Category: Site Related

2011 Predictions: How Did I Do?

(image) For many years now I’ve made predictions, and for just as many years I review how I did. This is the week I do the reviewing, my predictions for 2012 should arrive around the New Year, assuming I find the right inspiration.

2011 was a strange year in many ways. We lost Steve Jobs, stupid Internet legislation reared its ugly head yet again in the form of SOPA, Internet IPOs came back in a big way (but didn’t perform as well as most would have liked), and the world woke up to the implications of programmatic buying and Big Data, in a Very Big Way.

As I look back on my predictions of twelve months ago, I think I did a pretty good job, but left plenty of room for improvement. Here’s a rundown of how I did, with some supporting citations, where appropriate:

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Help Us Shape The Signal Conferences in 2012

I’ve spent the better part of a few days thinking through the theme(s) of FM’s Signal series of conferences for the upcoming year. I’ve got a ton of thoughts scrawled across my whiteboards, but then a thought woke me up in the middle of the night – why don’t I ask all of you what you think are the most important trends for digital marketing in 2012? (This crowdsourcing thing, it might just take off…).

So I signed up for PollDaddy and created my first ever Searchblog poll. You can pick three of the choices below, and/or add your own topic at the bottom. So help a brother out, and let me know what you think!

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The Web 2 Summit Playlist

Tons of folks have asked me for the “official” playlist this year. Each year I choose music to sample while folks are coming on or off stage, or as the audience comes in or out of the main room. This year I was hit with a wave of nostalgia – for reasons that I’ll explain later – and I made a list that spanned nearly all eight years I’ve been programming the event.

I have to say, I’m really, really proud of how the event came off, of all the folks who made it happen (including our speakers, staff, advisory board, and my partners at TechWeb and O’Reilly).

The playlist is 109 songs, and I’m way too lazy (or tired) to figure out how to put them into an actual live app. So here’s a picture of them. If any of you have suggestions for how I might create a playlist, I’m all ears. I’ve been looking for a good app for that for some time, and I keep not finding the right one….

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Web 2: But Wait, There’s More (And More….) – Best Program Ever. Period.

I appreciate all you Searchblog readers out there who are getting tired of my relentless Web 2 Summit postings. And I know I said my post about Reid Hoffman was the last of its kind. And it was, sort of. Truth is, there are a number of other interviews happening…

I appreciate all you Searchblog readers out there who are getting tired of my relentless Web 2 Summit postings. And I know I said my post about Reid Hoffman was the last of its kind. And it was, sort of. Truth is, there are a number of other interviews happening as well, ones that I am not personally doing. And I wanted to post a last chance for any of you to ask any of these folks questions as well. I’ll be in touch with the winners of the contest (details below) soon, but here are some other interviews of note:web2.png

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, Oregon Interviewed by best-selling author of Game Change, John Heilemann.

Paul Otellini, CEO, Intel I am doing this one, but it’s quite short as Paul is also doing a short presentation, so I figured a call for questions might not be needed.

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Help Me Interview Reid Hoffman, Founder, LinkedIn (And Win Free Tix to Web 2)

Our final interview at Web 2 is Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and legendary Valley investor. Hoffman is now at Greylock Partners, but his investment roots go way back. A founding board member of PayPal, Hoffman has invested in Facebook, Flickr, Ning, Zynga, and many more. As he wears (at…

hoffman.jpegOur final interview at Web 2 is Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and legendary Valley investor. Hoffman is now at Greylock Partners, but his investment roots go way back. A founding board member of PayPal, Hoffman has invested in Facebook, Flickr, Ning, Zynga, and many more.

As he wears (at least) two hats, I’ll be asking Reid to not only discuss LinkedIn’s business and industry (think jobs), but also ask him to ponder the culture of our industry, and the current economic and investment client.

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Help Me Interview the Founders of Quora (And Win Free Tix to Web 2)

Next up on the list of interesting folks I'm speaking with at Web 2 are Charlie Cheever and Adam D'Angelo, the founders of Quora. Cheever and D'Angelo enjoy (or suffer from) Facebook alumni pixie dust – they left the social giant to create Quora in 2009. It grew quickly after…

cheever.jpegNext up on the list of interesting folks I’m speaking with at Web 2 are Charlie Cheever and Adam D’Angelo, the founders of Quora. Cheever and D’Angelo enjoy (or suffer from) Facebook alumni pixie dust – they left the social giant to create Quora in 2009. It grew quickly after its public launch in 2010, inspiring some to claim it was the best structured Q&A site ever. They’ve also snagged funding led by Benchmark. As far as I know, this is the duo’s first major on stage interview together.

I’ve used Quora, a bit, and probably will be using it a lot as I start researching my book in earnest. But I’m curious as to how the service scales beyond its current place as a repository of quality – yet incomplete – knowledge. I’m also curious about its business model.

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Help Me Interview Ross Levinsohn, EVP, Yahoo (And Win Free Tix to Web 2)

Perhaps no man is braver than Ross Levinsohn, at least at Web 2. First of all, he's the top North American executive at a long-besieged and currently leaderless company, and second because he has not backed out of our conversation on Day One (this coming Monday). I spoke to Ross…

rossl.jpegPerhaps no man is braver than Ross Levinsohn, at least at Web 2. First of all, he’s the top North American executive at a long-besieged and currently leaderless company, and second because he has not backed out of our conversation on Day One (this coming Monday). I spoke to Ross yesterday, and wanted to wait on asking your input on what I should ask him till we had spoken.

On stage next week, Ross and I will have to discuss Yahoo’s top leadership, or lack thereof, save Ross and his interim-CEO boss Tim Morse, who was Yahoo’s CFO up until the abrupt firing of Carol Bartz late this summer.

Since that time, the daily rumor mill has swirled around the company (it was only weekly before that). Today’s news, for example, was that Yahoo stock is up, because potential buyers are “circling” the Internet giant. One of those buyers is Alibaba, the Chinese giant, another is Newscorp, where Ross worked in another life. A third is private equity, which would mean Yahoo ceases to be a public company, at least for a period of time. A long shot fourth is Microsoft, but we’ll get a chance to ask Steve Ballmer about the on Day Two….

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I Just Made a City…

…on the Web 2 Summit "Data Frame" map. It's kind of fun to think about your company (or any company) as a compendium of various data assets. We've added a "build your own city" feature to the map, and while there are a couple bugs to fix (I'd like…

FM on the map.png

…on the Web 2 Summit “Data Frame” map. It’s kind of fun to think about your company (or any company) as a compendium of various data assets. We’ve added a “build your own city” feature to the map, and while there are a couple bugs to fix (I’d like to be able to add my own icon, for example), it’s pretty fun to do.

I built a city for Federated Media, naturally. Given our acquisitions of Lijit, Foodbuzz, TextDigger, and BigTent, as well as our organic growth, we’ve actually accumulated quite a bit of Interest, Search, Content, and Wildcard data. It’s fun to see the city take shape in real time. Give a spin for a company you like!

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Help Me Interview Vic Gundotra, SVP, Google (And Win Free Tix to Web 2)

Next up on Day 3 of Web 2 is Vic Gundotra, the man responsible for what Google CEO Larry Page calls the most exciting and important project at this company: Google+. It's been a long, long time since I've heard as varied a set of responses to any Google project…

gundotra.jpegNext up on Day 3 of Web 2 is Vic Gundotra, the man responsible for what Google CEO Larry Page calls the most exciting and important project at this company: Google+. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve heard as varied a set of responses to any Google project as I have for Google+. Traffic is up in a huge way, state many reports, then, no, it’s down as much as 60%. Google + is the best thing since the slicing of bread, Google+ is a waste of time.

I honestly don’t think the folks at Google care about week to week traffic fluctuations, or initial reviews by the blogerati. The company is in it for the long haul this time. And Google+ marks a shift in how the Google brand is expressed, what it actually means in the minds of its customers. (Here’s my post on that idea).

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Help Me Interview James Gleick, Author, The Information (And Win Free Tix to Web 2)

Day Three kicks off with James Gleick, the man who has written the book of the year, at least if you are a fan of our conference theme. As I wrote in my review of "The Information," Gleick's book tells the story of how, over the past five thousand or…

Gleick.jpegDay Three kicks off with James Gleick, the man who has written the book of the year, at least if you are a fan of our conference theme. As I wrote in my review of “The Information,”

Gleick’s book tells the story of how, over the past five thousand or so years, mankind has managed to create symbols which abstract meaning and intent into forms that are communicable beyond time and space….The work really picks up speed as it describes the rise of early telecommunications, the role of information in mid century warfare, and the birth of both genetic sciences and the computing industry. In the end, Gleick seems to be arguing, it’s all bits – and I think most of us in this industry would agree. But I think Gleick’s definition of “bit” may differ from ours, and while it may be esoteric, it’s there I want to really focus when he visits Web 2 in October.

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