The business of social media is morphing, which is no surprise.  What is interesting to note is the growing importance of what I’d label “filtration and curation” (not just because of the Jesse Jackson ring it brings to the title!).

In the “early days” of social media, we focused on aggregation - picking up the crumbs of commentary wherever it can be found and blending it to amass some scale of commentary.  As the world gets more and more conversant, aggregation hatches a new problem, in its quest to solve an old one. Every day, the problem of scale is being solved naturally, via the sheer volume of user participation. Context and interaction form the mantra, replacing more.

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web 2.0, social, local social, local guides, strategy, OpenSocial | 1 Comment »

I was very pleased to see John Battelle exposing the “second click” issue from the pulpit at SES, and in his influential SearchBlog. If you have done any occasional reading through my lowly blog, you’ll recognize the concept of the “third page of search“. It’s the same thing - the issue surrounding Google’s shift within its Search Result Page to bias users towards it’s own version of vertical search experiences.

Of late, this issue has become increasingly visible with Google’s blatant behavior of pushing Google owned/operated “third page search services” into top position on the results page. In local we recognize it with the 10-list box, in video you see it with YouTube bias, in real estate we see it with Google’s home search, in auto, we’re starting to see Google vehicle search. With Google’s recently announced “knol“, you see it’s version of Wikipedia in formation.

Because I’m lazy/busy as heck these days, I’ve copied my reply in John’s blog (down below), to give you a bit of added perspective on how I see this in-formation battle.

This is a really important one, and it’s fascinating because - above all else - it is the closest thing I have seen to a shift which creates an opening for Google to be truly challenged. It demonstrates their hunger/greed pushing them to mess with the fundamental trust (and entrenched identity) with consumers - the trust to put the “best answers” at the top, and the derivative belief that Google won’t push product in front of me.

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web 2.0, search, third page | No Comments »

The NY Times does a very interesting piece flagging what they seem to be pinpointing as a new bubble moment. In the article “Silicon Valley Start-ups Awash in Dollars“, the author quotes Tim O’Reilly with a comment I tend to side with: “There’s definitely a lot of betting going on, and it’s not rational”. This kind of reminds me of the moment at Web 2.0 Expo when Tim quizzed the audience about the bubble status. (more…)

web 2.0, venture capital, social, strategy | No Comments »

There is a concept feverishly forming in the social networking space, backed by a well articulated and convincing description of “open social graphs”. Brad Fitzpatrick, founder of LiveJournal, authored the manifesto of sorts, which forms the eye of this hurricane.

Wired also issued an open challenge, entitled Slap in the FaceBook - challenging FB and MySpace to “open up” a few weeks ago, rooted in the same fundamental issue. (more…)

web 2.0, social | No Comments »

The Sunday NY Times did a great article on AOL, which tangentially chronicled a very key shift rapidly forming in online consumer behavior. John Battelle already excerpted the best bits, copied in the quotes down below.

Important stuff.

To simplify, searching isn’t so obviously the center of the future universe. The old adage of browsing is rapidly taking on a new life form - call it social, call it exploring, call it stumbling - consumers are rapidly adopting new forms of information navigation that do not follow the paradigm of Search. Media is in a fundamental shift beyond search into personal and community exploration and interaction, and it feels (to me) to be approaching a tipping point.

Perhaps the future no longer belongs solely to the Search Box? (more…)

web 2.0, search, social, local social, strategy | No Comments »

Much has, and should be, written about FaceBook. To me, FB is triggering a new stage in the “elevation of distribution”. If you’ve followed FB at all, you’ve seen how most credit their move to opening their platform as the stroke of genius.

With it’s platform strategy, FB has created a virtual mosh-pit of developer activity…

“Dave Morin, Facebook’s director of platform, told the Developer Meetup audience via videoconference that more than 40,000 developers have requested to be part of the project, around 1,500 applications have been produced so far, and some of the most popular went from zero to 850,000 users in three days.” CNet June 15th News.com article

I’d observe that the legions of “personal start-ups” (web 2.0 mash-up teams) have become anxious as their web 2.0 start-ups evaporate amongst the noise, not gaining any meaningful consumer traction. It feels like this creative geek clique has been waiting for the next thing to drive their TechCrunch fantasies forward. Along saunters FaceBook, and the hills are alive again! [UPDATED] (more…)

web 2.0, social, strategy | No Comments »

Google’s just announced acquisition of Grand Central paints another point on a line with an increasingly clear path. Google is building the infrastructure for a suite of communication services that erase the lines between modalities and communications delivery channels.

For the unfamiliar, Grand Central is an innovative voip-based technology company (an NBC video roll for a simple overview, and their Demo 2006 video gives a more detailed product concept orientation).The GrandCentral notion of a “life-long, multi-modal mailbox” will presumably be integrated with GoogleTalk and Gmail. This will become a compelling hook to your personal communications life.

What might this imply to the progression of voice services? advertising services? (more…)

web 2.0, IM, 411, Free DA, voice search | 1 Comment »

I work at an office where some employees actually took a vacation day to stand in line at the Apple store (and write about it!). The rest of us sat back and ruminated over changing his Local Guide name to “the pathetic geek’s chronicle”, but alas, we’ll ohh and ahh come Monday when he comes in bleary-eyed with a mile-wide smirk.

My own plans? Well three problems prevent me from indulging. One, touch screen typing - it’s been highlighted all over the web, and, for me, it prevents it from being my mainstream device. Two, the network tethering to Cingular doesn’t work. I’ve tried all the networks and - for my needs and location - Verizon is the clear choice for voice quality and high speed coverage. Three, version one buyers of apple are a foolhardy lot with perpetually bruised foreheads. Will they never learn not to buy v1.0 of anything from Steve Jobs? geesh.

I do know, that when it achieves a legitimate replacement for my ipod, I will be ALL over it. but it needs to step up with a 40+GB hard drive and great battery life to play that (important) role in my life. Probably 2008, but not now.

It’s yet another breakthrough from Apple, and it will stake out a major slice of deserved attention for pushing the ticket on open air entertainment devices…

web 2.0, diversion | 2 Comments »

Every so often I find comfort in stumbling across an innovation that has a real world dimension, and not a dang thing to do with Web 2.0.

So, in the spirit of a big fat “NOT” (best pronounced with a Kazakhstani accent) to the “Google in your Refrigerator?” speculation, I introduce you to:

Yes, it’s the “dry erase refrigerator”!

Kind of a nice to see innovation with “real ink” and imagination on the day of the iphone launch!

web 2.0, diversion | 5 Comments »

Techfold did an interesting post on the evolution of grocery shopping - it’s good “out there” thinking that touches on how one dimension of social and local shopping might evolve. A brief excerpt below sets the stage, then Rod goes on to extrapolate to a web 2.0 social scenario (which I consider extreme, but it is thought-provoking): (more…)

web 2.0, local social, local guides | 3 Comments »