I'll just go off based on what's on my mind - driven by the news, to be sure, but also by the bricolage of a lot of inputs over time.   

And over the past few weeks, I've been developing a thesis around the concept of "checking in." Now for those of you not playing along at home, "checking in" is the terminology for "declaring where I am and what I'm doing through mobile devices and social media platforms."

As usual, I'm a late bloomer in this new trend. I joined Foursquare, one of several check-in-based services, about a month ago. I've started checking in at work, the gym, various restaurants and local businesses. The service has a strong game element, with social capital earned for checking in, or doing more than one thing in a day, or unlocking action-based "badges," or repeat check ins over time (Foursquare makes you "Mayor" of a location if you check in there the most. Competition amongst Foursquare nerds is pretty intense for those Mayorships.)

Other services that employ checking in include GoWalla, Yelp, and MyTown. Twitter is adding location services as we speak, which is just another way of saying it'll support checking in shortly (although most check in services drive announcement tweets already).

And while it may not be clear as to why, I fully expect Google and Facebook to follow suit by enabling some kind of check-in behavior shortly.

Here's why. To my mind, checking-in is simply another use case on the evolutionary path of search. As I said in the book, each search query is a declaration of intent - you are telling that search engine what you want, and hoping the engine will return a result that satisfies that declared intention.

Checking-in is a powerful new field in the database of intentions. It is a social declaration that "I am here" and, in a more nuanced way, "I am open to appropriate responses/conversations based on the fact that I am here." Whereas search intent is clearly a request for a specific response, check-in intent is less specific - and hence more open.

I expect this to evolve quickly. I can imagine a time, and it ain't far off, when we set our mobile devices to automatically check-in at our favorite places, and expect that that check-in will reward us with localized and personalized offers, discounts, and social capital of some sort or another. Furthermore, I expect we will soon expect that if we set our device to "discovery" mode, local businesses (and random strangers too) will be able to ping us with enticements and announcements of all kinds.

Instrumentation of this new social/local/mobile reality will be initially clumsy and fraught, but not for long. The use case is simply too compelling. It's already happening in various ways - the Chipotle burrito app, the Polo store. Imagine what happens when McDonald's adopts it? Game changer.

-----

In other news:

Is Amazon Building a Superkindle? (NYT) Yes, it bought a multitouch technology company, and yes, it's going to get fun out there in ApplevsAndroidvsAdobevsAmazonLand.

Snickers Uses Social Media, SEM to Support 'Lead Spot' in Super Bowl Ads (ClickZ) More proof that social marketing is platform independent/supportive.

He Calls Google A Vampire, But Mark Cuban's Mahalo Is Doing The Sucking (SEL) Oh SNAP.

Unclear ROI Impedes Mobile Marketing (MarketingProfs) You want proof of ROI? It's coming. BTW, it's also already here in terms of higher CTRs, if that's your thing....(as anyone at AdMob or Microsoft Mobile Ads will tell you).

The IAgency: How the IPad Will Change the Advertising Business (AdAge) Or: Why We Should Emulate the Dying Publishing Industry. Yes please...do.   

Mobile Internet Market to Eclipse Desktop Internet (Brian Solis) Anyone who saw Mary Meeker at Web 2 last year already knew this but it's worth repeating...

Foursquare Plots Its Business Model (BI) Tick, tick, tick....BOOOOOM.

SlideShare Launches Channels for Businesses and Brands (Mashable)

The news today was still iPad driven, for the most part, with the question of whether Flash will be supported at its core. So far, the answer is no, and Adobe semi-officially chastised Apple in this post: Apple's iPad -- a broken link?. However, a site called 9to5Mac studied the iPad introduction video, and found that Flash must be working on the device, because it's used on the nyt.com, which was featured in the demo: The iPad has Adobe's Flash on Apple's video. This of course is important to marketers, as Flash is pretty much an industry standard for rich advertising. Is Apple really planning a total end around, as IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg warns in this post?

I'm not so sure. I'd wager Apple and Adobe are deep in negotiations right now, and I'd also wager part of it has to do with Flash's execution in the Mac and associated operating systems. Why? Well, it's not a secret that Flash is resource intensive and reportedly buggy on the Mac (at least, that's what developers are saying). Perhaps Jobs is using the iPad as leverage to get Adobe to focus on his platform. Or, perhaps he really is spurning the company's technology. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, a Google exec (Hal Varian) damns the iPad with faint praise, reminding us all that Google and Apple are circling each other in the mobile device market like boxers calculating their first flurry of punches. And O'Reilly Radar has what I think is the best take on the iPad I've read so far: The iPad is the iPrius: Your Computer Consumerized.

Other interesting links today:

"Mommy, Where Does Content Come From?" 11 Easy Ways to Create Great Stuff (Open Forum) Content is critical to marketing in social media, without a doubt.

Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right (Mashable) I love case studies. You'll be seeing a lot more of them at the CM Summit in NY this June.

U.S. Advertising to Rise 3.5% in 2010, Barclays Says (Bloomberg) After a year like 2009, who doesn't like a headline like that? Online, of course, will grow far faster.

Facebook Develops Conversion Tracking Tool: What's A Fan Worth? (MediaPost)

Consumers Demand Engagement (eMarketer)

The iPad announcement took two months to build up, so it's not going away in one day. Today's news is dominated by Monday morning quarterbacking around the device, and so far, the fanboys and tech blogosphere are, by and large, not pleased. The image at left represents a few of the stories I've been reading across the web. I've filed them away in a folder I call "Predictions Support", as they all seem to support my thesis that the iPad would disappoint. Time will tell. And I still want one, and I'm not convinced there isn't a counter story in there somewhere.

Meanwhile, there are a few deficits in the iPad that are material to the marketing business. First, the iPad does not support Flash. That's just silly, unless Apple really thinks it can force marketers to create purely for its own distribution channel (or envisions the iPad as an ecosystem devoid of ads, which is possible). Second, it has no camera, though I'm sure camera devices can be added to it (and probably will be added natively in future versions). Third, as I predicted, it's another orifice for Apple's iTunes and App Store, so it's not an open web device. Then there's the unfortunate choice of name, which I think will fade over time. There are many other features (or lack thereof) that folks are finding fault with, for more, check this piece on Gizmodo.

My one line summary: The iPad was designed to consume media content in the framework of the social web, and drive Apple's proprietary platform even deeper into the psyche of the consumer. Don't count it out. More: Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move (O'Reilly Radar).

Other stories of interest:

Google Social Search Goes Live, Adds New Features (SEL) - Watch this space, and it's the beginning of a sea change in how search works. My initial questions and response from Google: Google Rolling Out Social Search: But Does It Leverage Facebook?

Advertising: A Little ‘i’ to Teach About Online Privacy (NYT) - I am on the Board of the IAB and welcome this initiative. I only hope it becomes actually useful to consumers.

Top 10 Personal Branding Blogs (Lifescoop) - A good list of sites that help you dust off the brand that is you. One thing I've noticed is key to success in the media and marketing business is the realization that understanding your own brand is critical to helping others grow. At FM, we've helped scores of marketers get promoted, and we're really proud of that.

Vivaki Ventures Is Done Chasing Equity Deals with Startups (Clickz)

Why Most Digital Ads Still Fail to Work (Ad Age)

(image ) While the world watches the next coming of Jobs, I reflected on my gut feeling as to the iPad, and why that feeling is inherently one of disappointment (see my predictions 2010 (#5) and my post earlier this week).  

And I'll admit, this one is not entirely logical. But then again, I don't always base my predictions (or my business decisions) on pure logic. Sometimes I just go with a feeling.

So what is my feeling about the iPad? Well, to be honest, it's simply this: I want one. I want to play with it, I want it to work the way I want it to work, I want it to do everything I wish a device like this should do. I am the guy, after all, who wrote his master's thesis on the Internet-connected tablet and its impact on the media business (yes, I really did. In 1991-92).

What? Wait a minute, Battelle, you're saying you WANT one, AND that it's going to disappoint?

Yes, stay with me. Here's why: When Apple introduced the iPhone, I really, truly did NOT want one. And it became a game changing hit. I eventually caved and got one (but don't use it much), and I still have major reservations about the platform. When Amazon introduced the Kindle, I really, truly, did NOT want one. I eventually caved and got one (but don't use it much), and I still have major reservations about the platform.

But the iPad? Oh, yeah - I really, really want one.

Which, to my mind, almost dooms the thing immediately.

Why? Well, because it can't possibly live up to my expectations. I want one for entirely irrational reasons. I want one because it holds the promise of all that might be good, right, and perfectly executed in the world of computing, media, and culture. The iPad is the Obama of devices: It's all hope, inspirational oratory, intelligence, and good intentions.

But as we have seen, a year later, reality (whether business or political) often gets in the way of intelligence. It looks like the iPad will adopt the iPhone approach to apps in full, so that's one more distribution orifice created, for example.

In any case, I'll probably get an iPad. And one year from now, I'll probably be disappointed. Irrationally disappointed, but still, disappointed.

I guess we'll see. I hope I'm wrong. I'll probably be wrong. If I am, I'll cop to it (and reset my gut to boot).

...for its core property, search. And it's pretty good (it's a series of well produced ads, on YouTube, natch). I've predicted for some time that Google would have to start brand marketing itself, but so far I've only seen product marketing for Adwords or Android. This is the first time I've seen a real ad for Google.com search. See it below. (I noticed this because the teaser banner, above, was running tonight on my own site through Adsense...)

Watching the series (which were uploaded to YouTube two months ago), it strikes me that Google is being pretty thoughtful here about what its brand means, and how search is changing in both its interface and its usage, and the power it has to change lives. Many Google properties are referenced, including mobile search, maps, universal search, YouTube, and more.
Update: I've now seen this campaign on the NYT as well, roadblocked. It's truly a brand campaign: Google is not selling anything here other than its own brand - that ephemeral sensibility that resides between its customers' ears.

Twitter today killed its "suggested users" feature (which Ev said he'd do way back at Web 2 in October), and replaced it with a more sophisticated approach. In a blog post explaining the move, the company elaborates:

We've found that the power of suggestion can be a great thing to help people get started, but it's important that we suggest things relevant to them. We've created a number of algorithms to identify users across a variety of clusters who tweet actively and are engaged with their audiences. These new algorithms help us group these active users into lists of users by interests. Rather than suggesting a random set of 20 users for a new user to follow, now we let users browse into the areas they are interested in and choose who they want to follow from these lists.

Yep. Back in May of last year I wrote:

It strikes me that a few more structured steps in the sign up process could really pay significant dividends for Twitter. Perhaps a "follow wizard" that asks a few questions, and makes suggestions based on input from the new user. Let us drill down by category: Business:Technology:Internet, or Health:Diseases:Cancer. The ontology isn't very complicated - mapping users to it is a bit more complex, but not impossible.

It took a while, but it looks like Twitter is doing just that and even more, if the algorithms they've cooked up prove robust. I look forward to seeing how this changes newbies' impressions of the service.

But here's what I wonder - why can't everyone do this? Is it limited to just new accounts? To my mind, it shouldn't be. All Twitter users would benefit from this new feature....so hopefully Twitter will open it up to all of us.

Update: You can use the new features by navigating here.

I've said before that search interfaces, stuck in the command line interface of DOS, will at some point evolve into applications on top of a commodity search index. I further opined that Bing, in particular Bing's limited but compelling visual search, was just such an example: search as an interactive, rich application, as opposed to search as a list of results.  

The commodity of search results is critical, but as we shift our usage to the mobile web, the use case for a list of results weakens. Instead, as this Bizweek article points out, we're using apps. On their face, these apps don't seem like search at all. Except they are.

Take the popular iPhone app Exit Strategy, for example (at left). The app helps folks navigate the NY transit system. In essence, it consolidates a subset of search queries and answers them with a combination of domain-specific structured results and an elegant user interface. The structured dataset is the NY transit map and schedule, the UI is based on the iPhone's unique ecosystem of interface. The result: No one with this app is Googling "best route Bronx Midtown". Instead, there's an app for that.

Google can't help but see this as a threat. For nearly every structured set of results, there'll be an app for that, if there isn't already. To my mind, the question becomes one of using search to find the best apps. I wonder how Google is surfacing iPhone apps as answers to questions pertinent to destroying its own query volume? For it seems to me that a very good result for the query above, if done on Google over an iPhone, would be "Exit Strategy."

Huh. Yet another reason to lean into Android, no doubt.

....driven by the need to kick Google off the iPhone? An interesting idea. Worth thinking about....

From a Businessweek article:

Some analysts believe the Apple-Google battle is likely to get much rougher in the months ahead. Ovum's Yarmis thinks Apple may soon decide to dump Google as the default search engine on its devices, primarily to cut Google off from mobile data that could be used to improve its advertising and Android technology. Jobs might cut a deal with—gasp!—Microsoft to make Bing Apple's engine of choice, or even launch its own search engine, Yarmis says. "I fully expect [Apple] to do something in search," he adds. "If there's all these advertising dollars to be won, why would it want Google on its iPhones?"

Google yesterday surprised Wall St. and its partners with the announcement that it may pull out of China (most expect it will, given the politics of making such a statement, the move is most likely assured). Google said that "hackers" had leveraged its infrastructure to target Chinese dissidents. To my mind, that means Google has discovered that China's government is using Google's networks and data, and Google realized that can't stand, for any number of reasons. (Including that US and European based activists were targeted - via phishing and other similar types of scams).  

Google further noted that at least 20 other companies were also being targeted, and it has been in contact with those companies as well.  

What's interesting and consistent to me is that Google has been here before - at the same time that Google was entering China (Jan. of 2006), the US Dept. of Justice demanded data from Google as part of a child porn fishing excercise, and Google refused to comply, and then went public, in essence becoming a leader in data rights by forcing the government's hand.

In this case, Google is again taking a leadership role, and the company is forcing China's hand. While it's a stretch to say the two things are directly connected, the seeming fact that China's government was behind the intrusions has led Google to decide to stop censoring its results in China. This is politics at its finest, and it's a very clear statement to China: We're done playing the game your way.

From the blog post:

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

As I wrote in the book and here, Google was never entirely comfortable with getting into China, and used a fair amount of tortured logic to get to the point of committing resources back five years ago. From one of my posts:

There's still time to pull out, guys. I've read your rationalizations, and Uncle Bill's as well. I don't buy them. I don't buy that this is what, in your heart, you believe is right. Sure, I understand the logic. But, well....in your heart, is this what you wanted to do? No? Then why did you do it?

....I was having dinner with some dear friends tonight. They asked me why did Google do this? My answer: I think they convinced themselves it was the right thing to do. They thought themselves into it. And deep down, they aren't sure they did the right thing. At least, that's what I want to believe. Sure, Microsoft is going to go in. Yahoo and IBM are going to go in. But Google? We thought...well, we thought you were different.

Apparently, Google is.

Google has never had a great reputation for customer support - back in the "hair on fire" days of 2003-2006 the lack of a human response to search engine marketers' questions was a huge complaint.

Now the company is going direct to consumers with a major phone launch. As I wrote about a year ago (about Google Voice):

...the concept of Google boiling the vast Oceania Vox is very, very compelling. But then again....I find it hard to trust Google is really serious about this market. For example, how many real live customer service reps does the company plan to have tasked to this product? That, to me, is a Very Important Question. It's the essential human question that drives Google. I bring it up all the time. Community. Media. People. How do you make people scale?! How does Google, a company driven by algorithms and scale, find its Voice?

So far, the early results seem to point to what one might expect: Google is not set up to do good customer service in the complicated smartphone/network services/telecomms marketplace. From an article in PCWorld today:

If you buy a Nexus One manufactured by HTC, directly from Google's Web site, and use it with T-Mobile's wireless network--who do you call when you have a problem? Google is only accepting support requests via e-mail, and users are getting bounced between T-Mobile and HTC as neither seems equipped to answer complaints, or willing to accept responsibility for supporting the Nexus One.   

What I said about Google Voice I think also applies to the NexusOne: If it's effortless, if it works without having to call someone to help me make it work, well, it's a huge, huge hit. But this is telecommunications. I have a hunch it's harder than that.

NB: Very interesting to see that Google is promoting its NexusOne under the keyword "customer service."

Reading coverage of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's recent commentary on his company's newly changed privacy policies, I was struck with the urge to ask all of you a question: Do you think this is a big deal? Or is this simply the evolution of our society's ongoing contract with the individual, an evolution that Facebook is reflecting?

In short, as Marshall submits in his article on RWW, is Facebook trailing public sentiment on privacy, or is he forging it? I'd love your thoughts in comments.

I remember the time when Sergey and Larry swore they'd never have ads on the homepage of Google. Last month I noted a big one for Chrome. Today there's an additional one. Now that's TWO ads! Google has its own products to market now, and it's using it's biggest firehose of attention to tell folks about them. Both are major new fronts in very large wars: Mobile and OS/Browser.    

How do you think this will effect its core brand?

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.

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.

(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.)

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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....)

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....