The Catchup Signal

Vacation was great. Too short. As usual. And there was plenty going on that I missed. So here are some stories from the past five or so days that are worth your attention. I’m at the IAB board and annual leadership meeting Sunday and Monday, so writing may be light. But I’ll be back at it soon.

The BrandFinance Global 500 (Brand Directory) Google #2. Walmart, Coke, IBM, Microsoft…

Google CEO Woos Suspicious Mobile Industry (Reuters) “Schmidt’s remarks were met with skepticism and some hostility from an audience already worried about economic recession and the prospect of becoming “dumb pipes” that merely carry valuable content, including free Internet calls.”

Google Hires Barry Salzman to Preside Over Display Ad Units (Clickz) “Barry Salzman, a veteran of DoubleClick, will be Google’s first head of media and platforms, with oversight of YouTube, the Google Content Network, DoubleClick’s ad serving business, and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.” Watch this space for sure. I’ll be writing more about the implications of various moves on Google’s part in media soon.

Hello HTML5 (Google Gears Blog) Pay attention to standards wars. They are boring, because they are standards, but in the machinations of giants around standards, great narratives are hatched. (Why do you think I called that magazine The Industry Standard?!).

Outlook Gets Social with LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace (Microsoft Outlook blog) It’s not all Buzz, Microsoft would like you to know. And the truth is this: Social must be integrated into all platforms, bi-directionally, where ever one works and plays. If platforms don’t connect – they don’t win. This is the issue I have with Buzz, at least so far.

Google Launches Powerful Mobile Shopping App for Android (Mashable) Google Shopper is the kind of app that all of us geeks really like. I wrote about this over five years ago. And here it is.

How Unique Is A Unique Visitor? (A VC) Fred mulls what a real unique visitor really is.

Google: “With Buzz We Failed To Appreciate That Users Have Differing Privacy Expectations” (SEL)

How to Deal With Negative Feedback (Open Forum)

After Google Bowl 2010, What Next? (Ad Age)

Machine That Prints Body Parts (Economist) Just making sure you are paying attention.

The Convergence of Advertising and E-commerce (O’Reilly)