John Battelle's Searchblog

The interview with Qi Lu and Microsoft's Bing - Twitter deal announced at Web 2 last week. I'm working on a wrap post coming soon.

Sergey made a surprise visit to Web 2 last week, just as he did six years ago for the first one.

Literally some of the best work I've ever been involved with, yet again, six years in. Many of you asked for the playlist I used for the show (coverage best seen at #w2s, lots of news happened at the event, including Sergey Brin stopping by).

Here's a screen shot of my playlist. I'll make it live soon. (And yes, btw, the songs and their timing with sessions often mean something. But I can't really get into what and why right now.)

Most of you probably know I'm at Web 2 this week, hence no posting. But follow the news on the #w2s hashtag, there's already been a ton, as this WSJ roundup shows....

Tim Armstrong didn't need the job, but he decided to accept Time Warner's offer to become the CEO of AOL anyway. Why?

That's the first question I have for Tim when he joins us at Web 2 next week. What do you want me to ask him?

As you most likely know, Tim came to AOL from Google, where he ran North American ad sales for years. Clearly, Tim relishes a challenge, and sees an opportunity. And, while Tim probably is too politic to discuss it, AOL will be spun out soon, and either go public or become an independent entity (unwinding the most disastrous new/old media merger in recent history).

So...what do you want to know from Tim? I've got my own list - which I've discussed with Tim already - but you all will have even better ideas, as usual...

Others we'll be interviewing (and I've asked for your help):

Shantanu Narayen

Carly Fiorina

Jon Miller

Sheryl Sandberg

Qi Lu

Carol Bartz

Evan Williams

Brian Roberts

Jeff Immelt

To come: Aneesh Chopra, Austan Goolsbee, Paul Otellini, Tim Berners Lee, and more. An amazing lineup and less than one week away!

Also, remember to tweet your questions for any of the folks above with the #w2s hashtag for a chance to win a free Web 2 Summit pass - we'll be picking three at random to win...

I met with Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, ten days ago - one week before the annual Adobe developer's conference. He told me there'd be a lot of news about Adobe coming, and the company certainly delivered - in particular around mobile and Flash platform development.

But while the list of product and platform releases is impressive, it was Adobe's earlier announcement of its acquisition of Omniture that got folks buzzing. From my point of view, this is one more step in Adobe becoming a central platform company in the Internet ecosystem.

With 800mm installs of Flash, the acquisition of Omniture, and a multi-device strategy, Adobe aims to become the industry standard in how marketers and media companies deliver experiences to audiences and customers. And while many still view the company as the provider of end user tools like Photoshop, the reality is that Adobe is in fact Microsoft's most significant web platform competitor, which in turn makes it a significant competitor to Google in some areas (though the companies collaborate on key initiatives, like the Open Screen Project, for example, which is clearly as anti-Microsoft as they come). The difference, Narayen told me, is that Adobe does not have (nor does it plan to have) a media business, so it doesn't compete with its partners.

I'm looking forward to our conversation, and I'd love your input on what you'd like to hear from Narayen.

Others we'll be interviewing (and I've asked for your help):

Carly Fiornia

Jon Miller

Sheryl Sandberg

Qi Lu

Carol Bartz

Evan Williams

Brian Roberts

Jeff Immelt

To come: Aneesh Chopra, Austan Goolsbee, Paul Otellini, Tim Armstrong, Tim Berners Lee, and more. An amazing lineup and less than ten days away!

Also, remember to tweet your questions for any of the folks above with the #w2s hashtag for a chance to win a free Web 2 Summit pass - we'll be picking three at random to win...

During the late 1990s and through 2005, Carly Fiorina was one of the most powerful women in technology. As CEO of HP, she developed a reputation as a respected and effective manager, doubling HP's revenue, buying Compaq in the process, and debuting as Fortune magazine's first ever "Most Powerful Woman in Business".  

Fiorina is not without her detractors in the Valley (her departure was a story in itself), but she's an indisputable powerhouse, and she seems ready and poised for her next act. According to most reports, that act will be as a Republican challenger to longtime incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer. During the 2008 election, Fiorina acted as a economic advisor to John McCain, addressing the Republican National Convention, a move often seen as a precursor to public life.

Fiorina will join us on our first night at dinner to have a wide ranging discussion about the state of technology, policy, and politics. I'm really looking forward to this conversation, and could use your help to identify the best things to discuss with her. What do you want to hear from Carly Fiorina?

Others we'll be interviewing (and I've asked for your help):

Jon Miller

Sheryl Sandberg

Qi Lu

Carol Bartz

Evan Williams

Brian Roberts

Jeff Immelt

To come: Aneesh Chopra, Austan Goolsbee, Paul Otellini, Shantanu Narayen, Tim Armstrong, Tim Berners Lee, and more. Again, an amazing lineup.

If you want to come, I can still get you a Searchblog discount (for a few more days). Just ping me here.

Jon Miller has graced the Web 2 stage several times, most memorably when he was CEO of AOL, and both Google and Microsoft were competing for his company's search deal (Google won, that deal is close to expiration, and now-CEO Tim Armstrong, who helped Google win the deal back then, will be discussing, at the Summit, who he might next partner with - Microsoft or Google - but I digress...for now).

Now Miller runs digital for none other than Rupert Murdoch. I've enjoyed my relationship with Jon over the years, he's a straight shooter. He's inherited a number of seemingly intractable problems - the digital model for news, for one, MySpace, for another. But when I spent an hour with him in New York a couple of weeks ago, he was unperturbed. He's seen too much.

Since Jon agreed to submit to yet another Battelle-style interrogation, his newest report Owen Van Atta has also joined the lineup (it's so recent that we don't have him up yet on the speaker page). No matter, I'll ask both Owen and Jon what the plan is for MySpace.

But let's not forget that Newscorp is a lot bigger than MySpace. If you want to know how much bigger, pay attention to the Audience Network, a little known entity that just happens to be #2 in ad network reach after Google. Who owns it? Well, Miller and Murdoch.

This one is going to get interesting. Trust me.

So help me out, what do you want to hear from Jon Miller?

Others we'll be interviewing (and I've asked for your help):

Sheryl Sandberg

Qi Lu

Carol Bartz

Evan Williams

Brian Roberts

Jeff Immelt

To come: Aneesh Chopra, Austan Goolsbee, Paul Otellini, Shantanu Narayen, Tim Armstrong, Tim Berners Lee, and more. Again, an amazing lineup.

If you want to come, I can still get you a Searchblog discount (for a few more days). Just ping me here.

In the personality-driven world that is our industry, Qi Lu stands out for his relative lack of public profile. Widely respected as a technological leader while heading up search at Yahoo, Qi burst onto the industry scene when he defected to Microsoft last year and took the role of President of the Online Service division. In short, Qi is the man in charge of Microsoft's online strategy.

Our interview later this month will mark Qi's debut on the Web 2 stage. From all accounts, Qi is a very different character from his boss Steve Ballmer (who was a highlight of Web 2 two years ago). I'm looking forward to our interaction. Clearly we have a lot to discuss - the shifting sands of alliances (Facebook, Yahoo, Myspace, etc.), the rise (and fall?) of Bing, the Yahoo search deal, the future of MSN with regard to content, the role of ad exchanges and platforms (the Aquantive deal), and much more.

But I digress. What do *you* want to hear from Qi this year?

Others we'll be interviewing (and I've asked for your help):

Carol Bartz

Evan Williams

Brian Roberts

Jeff Immelt

To come: Aneesh Chopra, Sheryl Sandberg, Jon Miller, Austan Goolsbee, Paul Otellini, Shantanu Narayen, Tim Armstrong, Tim Berners Lee, and more. Again, an amazing lineup.

If you want to come, I can still get you a Searchblog discount (for about another week). Just ping me here.

Today was a good day. I got to meet with serious leaders of the Internet economy, think Big Thoughts, and push my understanding of the world a bit. In short, I spent the day with folks I'll be interviewing onstage at Web 2 next month, but also, with people who run companies that in one way or another are key partners and players in the ecosystem I love and in which my company (FM) works.

I started with a private meeting with a fellow who is taking time off from Google. Can't say much more than that, but it was a great conversation. From there, I met with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. Now, I've got a lot more to say about Adobe, which recently purchased Omniture, but for now, trust me when I say, keep your eye on Adobe. Next, I met with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz. And then, I met with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

I noted an anecdotal observation to Sheryl - that I would write something here, tweet a notification of my post on Twitter, and that notification would then update my Facebook status through an app.

Then, I'd watch what happens. And what happens, more often than not, is that I'll get as many if not more comments on the Facebook status update - inside Facebook - as I do on this site or on Twitter. And more often than not, those comments on Facebook are as thoughtful if not more thoughtful than the ones here. On Twitter, responses to posts here are more likely than not retweets, which is great, but not the same as a comment.

I asked Sheryl if she thought I was an outlier, expecting her to agree that in fact I was. But instead, she said the opposite: people like to comment on links referred through friend networks, and for good reason. It's one thing to comment on blogs like this one, in relative anonymity. It's quite another to comment in the context of Facebook, where those comments are seen by a group of folks with whom you have a social relationship.

I'd like to close that loop - show the comments locked in the Facebook domain on the site here - and I'm looking into getting that done. Let me know if you have any insight on how I might automate it.

Regardless, the implications are rather vast. Facebook has become a defacto leader in distribution of attention - just as Google was back in 2004-6. And everyone - trust me, everyone - is paying attention. Twitter is also a major distributor of attention, but Facebook dwarfs Twitter in terms of social media sharing. I've got a lot more to say about this, but let me mark it this way: With search, we declared private intention, then chose our links to click.

With social media, we publicly declare our intentions and our links. It's a shift of models that is very, very meaningful. More on that later.

And, by the way, Sheryl and I spoke about a lot more than closing the loops on comments. But for more on that, you'll have to wait for Web 2!

What more can be said about Carol Bartz? Her appearance at the helm of Yahoo has certainly energized the company and given both its supporters and detractors plenty to talk about. But beyond the colorful language and straight shooting demeanor lies one of the most challenging turnarounds in Internet history (at least from this observer's point of view).
Last year I interviewed Jerry Yang, and by most reports, it didn't go so well. Well, let me put that another way - it was great to watch (and to be part of), but many said that interview was pretty much proof that Jerry needed to find someone else to run Yahoo. Which is why I am both impressed and a bit trepidatious that Bartz agreed to sit for an interview - will she think I'm trying to drive her to the brink of quitting?! Well, the answer there is no, but I will want to ask her the hard questions. And that's where you come in.
What do you want to hear from Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo?
Others we'll be interviewing (and I've asked for your help):

Evan Williams

Brian Roberts

Jeff Immelt

To come: Qi Lu, Aneesh Chopra, Sheryl Sandberg, Jon Miller, Austan Goolsbee, Paul Otellini, Shantanu Narayen, Tim Armstrong, Tim Berners Lee, and more. Again, an amazing lineup.

If you want to come, I can still get you a Searchblog discount (for about another week). Just ping me here.

We'll be opening this year's Web 2 Summit with an interview of Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast. I've asked Brian to come for the past three years, and he's always had a conflict. In those last few years Comcast has continued to grow, in particular when it comes to its footprint in the digital world.

Besides its role as a major cable television player, Comcast is one of the largest providers of broadband in the United States, and as such plays a major role in nearly every story now playing out across the Web ecosystem. Net neutrality? Check. Bandwidth caps? Check. Migration of television models to online? Check. Learning how to become a smart brand by joining the conversation online? Check.

More on Comcast and Brian:

Under his leadership, Comcast has grown into a Fortune 100 company with $34.3 billion in revenues, 24.2 million customers and 100,000 employees. Comcast’s content networks and investments include E! Entertainment Television, Style Network, Golf Channel, VERSUS, G4, PBS KIDS Sprout, TV One, and ten sports networks operated by Comcast Sports Group and Comcast Interactive Media, which develops and operates Comcast’s Internet businesses, including Comcast.net.

Comcast Interactive is an interesting play as well - a distinct entity with a number of newly purchased assets (Fandango, Plaxo, Daily Candy, etc) that may or may not find itself competing directly with Yahoo, MSN, and AOL someday, not to mention Google. It's clear to me that one of the next great battles online will be for the real estate currently known as your television (the other, of course, is your mobile device).  

I will be covering all of this and more with Brian, but as I do every year, I really seek your help with what to ask him on stage. So what do you want to hear from Brian Roberts?

Today my company Federated Media announced a new ad format for a group of our publishing partners. We call this beta program "Ad Stamp", and those of you who've been watching the space closely, and reading my thoughts on marketing here, won't be too surprised by what you see.

However, with Ad Stamp there is more than meets the eye, and I wanted to think out loud a bit about why I believe this format works, and how it might reflect some of the trends I've been watching and commenting upon in this space for years.

First and foremost, what is most striking about Ad Stamp is how much space is dedicated to the marketer's message (see image at left - the temporary and one time pushdown at the top is pushed back up in this mock up). Ad Stamp coordinates three large units across roughly 50% of the total space available on a site - an "ad edit ratio" not unlike most premium magazines. An initial visceral response might be "That's too much!", but I don't think that's how audiences are going to react.

Why? Because in the main, I think the rise of ad networks and the relegation of marketing impressions to increasingly competing "third rails" on the sides and tops of sites has created a "Nascar effect" where more than five - if not 15 - messages blink numbly and disparately at their subjects. This is not a quality environment for readers or brand marketers, and it's a premium publisher's job to create a quality environment for both. (For a longer treatise on this see my post "The Rise of Independent Media Brands Online").

It's our belief that delivering 100% of the real estate reserved for marketers to *one marketer at a time* could be part of a strong solution to this concern. Ad Stamp, while still an early test program (and one we hope to roll out to all our sites) does just that. The authors of sites involved in our initial test - sites like Serious Eats, Mashable, Apartment Therapy, Business Insider, Dooce, and Boing Boing - all responded positively to early mockups of Ad Stamp, and all for the same simple reason: It makes the site look better.

Looking good is just one part of the thinking behind Ad Stamp. Other premium publishers are doing similar, larger executions (see the OPA news for more), but FM takes a decidedly social twist, as you might expect. To that end, an equally, if not more significant part of Ad Stamp is a new unit we call "the Conversationalist."

The Conversationalist unit (an early execution is shown below) takes some of the best work FM has done over the years (content-driven, conversational ad units), and brings it full circle into the realm of high quality brand marketing. The thesis is this: When a reader comes to the page, he or she initially sees the uncluttered, focused brand message via the coordinated pushdown and tower on the side. (Both of these units are now quite standard across the premium publishing web, but are not often coordinated from a creative and messaging standpoint.) Given that FM sites are A/ a branded environment; B/ a conversational media environment; and C/ that brands are conversations; the next step is pretty logical for an enlightened marketer: Provide the reader with a space where he or she can converse with the brand.

That's where the Conversationalist comes in. Developed in part through work FM did with American Express, Microsoft, and many others, the unit can pull in and curate nearly any conversation deemed relevant by the marketer. Nearly every brand on the web now has Twitter, Facebook, and blog presences, for example. Some have an extremely sophisticated approach to social media (witness American Express Open's Open Forum or Asus and Intel's WePC, for example). In short, brands are becoming social media publishers, and they have a lot to say, and they are increasingly ready to begin a dialog with their customers. The Conversationalist is where they can do just that.

Consider the scenario of a movie campaign, for example, or a mobile phone launch. Both types of campaigns are driven by awareness - the marketer wants to announce the presence of something new and timely. Ad Stamp provides a large canvas for just that. But both campaigns also create a ton of conversation across the Web. The Conversationalist provides a place to curate and add to that dialog - via Twitter and Facebook feeds, blog search, and more.

We've noticed that ads which offer up a chance to join a dialog or engage with contextually relevant content perform one to four times better than ads without these features. It's my belief that combining a clean, clutter free environment with the opportunity to converse is a strong alternative to the Nascar-network blight that seems to be creeping into high quality conversational sites.  

For now, Ad Stamp is limited to about 20 sites in the FM family, in two distinct categories - tech/biz (around 11 million uniques) and Home (about 10 million). Should this new format prove successful, we'll roll it across all of FM, and it's my hope the rest of the industry will adopt similar formats. We're all in this together.

In summary, Ad Stamp is a response to what I wrote in a previous post about all of this more than a year ago:

Brands are, in essence, defined by the conversations your consumers have about your products or services (and yes, I am indebted to Cluetrain and Ogilvy and any number of other great thinkers, even Hopkins, who might justifiably be the bridge between direct response and brand advertising).

Brand advertising in traditional media has been about getting in between the ears of a target consumer in some way and "building brand equity" through media executions. In essence, brand advertising has been, up till now, an attempt to influence the conversation that potential consumers will have after experiencing the advertising.

With conversational media and marketing, that concept is time shifting. Now brand advertising can *join* and even *initiate and convene* those brand conversations. And that requires a different skill set, one media folks are just starting to explore. To date, we've just begun to figure out how to execute marketing in this new form of media in ways that work for all parties concerned - the content producer, the marketer, and the consumer. But that doesn't mean we won't. It just means we have very interesting work ahead of us.

I am thrilled that by working with the amazing folks at FM and our extremely thoughtful publisher and marketing partners, we're taking what has been a lot of theory on this site (OK, call it bloviating if you wish) and turning it into very real advances that are becoming reality in the field. I feel very, very fortunate. And as always, let me know what you think, as your input over the years is what has always led my thinking.

My second post (of two) is up over at the BingTweets site, part of an FM partnership with Microsoft. In it I describe my frustration with search as it relates to helping me make a complicated decision: How to possibly buy a classic car. From it:

So first, how would I like to decide about my quest to buy a classic car? Well, ideally, I’d have a search application that could automate and process the tedious back and forth required to truly understand what the market looks like. After all, if I’m looking for classic Camaro or Porsche convertibles from the mid to late 1960s, there are only so many of them for sale, and they can be categorized by any number of important variables - price, model, region, color, features, etc. And while a number of sites do a fair job with a portion of the market, I don’t trust any of them to give me a general overview of what’s really out there. That’s where an intelligent search agent can really help.

But the next step is the harder one. I am not “smart” about how to buy a classic car. I don’t know enough to buy one with confidence. I don’t know what to ask about. I don’t know if it’s good or bad that an engine, electrical system, or transmission is original or rebuilt. I don’t know how one model does versus another in resale value, or insurance cost or…well, you get the picture. There’s a lot to consider, and I don’t know how to value everything. The world of classic cars is complex, like most major decisions. In short, there’s no easy way to decide in this case (unless, of course, I could just buy the most expensive one. That usually guarantees you’ve gotten what the market thinks you paid for it. Not an option for most of us).

So what do I need? I need help from a human being - someone I trust who has command of the classic car domain *and* has my best interests at heart. But given that I don’t have a spare Uncle who happens to be a classic car nut, what am I to do?

I may have been "on vacation" over much of the past month, but as usual, I was working, and part of my work was framing out and filling in the program for the sixth annual Web 2 Summit. Tim O'Reilly and I had a very hard job trying to top last year's program, given it featured Lance Armstrong, Al Gore, Edgar Bronfman, John Doerr, Jerry Yang, and so many more.  

But I think we've managed to top it. Pasted below is a note we sent out recently with an overview of the program. But even since then, we've had a couple of pretty major new additions, both from the world of government and policy:

- Aneesh Chopra -  America's first ever appointed CTO will join us this year, in conversation with Tim O'Reilly (for Tim's take and a video of Chopra, click here). A charasmatic figure and proven leader, Chopra is charged with developing national strategies for technology investments - overseeing the U.S. Government's $150 billion R&D budget.

- Austan Goolsbee - Chief U.S. Economist, member of the Council of Economic Advisers, serving the executive office as staff director on the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) - an outfit established within the Department of Treasury charged with analyzing and understanding the state of our financial markets, banking and commerce systems in order to inform decision making around economic policy. Between the CEA and PERAB, Austan is working to fix America's economic standing both domestically and internationally. No small feat. (See his interview with Jon Stewart here).

More on the rest of the program:

Day one covers broad ground — opening with an in-depth conversation with Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast — and moving into a series of powerful High Order Bits and discussions around government policy and healthcare. Then Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE, will share his thoughts before our dinner Q&A session with maverick Mark Cuban, hosted by ModernMom CEO and Dancing with the Stars champion Brooke Burke (Mark had his own stint on Dancing With the Stars, as you may recall...).

After kicking off with morning workshops, day two features insightful one-on-one conversations with Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo!, and Qi Lu, President at Microsoft, who's leading the recently announced partnership between the two companies. Later in the day, media gurus will discuss the future of their industry, including Chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. of the New York Times, CEO Dan Rosensweig of RedOctane, and CEO Richard Rosenblatt of Demand Media.

Mid-day we'll check in with Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, then launch our new High Order Ignite program — a session of dynamic, rapid-fire presentations that highlight ground-breaking and viable technologies that may well change the world. After a focused session on sensor and augmented reality applications, we'll wrap up the day with Twitter CEO Evan Williams.

Last, but definitely not least, our third day will include conversations with the CEOs of Intel, Adobe, AOL, and Jon Miller, head of digital for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. We're also bringing back our famed Teen Panel, where we'll hear from the generation that will most shape the future success or failure of our industry's efforts. And in a manner more fitting than we could have planned, we'll close our conference with the man who started it all — Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web.

And those are just the highlights. Let's not forget the slew of new speakers we've added including:

Erin McKean, CEO of Wordnik. (An API for language? Why not?!)

Sundar Pichai, VP at Google. (Responsible for Chrome OS, Google's pointed response to Windows.)

Steve Schneider, Program Director at WestEd. (Walking the talk, Steve has plans to launch the first-ever standard for technology literacy across the U.S. by 2012.)

Cynthia Warner, President of Sapphire Energy. (If Sapphire's biofuel plans scale, we have reason for hope in the world of energy.)

If you'd like to come to the Web 2.0 Summit, let us know by requesting an invite. I have discounts for Searchblog and Twitter readers (ping me here or jbat at battellemedia dot com), and I really look forward to seeing you October 20-22 at the Westin San Francisco!

I like to do this exercise from time to time - asking how my predictions for the year are holding up given six months have passed since I posted them.  

Well, let's see, shall we?

1. We'll see an end to the recession, taken literally, by Q4 09.

I think most folks agree this will happen. I'm not saying it has, just that the consensus is we're on the way there.

2. The online media space 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.

Jury's out, hard to call this one, but my own experience indicates this has a good chance of happening.

3. Google will see search share decline significantly for the first time ever. It will also struggle to find an answer to the question of how it diversifies its revenue in 2009.

Ok, so is this significant?! Well, yes - it's the first share slip Google's had, and it happened this year, but it's tiny. Hey, it's a start. As for the answer to how it diversifies revenue? Well, the jury is out, but it's still all AdWords, all the time, so far. YouTube is struggling with a model, Google admits. Meanwhile, Facebook seems to have found one (in self service)...

4. Despite #3 above, 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.

This is already starting to happen - GOOG has moved from below 300 in March to well over 400 now. But we'll see if it continues. Several analysts are predicting a return to 600 or 650, in fact.

5. Tied to #3 above, Microsoft will gain at least five points of search share in 2009, perhaps as much as 10.

I know, I'm crazy, right? But the company did release Bing just last month, already won two or so points of share, and has a 100mm marketing war chest, and its major distribution deals have yet to hit Comscore. Wait and see....

6. Yahoo and AOL will merge.

This one I may be wrong on, because first, AOL has to spin out. Or maybe it almost does but then combines with Yahoo this year....

7. ... in the second half of the year, Microsoft will buy its search monetization from the combined company.

Well...again, this takes longer to develop that this year, I'm guessing. I probably have egg on my face here.

8. Apple will see a significant reversal of recent fortunes.

Wow, I am so wrong on this so far. Even with Job's health issues, which are not what I meant when I wrote this. There is always the second half of the year.

9. Major brands will continue to struggle with the best way to interact with "social media."

True so far, but wow, what a great, great opportunity for folks who run companies in this space. Cough.

10. Agencies will increasingly see their role as that of publishers. Publishers will increasingly see their role as that of agencies.

I think this one has become obvious. I'll hope to prove it when I do my annual round up at the end of the year.

11. Twitter will continue its meteoric rise.

Remember, I said this back in January. Twitter was at 5.9mm uniques according to Compete. It's now broken 20mm there, and we all know it's way bigger than that. It took a pause last month, and we're all waiting to see what June's numbers look like....

12. Facebook will do something entirely shocking and unpredictable....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. Also, Facebook will build a Twitter competitor, but it will never leave beta and will ultimately be abandoned as not worth the time. Instead, Facebook will "friend" Twitter and the two companies will become strong partners.

Wow. They did it. At least the first part of it. We'll see about the second part.

13. Lucky #13 is reserved for my eternal mobile prediction: 2009 will see the year mobility becomes presumptive in every aspect of the web.

I think finally, this one will be true.

14. Lastly, I promise, I will have sold my book and will be hard at work on it.

Well, we'll see....

Thanks for keeping me honest!

Many folks have asked me when CM Summit videos would be posted, several are up now. They include the opener, above, in which I give a short overview of the state of online marketing from my perspective - start at about 6 mins in if you want to miss the throat clearing of setting up the show and thanking folks I've worked with. Perhaps the key thoughts: People Don't Join Ad Networks, and Publishers Are Communities of Mind.

I'm in the air on the way to the CM Summit, which FM hosts in New York Monday and Tuesday. The conference is sold out, but you can follow it via the #cmsummit search on Twitter. From my opening notes:

- Extraordinary content. Five conversations: A leader thinker in the VC world and investor in Twitter, the man responsible for Microsoft’s advertising strategy, the woman who faced the press on behalf of the White House as the entire media world shifted to digital, a chief marketer at Intel charged with moving billions to digital, and the founder and CEO of one of the largest social networks in the world.

- A focus on case studies, as promised. Cases from some of the biggest brands and most interesting thinkers in media, from GE, P&G, Amex, Microsoft, Google, and many more.

- And a few curveballs, new technologies and companies that will open our minds to new approaches to marketing, media and beyond...

Posting will be light here, as it has been for the past week. I'm heading to LA after three days in NYC to speak at my old high school graduation. It's very hard to believe it's been 26 years since that day for me. Wow.

Just wrote a long-ish post on FM over at the FM blog....from it:

One of the greatest challenges we face here at FM is answering a very simple question: What kind of a business are you?

When a reporter, partner, or colleague asks me this question, it's usually followed by a deep intake of breath on my part, because my answer often runs for quite some time. Federated Media wasn't built to answer easy questions, and our business isn't easy to define. Quite purposefully, we have built our business in the center of some swiftly changing currents at the nexus of media, marketing, and technology.

But if you don't take the time to define your brand publicly, others will. Over the past few months FM has been called a social media network, a blog network, a vertical ad network, an advertising rep firm, a media services firm, and even a new kind of advertising agency.

The truth is, FM incorporates aspects of all these businesses. What we are not, however, is any one of them alone.

Hence, our problem (I prefer opportunity, being eternally an optimist...)

So for the record, let me state what we believe FM *is*: FM is a media company, founded on an evolving definition of the word "media."

Well that took a long time. I've had something of a week, to be honest. I hope to be writing again soon. Not only did I lose my hard drive, I also has some family issues arise which distracted me from writing.

I'm finally pulling out of it, thanks to many folks. My blog software is reinstalled, and I'm almost there with the rest of my digital life.

Missing a week of writing (and normal work flow) made me realize how much I like to think out loud in this space. When I don't, it feels rather like when I miss a few days of exercise - I get edgy and irritable.

So hopefully, I'll be back to my calm, well exercised self soon.