So Google went and did it – it integrated a whole mess of social and local features into Gmail, wrapping the whole thing into a product burrito it calls Buzz (Yahoo has got to be fuming, if it has any more fumes left, that is).  

The first-day response is somewhat positive – mainly due to the huge installed base that Gmail brings to the party.

However, I am not so certain this is going to work. And my reasons remain the same:

1. Buzz does not let you publish out from Gmail to Twitter or Facebook. So for this to compete, you have to build yet another network of followers/friends – and do it through Google services. Not many of us use Google services for social purposes. That’s a mismatch.

2. Related, but worth repeating: Buzz does not let you do pretty much anything at all with Facebook. Buzz tries to find your friends and connections through algorithms that watch what you do on Google services, then lets you add more, but through the lens of Gmail. There are two things wrong with this: Algorithms, and email. Facebook didn’t depend on either to create its initial value. Instead, it let humans pick other humans, which honestly, is what social is all about at its core.

(The images are from streaming coverage of the Buzz event from Cnet.)

The reality is, Facebook has won the social graph war. Google taking on Facebook for the social graph is akin to Facebook taking on google in web search. IE, silly. Google should incorporate Facebook Connect into Gmail/Buzz asap, and then build on top of it with its powerful services and algorithms. THAT would be a win.

In fact, one very well informed source of mine inside the non-Google socialsphere (IE, one of the major competitors) tells me he thinks Buzz will in fact play out, over the coming months, as *good* for his and other similar companies.

Well, time will tell. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of stuff worthy of your attention this Weds. morning (and I’ll include some tasty stuff about Buzz as well):

Introducing Google Buzz (Official Google Blog)

Google Buzz: What It Means for Twitter and Facebook (Mashable)

With Buzz, Google Plunges Into Social Networking (NYT) Plunges in? Well, for the fourth or fifth try…

Google Buzz? MSFT, Yahoo Say ‘Been There, Done That’ (SEL) Yep. And they failed.

Google Buzz re-invents Gmail (Tim O’Reilly) Tim is a big fan. This is meaningful to me, as he’s my partner on Web 2.

Twitter: Now more than 1 billion tweets per month (Royal Pingdom) Twitter continues to grow in usage.

FM Audience Takes Off – Now #4 in Conversational Media (FM) We’re behind just three others – Facebook, Myspace and Blogger. Look, I get to promote FM on my site to a certain extent. And I am very proud of the company’s growth and financial performance. OK, enough said.

Social Media Top Online Priority in 2010 (Marketing Profs) Yep. This is one of the reasons FM is so well positioned.

A Touch of Romance (Adverblog) I may well do this for my valentine – create your own romance novel cover.

The Man Who Looked Into Facebook’s Soul (RWW) I am a very big fan of academic research based on large social data sets.

Management Secrets Of Grateful Dead (The Atlantic) Are you kidding me? Finally, they get their due.

Oh MY GOD Bonnaroo lineup is announced. Anyone who has followed me for some time knows that I sorta kinda totally love this festival.

Tuesday, we hope, things will get back to normal after Super Bowl fever had subsided. Google is set to turn Gmail into a status updatin’ machine, which positions it to compete directly with Twitter. I’ll be posting this Signal an hour or so before the details emerge. I have an FM Board meeting this morning, (don’t fear, it’s all good…). So click this link for news of Google’s Gmail moves.  

Meanwhile, the past 24 hours has brought, as usual, all manner of linkworthy schtuff:

Loopt and Mobile Spinach Team Up for Location-Based Deals (Mashable) I’m watching this space. Hence the next item….

Beyond The Badge: Big Media Brands Strike Foursquare Deals (AdAge) It’s early yet in this space. I expect a significant acquisition by one or two of the majors. Foursquare, for those of you playing at home, was started by folks who sold Dodgeball to Google, watched it go nowhere, left and started over. Of course, if they or others sell, it will retard (yes, I said it) development of a truly native marketing medium. Which would be sad. But not atypical. (Also, see this Bits post, and my post on “checking in” last week.)

Even After Super Bowl, Google Plays the Reluctant Advertiser (ClickZ) Look. I know I promised to write more about this earlier, but I kind of lost my zest for the topic. Google laid its cards on the table. Now lets see if it decides to keep playing the game. I doubt it.

Social Today Feels Like Search A Decade Ago: Lots Of Noise And Lots Of Spam (TC) Indeed, a good point. But not entirely apples to apples. The larger observation is entirely correct: There is a large, very large, opportunity in uniting all these competing platforms. However, it means folks have to play a bit more nicely. The way it’s playing out right now, I don’t see it being solved in the near term. NB: I don’t think the regular joe six degrees pack has the same spam problems as Mike. That could change…

‘Conversationalists’ Climb Social Technographics Ladder (MarketingProfs/Forrester) (image at top left) Jeez, conversationalists? Whodathunk.

Social Media Marketing Best Practices (eMarketer) A plug for their paid report, but hey, the post is worth reading even if you don’t want to pay.

Super Bowl Ads: Hulu’s Winners and Losers [STATS] (Mashable/Hulu) Google did pretty well. So was it worth $6 million? Even Google can’t tell you that.

Google leaps language barrier with translator phone (Times of London) Fun. Early. But fun.

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?

Friday is all about the biggest event in television marketing – the Super Bowl. This year (as I’ve noted here before) I’m struck by how many campaigns are integrated with longer term social marketing platforms. That’s putting the investment to good use – promoting what I call a media annuity that will pay back all year long. However, much of the press and some of the marketing still gets it backwards – they see the Super Bowl as something that social media “builds buzz for.” Nope. It’s the other way round, folks. Your brand, which after all is what you’re buying the ad for, right? – your brand lives all year long on the platform you create. That platform is social, mobile, real time. The Super Bowl ad should drive that platform, not BE it.

Super Bowl Advertisers Are MIA on Facebook (ClickZ)

Google to Super Bowl Markters – Give Us Your Ads- and Your Dollars (Forbes)

How Social Media Is Changing the Super Bowl (Mashable)

And in other Friday linkage:

Google Maps To Add “Google Store Views” (SEL)

Googler Quitting To Run AOL Media “Will Be Missed” (AOL, GOOG) (SAI)

Cisco Crushes The Street, We’re In The ‘Second Phase Of Economic Recovery’ (CSCO) (BI)

New Facebook Redesign (HuffPo)

Astronaut Tweets Beautiful Earth Images From Space (Mashable)

Apple prohibits App Store devs from using location-based ads (MacNN) Hmmmm.

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)

Traveling to a marketing conference in Scottsdale today, so here’s the roundup from last night’s best headlines:

Facebook Marketing Goes to the Super Bowl (InsideFacebook) Over and over again, we are reminded that this is the year the Superbowl ad becomes an adjunct to an ongoing social media platform. Good.

More Than Half Of Mobile Pageviews Are To Social Networking Sites (BI) This in no way is a surprise but it’s worth reiterating: social drives mobile drives social drives mobile drives location drives mobile drives content consumption drives brands.

3 New Ways to Measure the Social Web (Mashable) These are certainly *not* new (we’ve been measuring these and more for years at FM), but any evolving consensus on measurement is worth pointing out, and reinforcing.

Time Spent on Social Media Surges (MarketingProfs) You want metrics proving the social web is huge? Here’s more.

Top Marketing Innovation Killers (iMedia) Well, don’t kill innovation. Just don’t make silly mistakes. And make sure your partner can deliver. That’s certainly my focus.

Google before you Tweet is the new think before you speak. (TheNextWeb) Funny.

The folks at Aardvark have posted an ambitious paper over on the ‘vark blog. Titled after Brin and Page’s original “Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine”, the paper presents the Aardvark engine and, in its authors’ words: “describes the fundamental differences between the traditional “Library” paradigm of web search — in which answers are found in existing online content — and the new “Village” paradigm of social search — in which answers arise in conversation with the people in your network.”

I have read most of the paper, which has been accepted at WWW 2010 (it reminded me of all the search papers I read in preparation for writing The Search), and found a lot worthy of interest.

First, the paper’s authors, both of whom have worked at Google, clearly have a sense of potential history here, in that they not only crib Google’s original paper’s title, they also mirror the first line (substituting “Aardvark” for “Google”, of course). Now that’s some b*lls. Of course, when Larry and Sergey first presented Google, they couldn’t even get their paper accepted (it took three tries, if I recall correctly. Someone should write a book about that…).

Second, it’s unusual for a Valley startup to lay out its architecture and technological specs as willingly as Aardvark has. There’s a lot of math in here that I couldn’t parse even if I had the will to try.

Third, we learn some cool things about how Aardvark works. Check this quote out: “…unlike quality scores like PageRank [13], Aardvark’s quality score aims to measure intimacy rather than authority. And unlike the relevance scores in corpus-based search

engines, Aardvark’s relevance score aims to measure a user’s potential to answer a query, rather than a document’s existing capability to answer a query.”

Also interesting: ” this involves modeling a user as a content- generator, with probabilities indicating the likelihood she will likely respond to questions about given topics. Each topic in a user profile has an associated score, depending upon the confidence appropriate to the source of the topic. In addition, Aardvark learns over time which topics not to send a user questions about…”

There’s a lot more like this in the paper, it’s worth reading. The authors even did a test of Aardvark results against Google, with the results being something of a push (see the last page for details). Not bad for an upstart service.

Lastly, we learn a lot about the service, thanks to a number of charts, including something about Aardvark’s growth, which I had not really anticipated. It’s up and to the right, as you can see from the chart.

A quick set of headlines today, more coming later, after a morning PTA meeting….

Google Is Wrecking DoubleClick, Says Unhappy Client (GOOG) (Business Insider) I’m a DBCLK client and this does not ring true for me, though of course there are always issues with any major business relationship.

Forget Common Sense: Social Media Communicators Must Have Empathy (Shannon Paul) I feel this one.

The Bestest 2009 Industry vet Marc Ruxin always nails it in his annual round up of the best films and music.

Google’s tablet UI concept pictures (Neowin) Oh Lord, it’s a tablet war.

CBS Sells Out Super Bowl Commercials (LA Times) Well that’s not surprising – it’s rare these days to find a place where you can launch a real platform program.