Google’s super secret social networking endeavor, Google Plus, was released this week as a “Field Test.” Many from the Google Buzz crowd and FOGs (Friends of Google) were invited along and within 48 hours it opened up to a much wider group. It is estimated (albeit unscientifically) that several thousand people now have access. I’d like to let new readers know that I get excited about new web properties. I’ve pitched other new social networks that turned out to fall flat. However, Google Plus is the real deal and absolutely worth a serious look.

1. Google Plus was one of the best kept secrets of any large project I have ever seen. It’s truly remarkable that more information did not leak out about this project.  Sure, almost exactly a year ago, Kevin Rose tweeted “Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch facebook competitor very soon ‘Google Me’, very credible source.”  But not very much was known about the details of the project. Now, Google in grand fashion has released “Google Me” as “Google+”.  Google has tight control over confidential information and plays its cards close to its vest. (In this regard, Google is similar to Apple.) However, people on Buzz knew something was coming soon because the few Googlers who supported Google Buzz was noticeably absent from Buzz for months.

2. Google Plus is NOT Buzz Reincarnated — Thankfully. I’ve seen people refer to Google Plus as “Buzz 2.0″ and I can barely see the resemblance. Although the Field Test includes many of the prominent Buzz users, the site is not similar to Google Buzz in many respects. It’s not baked into Gmail, does not have a chaotic feed that is difficult to follow, has an entirely different UI and includes MANY previously-unseen features. In hindsight, what kept Buzz from becoming a ghost town was the friendships that formed early in Buzz’s existence. In a sense, we were a people without a home. Just prior to the Google Plus launch, some of us were migrating to a site called “Namesake.” (Check it out if you haven’t.) In other words, we were collectively coming to our senses that Buzz was not a good platform.

Google Plus brings with it some amazing features but the best is “Circles.” Each user has the ability to create, edit and delete groups of friends in a simple manner. I’ll let Google explain with its own Youtube:

Google Plus is being compared and contrasted with Facebook, not surprisingly. Circles are far easier to use than Facebook’s “friends lists.” Almost everyone I know who uses Facebook shares everything with their entire friends list or the entire universe of Facebook users. Sometimes, rarely, they will send someone a private message too. Circles allow for people to easily group people by interest or topic. The ability to easily drop and drag people into and out of a Circle makes for relationships to develop (and end) quickly. No longer am I sharing everything with people I can barely remember from high school. But if I wanted to, I could. Circles enable users to better control the distribution of their updates.

And I’m barely scratching the surface by only mentioning Circles. There’s also Sparks (discovery by topic), Hangouts (group videochats) and some other features that are still in development like Questions and Games. (Yes, Google Plus has better feed control than other social networks and without a doubt we’ll be able to exclude unwanted classes of content from our feeds. Did you hear that Zynga?)

3. Google Plus is NOT Facebook Plus — Thankfully. While it looked like Facebook to me at first (perhaps even an older iteration),  Google Plus is substantially different. Already I see new relationships forming. Facebook, as I see it used, is primarily a tool for sharing brief remarks with friends from the face-to-face world. Google Plus can be used for the purpose but what I like about it is the ability to find interesting people who don’t exist in my face-to-face world. On Twitter these relationships can be formed by a series of 140 character tweets, but on Google Plus there are some more in depth discussions forming around topics, and we have the baked in ability to meet face-to-face (virtually) without even leaving the Google Plus ecosystem. In fact, as far as communicating with people online, Google Plus is a comprehensive platform.

In any event, I think the “Facebook killer” view is the wrong way to look at Google Plus right now. It could be used as a Facebook alternative (or Twitter alternative) or simply as a supplemental social network. It is not a case of Google just “one-upping” Facebook. Google has designed a unique social network with some features we have seen before but many new features which appear to be carefully considered (contrast with Buzz)  and extremely well executed (e.g., Circles, Sparks, Hangouts and so on). By running a limited Field Test, Google is working out some minor issues before the site is available to everyone but none of the minor issues I have seen have adversely affected my impression of what Google Plus is and where it is going.

There’s so much more that could be written about Google Plus and the blogosphere has exploded with posts about it. There are many different ways to analyze Google Plus but I suggest, as I wrote above, that Google Plus is unique. If you do not join up thinking Buzz+ or Facebook+, you will likely fall in love with it the way most users seem to be during the Field Test.

If you don’t already have access, you will soon. While you wait, minor annoyances are being resolved and Google Plus is improving. You’re in for an eye-opening treat and I hope you enjoy it at least as much as I have the past few days. When you get there, look me up (http://goo.gl/eA1ih).

P.S. The Android app for Google Plus, which can only be used by people who have joined and not those waiting for invitations to join, is icing on the cake. Truly spectacular.

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--Google’s Game Plan: Google is not failing at hardware. It is succeeding at something else.

Brief explanation: I was flirting with the idea of shutting the blog down or allowing it to simply wither on the vine. I even considered posting a message that all of my blogging will occur in a micro fashion either on Buzz or Twitter (@JonMallin).  However, I have decided to keep the blog live, allow guest bloggers to participate (Thanks Louis Parker and Nick Waye), and to personally update it on a infrequent basis. These are my thoughts on technology that I’ve had bottled up (get the joke?) for awhile with a focus on Google.

On to discuss Google’s game plan… TweetDeck was acquired by Twitter because it threatened Twitter. TweetDeck was and is the most-widely used third party vehicle and Twitter was the destination. The problem for Twitter is that TweetDeck was also a vehicle that drove people to Facebook and Buzz, though to a much lesser extent. If FaceMashSomething popped up tomorrow, a Twitter rival, TweetDeck could propel it to instant stardom. On the other hand, if Twitter acquires TweetDeck then it owns and controls a vehicle, an especially popular vehicle.

Today I had a somewhat similar random thought that might sound somewhat conspiracy-like. Google has created Chome browser and Chrome OS to move advertisements from the web and into the OS (banner at the bottom, pop-ups, etc.). Remember the fundamentals? Google is, at its core, an advertising company… plain and simple.  This would insure advertising revenue regardless of the websites people visit. Websites come and go. There was AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, MySpace, etc. Websites tend to be short-term trends. What is intelligent about Google’s plan is that it would be immune to these trends. Facebook could beat Buzz/Google Me, Bing could become popular, Twitter use could skyrocket and guess what? If Google owns the vehicle, the OS it gives away for free, it has the ability to sell advertisers access to your eyeballs (remember, your eyeballs are Google’s primary “product”).

This is precisely the Android model.

So, Android = huge success by all accounts based on insanely fast widespread adoption.

Google owns the vehicle and it serves up ads through third party apps (note: in fact, no native Google apps have advertising banners AFAIK).

If they can move from handsets to desktops to other ways of catching your eyeballs, Google makes boatloads of cash.

If I’m correct in my thinking, Google should be patenting the heck out of an OS that overlays ads over internet accessed content or otherwise interjects ads into the user experience (brief pauses with animated ads or boot-up ads… whatever, patent it all). Furthermore, Google should give away computers. I previous wrote, “Chrome OS Netbooks — Hell Yes, Google Will Give away computers” back in December of 2009.  What happened?  Google beta tested a computer giveaway, the CR-48. The goals isn’t to sell computers. It never was. Every pundit who declares Google’s hardware experiences “failures” is an idiot. Google TV is a way to sell your eyeballs when you look at your television. Google’s web properties sell your eyeballs when you look at the computer. Google Android, YouTube… you get the point. The amount of revenue Google receives directly from the sale of a physical product is immaterial to Google’s plans. The only thing that matters is that Google win the vehicle war.

My belief is that Google may think it has nearly saturated some of its existing customers and maximized the value they can extract out of existing eyeballs. They now need new eyeballs. People who don’t have computers, smartphones, etc. If they give away computers, they may harvest up new eyeballs. Senior citizens and the poor are likely audiences.

This is not to say Google isn’t diversifying. Sure, it wants to serve up its productivity suite. But, I contend that line of business will be immaterial to Google’s revenue stream for a long, long time.

Google’s “master plan” is to be the vehicle through which your eyeballs travel. They’re not looking to pull money from your wallet by selling you a product. Instead, our eyeballs are being sold as the product and Google wants to make sure it is the largest, best eyeball store around.

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--Google Plus: Stealth Mode to Instant Competitor?

Admittedly, it’s been a long, long time since I last updated the Tech Bottle blog. It’s not that I’ve fallen months behind on technology.  I have been reading and interacting with tech enthusiasts but I haven’t been posting here.  A New Years resolution is to keep the blog updated on at least a semi-regular basis. Here’s what I’ve been doing and what’s caught my eye:

• I’m still a big supporter of Google Buzz. I think it is intelligently designed and well executed. I tend to read much more than I write on Buzz but I have been getting back in the swing of things. It’ll hopefully be rolled into the rumored Google Me service which apparently goes by the code name Google +1 now.
• I’m also liking Quora and Diaspora quite a bit. Quora is a Q&A forum of sorts. It’s like Yahoo! Answers, in a way, but Quora is populated with real techies and entrepreneurs.  Diaspora is the “open” alternative to Facebook.  Readers of my blog know that I’m not a big fan of Facebook. Diaspora has better privacy settings and it’s more intuitive to use than Facebook.  Quora is open to all but Diaspora is by invitation only (I think… I tried confirming but they are upgrading their servers… a much needed chore for them).
• I’m still running Ubuntu linux at home.  I am pleased to report that I haven’t had to boot Windows or virtualize Windows even once since converting to Ubuntu nearly six months ago. Oh, in Ubuntu I’ve been toying with MythTV which is pretty darn cool but difficult to set up.  I also revitalized a 333 MHz old Dell machine with 256 megs of RAM by installing Ubuntu. It’s usable but, well, not quite snappy enough for my liking.
• I’ve downloaded the Dell build of Chromium OS but I need to clean up and fix a USB stick to try it out.
• I’m eagerly awaiting the HTC Thunderbolt, which is rumored to be Verizon’s first 4G/LTE phone.Tell me this isn’t a great looking Android phone?  I have an upgrade saved up on my account.  The only thing that would keep me away from the Thunderbolt would be an encrypted bootloader that would make rooting and custom ROMing the phone impossible (or, at the very least, extremely difficult).
• Also in the mobile industry, I see RIM slipping further into irrelevance.  They announced a switch to a completely new OS built from an operating system designed for touchscreen GPS standalone devices. The new OS won’t be available for a long time (my guess, over a years… 2012) yet they’re still selling OUTDATED Blackberry OS devices like the Torch (major flop) to keep revenue going. Goldman Sachs downgraded RIM’s stock not too long ago. Oh, and RIM has a dual core tablet in the works that some are touting but others are already criticizing (mostly re: battery life).
• The CR-48 Chrome netbook looks great to me but I haven’t been able to score one. I’ve been reading about it on Buzz from those lucky few who received them.

That’s all folks.  Expect more in 2011.  Have a happy and healthy new year.

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--Google Plus Ate My Blog, Find Me There… --Google wants to kill your amateur blog… but that’s OK. --Google’s Game Plan: Google is not failing at hardware. It is succeeding at something else. --Google Plus: Stealth Mode to Instant Competitor?

There’s a lot of buzz and chatter in the blogosphere about Google’s upcoming social features. Starting with Kevin Rose’s infamous tweet, we’ve been referring to an amorphous “Google Me” platform. Presumably, Google Me will be designed to go toe-to-toe with Facebook. We’ve seen rumors about Zynga bringing social gaming aboard, along with a recent acquisition that suggests Google Me is indeed a reality. While some might feel that Google Me has been blogged ad nauseum,I will speculate what this service will look like.

Google has many very social properties that exist as islands. The core properties are Picasa, Gmail, Voice, Chat (and Video), Reader, Blogger, YouTube, and Orkut. Buzz was an attempt to bring together many of these properties and connect them. Think of Buzz as a hub and the other properties as spokes. However, Buzz did not gain widespread adoption. For some, it was the privacy missteps in the first few days of operation that kept them away. I believe there are more obvious and compelling reasons why people aren’t using Buzz in large numbers right now. First, people want to interact with their existing associates, many of whom they communicate with on Facebook. Second, the Buzz interface is somewhat confusing. Facebook and Twitter primarily operate on a chronological model. Buzz doesn’t. Back to the point, Buzz was a failed attempt to create a widely adopted hub linking Google’s social properties, the islands.

I believe Google Me will connect the islands in a very similar way that iGoogle can be used to connect all of Google’s services. In fact, iGoogle has long had some social features unique among all of Google’s properties, including rudimentary social gaming. I actually think Google Me will, in fact, look quite a bit like iGoogle. We will design our own social networks. We may choose a box for YouTube, a stream of Buzz, some Picasa albums, Gmail previews, Chat pane, etc. which would all appear in some integrated fashion on one page (or a group of tabbed pages). Unlike Buzz, Wave and other Google properties that have “fixed” UIs, Google Me may have a more “dynamic” user-customizable look and feel. Drop and drag a feed of friends on the left, maybe another for co-workers in the middle and keep Chat on the right. Or, maybe have it the other way around. Oh, and the top will likely have a search bar and a status update-like field (not too dissimilar from Facebook). Oddly, if I’m correct about the user-customizable look and feel, Google Me may be somewhat similar to *gasp* MySpace in some respects. (Don’t get too discouraged. MySpace was once wildly successful and there may be some elements worth salvaging.)

Will Google Me succeed where Buzz has failed? I’m sure Google will control the rollout and check, double check and triple check to make sure there aren’t serious privacy concerns. Well, this alone won’t assure it’s success. As I pondered above, many people’s existing social networks exist on Facebook. Zynga could help lure massive numbers of virtual farmers, mafia wannabes and others from Facebook to Google, particularly if Zynga and Facebook completely part ways. There is also an enormous installed base of Gmail users. If there is a way to convert them into Google Me users, Google should find it. Also, consider that Google could leverage its upcoming Google TV, Google Music and Google Books properties. Another angle Google could play is integrating Google Me with Apps. Enterprise might be more likely to permit employees to use Google Me, if there were dedicated business streams and corporate discussions. Whereas, Facebook is practically a complete suck on employee productivity.

In any event, I’m straying want into the “will it work?” topic and I intended to merely write about what it will look like. My bets are on a user-customizable iGoogle-like platform. I don’t have a shred of evidence to support this but, as I titled the post, this is my best guess.

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--Google’s Game Plan: Google is not failing at hardware. It is succeeding at something else. --Google Plus: Stealth Mode to Instant Competitor?

Google is dumping Google Wave. Here’s the official quote:

Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects.

This news came as a complete surprise to me and many others. It seems like just yesterday Wave was released and it was the buzz of the internet. It was a trending topic on twitter for nearly a week and many people were scurrying to get invitations to the beta. Nonetheless, Wave failed for very good reasons.

While I was initially jazzed about Wave, just like many at Google according to the official blog, I was blinded by the fact that it was new and shiny. I blogged about it several times and even created a Google Wave category for the blog. However, when I began Waving with friends, they quickly pointed out reasons why they didn’t like it. It was difficult to use. It was launched without full features like email notifications. It was another mode of communication that was redundant with our existing modes. In short, they felt it was a waste of their time and apparently many people felt that way. They just didn’t “get” Wave.

I haven’t read the other commentary in the blogosphere on the failure of Wave but I think many will be discussing Google Buzz and the rumored Google Me project. I suspect that Wave will be replaced with Google Me and if Google Me gains tractions we may see Google Buzz fall by the wayside too. While I would be sad to see Buzz go, I would welcome a better replacement that achieves more widespread adoption. Frankly, I can’t convince anyone in my social circles to get active on Buzz. Hopefully, Google has a recipe for marketing a service that will compete with Facebook which is now 500 million strong. I’d like to see a superior replacement for Facebook with better governance.

You might also enjoy:

--Google’s Game Plan: Google is not failing at hardware. It is succeeding at something else. --Google Plus: Stealth Mode to Instant Competitor?

Miio is a mixture of every hot property on the web right now. It is a little like Facebook, Twitter, Buzz and FriendFeed. In other words, it is a social networking site. Do we really need another? The answer appears to be a resounding YES. Miio brings in the best of each of the hot properties and it is really gaining traction. The service is so polished that TheNextWeb entitled a post “Early adopted alert: miio is here, and it’s looking really slick.”

I’m a big fan of Google Buzz and I’ve been vocal about it. The CEO of miio, Richard Lusk, is also a Google Buzz fan. I’m not alone in saying that I plan to shift some of my social networking time to miio.

I’m not going to attempt to reinvent the wheel. There’s an excellent review of miio in the blogosphere entitled, “Why miio isn’t Twitter or Facebook: And why this is a good thing.” The post contains a video demo and a terrific overview of the service. It’s recommended reading.

If you check out miio, add my profile to your network. It’s at http://miio.com/jon.

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File this rumor in the “quite possible” folder. It comes by way of Kevin Rose, co-founder and CEO of Digg. He tweeted to his 1.1 million followers:

Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch facebook competitor very soon “Google Me”, very credible source

TechMiso picked up the tweet and the rumor is gaining steam on Google Buzz.

I believe there is room in the Google ecosystem for a new social network. While Buzz is still fresh out of the box, it really isn’t ideal for keeping up with friends and family. Buzz is somewhat more like Twitter in terms of the relationships between users, although discussions tend to be more fulsome than those on Twitter. Google does already have a Facebook like service, Orkut. However, Orkut is significantly behind Facebook in terms of features and it never really caught on outside of Brazil and India. Some point to Wave as a social network of sorts but it’s really a different animal. Wave is more like a collaboration service that better suits business purposes than social purposes.

If there really is a Google Me, I’m really curious what the service will look like. Surely, it will incorporate many Facebook features but I would expect some significant departures from the mold, and not just better privacy settings. Surely, there’s room for improvement upon the Facebook format.

I believe the biggest obstacle to any Facebook competitor is that many Facebook users have invested significant time amassing their group of Facebook friends. Even if an large group decided to defect from Facebook, it’s not easy to export Facebook contacts to Google. It actually requires a Yahoo! account to pull from Facebook and export to CSV file. From there, the CSV file can be imported into Gmail. Instructions can be found here.

I’m hoping Kevin is right. It’s about time someone shakes things up and competes meaningfully with Facebook.

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When it comes to privacy, Facebook just doesn’t get it. Today Facebook held a press conference where CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out Facebook’s position on privacy, apologized for some mix-ups and offered up some bandaids that will be rolled out in the next few weeks. I am going to focus on the most important point of this entire debate which centers around whether public sharing should be opt-in or opt-out.

I’ve been thinking critically about the latest Facebook changes, writing posts about them (here and here), reading other opinions, and participating in debates on Google Buzz with some tech enthusiasts. I’ve come to the following conclusion: Facebook accounts should have an option to only share information with friends and that should be the default selection. Changes that permit the broader sharing of information should be implemented in a opt-in fashion, not foisted upon the masses.

Facebook has routinely moved the privacy goal posts. Every time changes take effect, Facebook “mandates by update” sharing beyond one’s circle of friends. This is not what many of us signed up for. I joined Facebook about three years ago when users had better control over their information and Facebook didn’t regularly flip switches to make banter among friends public to the world. We have shared opinions, jokes, links and pictures within this framework in a controlled fashion. Flash forward. Beginning in December and then later with the Open Graph API, Facebook opened up practically everything to everyone. Users needed to toggle switches to maintain the same level of sharing as they enjoyed before. This is plainly absurd, as I observed before. It would be akin to Google or Microsoft taking your email and publishing it without you affirmatively electing to do so.  Now, I wouldn’t have a problem if Google or Microsoft permitted users to publish emails provided that the option were accompanied by adequate instruction. Facebook just does what it wants when it wants and without adequate instruction, control or warning.

Super kudos to the French reporter who asked Zuckerberg why Facebook doesn’t follow the OPT-IN model for sharing. It was probably the single-most important question to ask and it was completely fumbled in a very laughable way.  This is the exchange:

Q (French press agency): Why not make the default the most restricted possible privacy setting?

A (Zuckerberg): We want to give people control over their privacy. Really restrictive settings make it hard for people to find each other.

Are you kidding me? First, making the model opt-in does not interfere with a user’s control over  privacy settings. You could have all the same choices but the default would always be the most restrictive settings. Accordingly, when Facebook makes changes that allow broader dissemination of previously private or semi-private information, the changes wouldn’t just be sprung upon unsuspecting users. Second, why would an opt-in model make it difficult for people to find each other? Users are identified by names and a thumbnail picture, if they so choose. Friends in common are also displayed. Why does publishing someone’s news feed make it easier “for people to find each other”? It doesn’t. Someone really should have followed up on the French reporter’s question.

Some might argue that you opt-in when you sign up for Facebook. Not when I signed up. We created our own sharing circles. Sure privacy policies can and do change but I made an erroneous and naive assumption that the service was run by responsible adults. Instead, we’re being forced into the public sharing model to (1) “give people control over their privacy” and (2) “make it [easier] for people to find each other.” #FAIL.

P.S. Leo Laporte of TWiG is promoting Google Orkut as a Facebook alternative like many of us on Buzz. While it needs some fixin’ and some polishing, Orkut really is a decent platform. More importantly, Orkut is backed by Google, a company run by adults who have proven themselves over a long period to time to be responsible.

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I budget most of my social networking time for Google Buzz. Here’s my long-winded why…

Facebook support waivers and A list bloggers like Mashable speculate about the fate of MySpace, but nobody seems to be reporting on Google Buzz. Sure, it faltered out of the gate with a privacy misstep. To briefly recap: users were set to auto-follow their Gmail contacts and those auto-follows could be seen by other Buzz users. However, this was done inadvertently and the problem was patched faster than a speeding bullet. This issue was addressed quite well at SXSW. Google apologized. (It differs significantly from Facebook intentionally taking what was previously private and unapologetically broadcasting it to the entire 400 million plus Facebook community but that’s another post altogether.) Now, in case you were wondering, Buzz doesn’t have any known privacy bugs. You can buzz publicly or privately. You can show or hide your list of people you follow and people who follow you. Has anyone in the media or blogosphere been reporting on this?

To me, this is what makes Google Buzz appealing and more so than competing social networks:

• Building a Buzz environment to your liking: It is easy to build followers and to reciprocate follows. My Google Buzz followers are largely active Buzz users. I have more Google Buzz followers than Twitter followers and I joined Twitter ages ago. I enjoy both reading and writing on Buzz.
• Twitter falls short: Twitter is often difficult to follow. Conversations, which rarely develop, need to be decrypted because of the 140 character limit and the lack of meaningful organization of Tweets. It doesn’t help matters that many active Twitter users tend to be get-rich-quick schemes and pure follow-back whores.
• Facebook is a different animal: Facebook isn’t really about expanding horizons. Sure, I like keeping in touch with people and Facebook makes that easy. I suggest you ask yourself these questions if you think Facebook is the be-all-end-all of social networks: How many new people have you met on Facebook? How many real conversations have you engaged in on Facebook? What is the signal to noise ratio on Facebook? Are you content with Facebook governance and frequent changes in policy?
• The Buzz platform is well designed. Sharing information from Google Reader, YouTube and by URL has never been easier. We are expecting to see the Buzz API opened up at Google I/O which should benefit the platform and accelerate Buzz growth.
• Community support and mobilization: We’ve taught each other how to use Buzz and some conventions for Buzz use have developed. We’ve mobilized to support Buzz and provided feedback to the Google Buzz Team. The Google Buzz Team has responded with improvements and is currently privately beta testing new features.
• Buzz is a community. I have met new people near and far (very far) and joked, shared opinions and debated. Buzz users have engaged and thoroughly discussed many topics. My posts and ideas have generated more discussion on Google Buzz than any other platform. I’m not alone in this regard; other people report the same. It’s nice to have feedback every once in a while from a diverse group of people.

Buzz is social media at its finest! If you were scared off by the privacy glitch and haven’t experienced Buzz recently, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Give Buzz a second chance.

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--Google’s Game Plan: Google is not failing at hardware. It is succeeding at something else.

Some notable blogs are setting up a false dichotomy between “social” and “search” for finding and consuming information. They suggest that Facebook is the “social” alternative to Google’s “search.” This is fundamentally wrong, I argue below. Instead, what we have is a war between two “platforms” neither one of which really fits purely into one of those categories. Both want to attract your eyeballs to their advertisements.

What is Google?

It’s a conduit through which advertisers reach people who have shared their personal preferences with Google. While Google was initially purely a search engine, that is no longer true today. As I wrote yesterday, Google wants to know everything it can about each and every person. Reiterating yesterday’s musings:

Whom do you phone? Google Voice.

To whom do you write? Gmail, Google Wave and Google Buzz.

What do you buy? Google Checkout and Google Product Search.

What do you watch on television? Google TV, which is anticipated to launch with Sony next month.

What do you read? Google Reader and Google Scholar, despite some bumps in the road.

Where do you eat? Google Maps, 800-GOOG-411, Google Places.

What ailments do you have? Google Health, although it appears to be a flop.

Where do you work? Google Profiles.

Where do you live? Google Maps.

What do you look like? Google Profiles and Google Visual Search, perhaps tied together one day.

Where are you? Latitude, Google Buzz and Google Places.

Where did you go and where will you go? Google Calendar.

While the search business fits into this overall picture, it is important to note that very little of the preference harvesting today relies heavily on it.

What is Facebook?

Similar to Google in a sense. Facebook is a conduit through which advertisers reach people who have shared their personal preferences with Facebook. This really begs the question, what do we share with Facebook? Not much when compared to Google. Facebook is far less efficient at harvesting information and has fewer tentacles. These are the questions Facebook may be able to answer about a particular user:

What is your name?

What do you look like?

What is your birthday?

And so on. Facebook also knows what social games you enjoy playing and what you “Like.” Facebook cannot answer most of the questions above that Google can answer. Facebook doesn’t have an email client, a calendar, mapping software, voice transmission, video transmission, etc. Google is much more efficient at harvesting information because it has many more web properties and, not surprisingly, they happen to be the best in most areas.

As an aside, this is where Facebook has truly gone off the deep end: Facebook is giving away the crown jewels. It is now divulging your preferences (“Likes” cannot be made private, for example) to third parties who can archive them indefinitely. This is contrary to the Google platform that seeks to obtain everything tidbit of information about you but tries to lock down that information for Google’s use only. (Buzz was a notable, accidental exception but that mistake was remedied within a couple of days.)

Implications

Search vs. Social is bullshit. Google is social. Google services allow me to communicate with friends and family by Gmail, Wave, Buzz, Voice, etc. I can read their thoughts in emails, hear their voices, see their faces, etc. What makes Facebook more “social” than Google? The fact that someone I went to elementary school with posted about her breakfast food and that she spilled orange juice on her new shoes? Now, there’s the “search” issue. This deserves emphasis:

Facebook does not have a map of the entire internet; Google does.

Google is a better platform for other reasons. It is better organized. I know where to find information I seek. My appointments are on my calendar, my emails are in my inbox, etc. I can archive everything. Facebook provides us, primarily, with a stream of crap that tells me about my friends’ virtual farms, mafias, fish, etc. I see a bunch of happy birthday posts too. The Facebook stream is entirely disorganized and it is not archived in a useful way.

The argument that Facebook will somehow whip Google in the near future baffles me. Google is way out of Facebook’s league in so many different areas. It harvests information better. It protects information it harvests better. It offers utility to its users. If provides us with services that Facebook cannot even come close to providing any time soon. So, this Facebook > Google argument that is being tossed around the internet seems like nonsense to me. I put my money where my brain is. I’m holding my GOOG stock and maybe building the position especially since some people were recently fooled by the blogosphere into believing that Facebook is a serious threat to Google. It isn’t right now and couldn’t become one for a very, very long time.

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--The Next Social Web

Chances are good that you (1) use Facebook and (2) have no idea what the new Facebook Open-Graph API is all about. It’s basically a behind-the-scenes way for Facebook to share your personal information with the entire world; the sharing is default, although you can opt out, which isn’t an easy task. Want to know whether Facebook is telling the entire world that you like Fruity Pebbles cereal? Ka-Ping Yee created a tool which allows you to find out what any Facebook user is sharing.  You can find it here: http://zesty.ca/facebook/. All you have to do is type in a Facebook ID or user name and it does the rest. It can report a user’s real name, birth date, location, “Likes” (formerly pages you were a “fan” of), photos, etc. This begs the question, “where exactly did we sign up for this shit?”

That’s the question being asked by many, including many of the top Googler celebrities who have deactivated their Facebook accounts. Four Senators have sent a letter to Facebook complaining about this issue. (Perhaps they didn’t use the word “shit” but, anyways…) Chuck Schumer, D-NY, has spearheaded this effort and even lobbed a complaint in with the Federal Trade Commission.

I have been contemplating suspending my Facebook account but ultimately decided against it. I just won’t “Like” anything and I will monitor my information to make sure that it doesn’t get shared with the public (again). The real solution: A turn-this-shit-off-forever button. I’d “Like” that.

[via GigaOM]

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What’s Facebook up to with all this “like” stuff? I’ll begin by assuming that you are as confused as I was about this idea. Basically, Facebook is attempting to get every website to implement a Facebook “Like” button. When you click a Like button, your Facebook profile will be updated to include your new Like. If this catches on, then the entire internet can be ranked, in a sense, by Facebook users. This information about Likes is relevant in two ways. First, the data can be used on the micro level to target advertisements to you on Facebook, the stickiest and most popular website on the internet. Second, the data can be used on the macro level to perform a popularity ranking of the internet.

Crowdsourcing is the outsourcing of tasks to a large community. An example of crowdsourcing is a cellphone app that reports gasoline prices and asks users of the app to report back prices they observe. Facebook is attempting to crowdsource the internet. Instead of crawling the internet with sophisticated spiders that follow every link, they shift the task to the website owners who must install a “Like” button and to the Facebook populance who must click the buttons to make the system work.

This fundamentally differs from Google’s approach to indexing the web in a few ways. Google spiders the web to detect new content. This approach is changing somewhat through advancements like PubSubHubBub (say that ten times fast) which allow content providers to push their updates to Google and burn real-time RSS feeds. Google also crowdsources the internet in a way but it does so seamlessly and, more importantly, privately. When you search for pages on Google and click links, Google learns both what you like (without clicking a button) and also uses this information to target advertisements and even rank pages in your own search results. In the aggregate, this information (your clicks) is used to rank pages.

So, what’s the difference? Facebook has slowly chipped away at users’ privacy. For example, Facebook updates are now public by default. Perhaps Twitter paved the way for that change but it was not a welcomed change by many. Now, Facebook users are being asked to essentially display their internet preferences and browsing history to their “friends” and the general public. The privacy implications of this scheme are profound. Imagine if Google’s Chrome browser or Google.com asked users to opt-in and make their browsing history public (even on a per-click basis). People would be, rightfully so, outraged. Facebook is being raked over the coals by privacy groups and many people who actually understand what is being proposed. However, the cuteness of “Like” concept and the appeal of the Facebook brand have blinded some people from questioning the entire concept. Frankly, I don’t plan on clicking Like buttons and I believe that people should really think critically about the system that is being implemented.

Somewhat uncomfortably, this website has a Facebook button in the upper right. This enables those who click to see posts in their Facebook stream. This button was created long before we were asked to rank the entire internet. It was intended to serve an entirely different purpose and it wouldn’t bother me one bit if you choose to unlike Tech Bottle but follow the posts another way (by e-mail, Buzz, Twitter, RSS readers, etc.). While on the topic of unliking, I have read that unliking something might pluck the logo off of your profile but there will be other ways to determine a user’s past likes. So, if you Liked Coke last week but want a job at Pepsi this week, you might have sunk yourself.

P.S. Another major issue with the Facebook scheme involves sharing your personal information with other Facebook partners across the web. You probably saw a small box about this at the top of your Facebook stream. This is another somewhat confusing change to Facebook and I have opted out of it. I don’t think it is clear what data will be shared and exactly how it will be used. Perhaps I will become more comfortable with a personalized internet and opt-in at some point but for now, I prefer the internet the way it is.

UPDATE: Matt Cutts, a high profile Google employee, just suspended his Facebook account. http://searchengineland.com/matt-cutts-deactivates-facebook-account-40543

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--Internet Use Stats: Food for Thought

The Facebook app “Who’s Stalking My Profile?” and similar variants do not actually tell you who viewed your profile, according to The Register. They’re scams intended to line the pockets of the app developers by making the apps go viral. The app developers stand to profit from sharing advertising revenue on their apps’ pages.

Rik Ferguson, a senior security consultant at Trend Micro, explains: “The app itself is designed to look convincing enough, but none of the many ‘Continue’ buttons it offers will activate some under-the-counter profile checking functionality – they will just push you into another Facebook app earning the scammer advertising revenue in the process.” He reports that Facebook is removing the offending apps.

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Everyone is buzzing about how to use Google Buzz and whether it will succeed. Some are still tweeting about privacy concerns. Everyone wants to know whether Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz can coexist. In this post, I take a different approach. I begin with the assumption that Google Buzz will succeed and consider what effects that will have on the world of blogging and on more mainstream digital media. I conclude that Google Buzz will have profound effects that significantly differ from effects of any other social networking site that currently exists.

What do I mean by “succeed”?  I mean that Google Buzz becomes a useful repository for information sharing that is frequented by many for news, opinions and sometimes everyday chatter.

Google Buzz Differs from Existing Social Networks

If Google Buzz succeeds, then a relentless flow of information will come into Google Buzz making it very sticky. This is very unlike Twitter, which I contend is not a very sticky site at all. Almost all tweets, other than casual banter, have outbound links. This has created a cottage industry in URL shortening. Tweets are essentially headlines that direct people away from Twitter into a different realm, often the blogosphere. While Google Buzz could be used to drive traffic into a different realm, it is much more sticky for a few reasons. First, there’s no character limit on Buzzes. Google Buzz could be a substitute for blogs, particularly simple ones like the Posterous blogs. (This is a topic I mused about before: “Google Buzz could become a Substitute for Blogs if…”). Second, there’s absolutely no start-up cost and it is easy to begin buzzing. You can login and can begin almost immediately. You don’t have to mess with customizing WordPress. Third, unlike Twitter (and Facebook to some extent), Google Buzz has very good support for images and video. Rich content buzzes are quite common. With Twitter, you needed an outbound link to see any rich content at all with the exception of user avatars. Fourth, Google Buzz has a good commenting system (which is likely to be improved) and discussions are easy to follow, unlike Twitter. With Twitter, even if you read a post on a blog and decide to comment, most likely you would do so on the blog and not via Twitter. Google Buzz, on the other hand, is self-contained and comprehensive.

Google Buzz is designed to draw people away from other sites and into Buzz. It’s baked into Gmail which many millions of people use daily. Google’s popular RSS reader also draws people into Google Buzz through prominent links in Reader. Google made apps for phones and cooked in a location sharing sharing feature via Google Maps (a la FourSquare). Picasa is wired into Google Buzz. Every buzz has an email link at the bottom for sharing it. This draws people into Google Buzz, not away from it. In other words, Google Buzz is well integrated with other properties in the Google ecosystem.

If Google Buzz Succeeds and it’s as “Sticky” as I say, then…

First, traffic to blogs will go down as Google Buzz becomes a substitute for blogging. As long as people can locate people with similar interests (and I’m sure there are third party sites mimicking “WeFollow” as I type and Google may roll something out too), affinity groups can stick with Google Buzz. Second, with rebuzzing, sharing via Google Reader and upcoming integration with Google News, sites that simply aggregate news will be irrelevant and unprofitable. Third, if aggregators are “buzzed out,” then what about the fate of publications like Mashable/TechCrunch or old media like the local newspaper? I predict that they will publish more original content  and less “mash-ups” or aggregated content. Further, they will be leery of  publishing their content to Google Buzz. Instead, they will try to stick to the Twitter model and drive people with outbound links to their websites to generate advertising revenue. Already, we’re seeing Mashable which boasts 2.3 million followers post outbound links as opposed to publishing directly into Google Buzz. This model could succeed if the original content is attractive enough to draw people away from Google Buzz to read it and the person chooses the outbound link over Google Reader.

How does Facebook fit into the picture? Surprise: Facebook wants to become what Google Buzz already is.

If Google Buzz does succeed and the blogosphere contracts, particularly the amateur blogosphere, it will do so where Twitter and Facebook have failed. As I already discussed, Twitter’s model was to aggregate headlines but it has not produced a sticky site. Facebook is a very sticky site but not for the same reasons Google Buzz will become a very sticky site.  Facebook is sticky because people want to share their life’s experience with people they know and/or read about friends and family.  Major media outlets and significant blogs have not yet gotten much traction on Facebook. People don’t want to pollute their stream of friends’ news with other content (like the backlash against Zynga’s games publishing into streams). Accordingly, I believe Google Buzz is very unlike Facebook… and in a useful sort of way. While theoretically Google Buzz could be used like Facebook, it is better suited as a sticky news and opinion social network of sorts. This is one of Facebook’s goals but Google actually has a significant head start because of its integration with other Google properties. This runs absolutely counter to what you read elsewhere that Google Buzz is a startup challenging a 400 million strong Facebook. I contend that Google is today buzzing with what Facebook wants to become. (Perhaps I just answered the question of whether Facebook and Google Buzz can coexist. Yes, Facebook for friends and family and Google Buzz for news-worthy content and opinions.)

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If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon and played around on Google Buzz, you haven’t missed much. I’ll tell you what’s been going on the past few days. It seems like almost all of the buzz is about Buzz. This isn’t exactly a bad thing, however; Google employees have been working around the clock to respond to user feedback with improvements, according to the Official Gmail blog. Many of the improvements relate to online privacy and the auto-follow feature (which is now an auto-suggest feature).

Some buzzers are reposting news articles and other material that comes to them by RSS via Google Reader.  The integration among many different Google properties is truly amazing. In addition to Google Reader integration, there’s Google Maps for viewing local buzz, Google Profiles for sharing contact information (you can verify email addresses and even your name, similar to what some high profile people did on Twitter) and a reportedly well-designed app for Android.

There’s plenty of support among tech blogs for Google Buzz. Tech Crunch rolled out a “Buzz This” button and Mashable followed soon thereafter. Some blogs posted DIY instructions for Buzz This buttons. Pete Cashmore, CEO of Mashable, has had some significant interactions with readers. Presently, he is soliciting ideas for Mashable articles.

I haven’t seen much in the way of celebrities or news outlets using or promoting Google Buzz. Ashton Kutcher, where are you? Are you going to challenge CNN in this new forum?

If you have ideas for improving Google Buzz, you can submit them here: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=buzz … but let’s hope the Buzz team gets some sleep and enjoys the Olympics like the rest of us.

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I believe that Google Buzz is primarily aimed at attracting Twitter content right now, not Facebook content. This is a follow up post to the video I recently posted.

If you haven’t watched the video, I’ll sum it up. Google’s core strength is the search business. Google wants to be branded indelibly as the map for the internet. (It didn’t pick the Parisian Love Superbowl advertisement by accident.) Up until now, Google crawled the web to map it. The map was periodically (but not continually) updated. Some sites refreshed daily, some hourly and some nearly instantaneously. Now, more and more, consumers are looking for instantaneous news and communication. Google Buzz was created primarily to bring content to Google instead of the present model of crawling the wires to update Google’s map of the web.

The Twitter Argument

If you want breaking news, you can find it on Twitter and find it faster than anywhere else because all major news outlets bring content to Twitter. Twitter is the king of real-time news. Twitter doesn’t crawl for anything. Google got very lucky recently when it inked a non-exclusive deal to index Twitter. (Microsoft did too.) Although little is known about the contract, the rumor is that Twitter received a combined $25 million for the indexing deals (which, in turn, put Twitter in the black for 2009). This is a threat to Google for a variety of reasons. First, the contract may not be renewed or could go exclusively to Microsoft in the future. Also, the entire Twitter company could fall into unfriendly hands. Google does not like relying on any company that may not commit itself to “openness.” Second, Google probably paid more for the Twitter contract than it cost Google to build its own Twitter-like service, Google Buzz. Third, Google Buzz is virtually guaranteed to be more successful than Twitter due to the tie-in with Gmail which has an installed active user-base of approximately 174 million regular users.

Why Facebook Isn’t a Serious Threat Yet

Facebook has yet to challenge Google’s model of mapping the web. While you can do rudimentary web searches through Facebook, nobody does. Facebook is not populated with the same real-time news content as Twitter. This trend is shifting with the growing number of fan pages and professional accounts but up until now Facebook was simply a place to crack a joke to a large crowd, post pictures of kids or invite people to a party.

HOWEVER, Facebook could easily become a serious threat. It is among the most sticky of all websites. It has an installed user-base of over 400 million users. If it made a serious push to have meaningful content come to Facebook (news outlets, blogs, etc.), it could challenge Google’s efforts to be the best map of the internet perpetually.

Predictions

Twitter will get wiped off the map by Google Buzz. It may continue to exist in a MySpace-like state. Some lesser player could buy it or it might have a weak IPO. The real fight will be Google vs. Facebook but that’s on the horizon and will only occur if Facebook makes a meaningful effort to map the web. The scariest scenario for Google would be Microsoft and Facebook uniting forces. Bing plus Facebook could mount a meaningful long-term challenge to Google. Keep in mind that Microsoft already has a small piece of Facebook. So, Google isn’t simply looking for a piece of the social networking business. It is also playing defense to keep its dominance in mapping the world’s information.

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Here I gripe about Google Buzz…

I believe that Google Buzz has a lot of potential and I’m digging it.  However, it has some kinks that need to be worked out:

1. Notifications should skip the Gmail inbox by default. We can see the notifications in the left-hand pane and don’t need to intermingle buzz with email. Filters can be used to route the buzz to archives and skip the inbox (instructions courtesy of LifeHacker at http://goo.gl/3Iyt) but it would make more sense to have a toggle whether the user wants buzz in the inbox.
2. Kudos to Google for making responses to buzzes (which work like comments on a blog) editable. However, it would be really nifty if the buzz responses were (a) nested and (b) could be hidden. Many popular buzzes have so many comments that it’s almost impossible to follow the conversation. The clutter on the page is overwhelming too.
3. The “Mute” button doesn’t work. Be warned: If you mute a buzz you commented on, then new replies will all show up in your new buzz count. Because the mute button doesn’t work, long discussions like the ones Mashable started are to be avoided.
4. The “Mute” button is dangerously close to the “Unfollow” button.
5. Let us harvest our Facebook friends list and add them in buzz. While I appreciate the efforts to avoid mentioning Facebook anywhere and not link to it, the ability to draw in our existing social networks would be helpful. Pulling in Twitter followers simply doesn’t cut it for many of us.

I’m actually kind of digging buzz but the issues I identified above need to be addressed ( at least 1 through 4) or this ship won’t sail.

P.S. Mini-Gripe: Couldn’t Google add some more background/color themes to Gmail? The existing ones get mighty boring.

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The Wall Street Journal and Mashable are reporting that Google will soon roll out a “status update” feature to Gmail similar to Facebook and Twitter. This is BIG news and “Make Gmail Social” (which appears in the Mashable headline) is now a trending topic on Twitter.

This is another bold move by Google to dominate the interwebs. Gmail already has an enormous installed user-base (around 150 million users; compare with Facebook which has around 400 million users) and integration with GTalk and AOL’s AIM. Even if the status update feature fails to gain acceptance, at a bare minimum, Google captures more mindshare and could draw some more users into Gmail. In a recent Mashable poll, Gmail trouced Microsoft’s Outlook as a preferred email client (70% to 19% with 11% voting no preference). (Candidly, I reacquainted myself with Gmail after reading the poll and ultimately decided to consolidate my email into Gmail instead of Outlook or Mozilla’s Thunderbird.)

If Google’s status update gains widespread acceptance, then the obvious losers are Facebook and Twitter. The timing couldn’t be more damaging to Facebook, which is expected to have an IPO this year. The status update war of 2010 is brewing, as the Scobelizer post I referred readers to the other day suggested. Perhaps Facebook drew first blood by making its “search” feature more prominent on the redesigned Facebook interface. Google fired back with a largely unexpected Superbowl advertisement that touts its search engine and, now, will go head-to-head with Facebook.

A less obvious loser is Mozilla which is expected to roll out Raindrop soon, a program that integrates social networking, email and instant messaging. Gmail will perform the same functions, it is entirely web-based and it has an enormous installed user-base.

The status update feature also suggests to me that Google Wave will have a more business-centric focus and will not be intended for casual banter amongst friends. Initially, Google Wave was pegged as Google’s answer to Twitter but many users found it difficult to use and invitations to Google Wave’s preview were limited.

Mashable questions whether Gmail will have an option to also publish a status update to Facebook and/or Twitter. While this option is within the realm of possibilities, I believe it is unlikely that Google will implement it. Facebook draws significant advertising revenue away from Google. If Google were to feed the Facebook frenzy, then it would be making a big mistake.  Things might get interesting with the GOOG this year… they said social features were in the works and it looks like they’re delivering, soon.

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Get ready to see your Facebook stream flooded with Sid Meier’s Civilization Network, a sequel to his popular Civilization franchise. It will begin beta testing in June. Sid has hinted at what players can expect in the game:

“You can coordinate your strategy to win great battles, share your technology to jump ahead of your rivals, lobby your family and friends to form your own government and win vital elections, manage and grow your cities to maximize production and happiness, spy on your enemies, and work with your friends to create the great Wonders of the World. The game will offer everything you enjoy in Civ in a fully persistent environment – you can play as much as you like, whenever you like, and it’ll be free to play.”

I’ll go out on a limb here and predict Civilization Network to be a smashing success. Goodbye Farmville and Mafia Wars, Hello Civilization Network.

[via Samuel Axon @ Mashable]

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No need to reinvent the wheel, right?

While I have been covering the Google vs. Apple war, I haven’t been discussing the Google vs. Facebook war that is apparently brewing. I recommend reading Robert Scoble’s post today:

“Google’s two-front war with Apple and Facebook; who are the winners and the losers?” by Robert Scoble on February 2, 2010

http://bit.ly/9yHRIR

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[Considering I started a Facebook fan page today for Tech Bottle, I thought it appropriate to write something about Facebook. It's been awhile.]

Don’t let the name mislead you, TweetDeck is a terrific program for Facebook. It is written in Adobe Air so it installs on PC Windows, Macs and even Linux. Here’s how it works and a list of some of the helpful features:

Upon loading TweetDeck, you can enter your Facebook login and password.  It stores them just like the Facebook website. After that, you add columns.  The choices for each column are: Full News Feed (same as Live Feed on the website), Status Updates, Wall Posts, Photos, Videos and Other (Links, etc.). You can also set up different columns for different Friends Lists. Below is a screen capture of what my TweetDeck looks like (the colors can be customized — these are the defaults):

Example Layout of TweetDeck

So, what’s the point?  Here are some benefits of using TweetDeck for Facebook:

1. Notifications!  You can set up TweetDeck to flash new updates from any column in the corner of your screen when the program is minimized.  You can also set up audible notifications for each column but, quite frankly, you’ll probably find that annoying.
2. The little gray boxes at the bottom of each column are especially useful — what’s popular in the column, filter/search the entire column for particular words or updates by a particular user and a clear button to blank the column and only show new updates.
3. Update your status from within TweetDeck. You can type your status update, drop pictures or links into the program and even set the program to auto-shorten the URLs.
4. You can view pictures and videos from within TweetDeck. Just click on them to blow them up to full size.

TweetDeck is in beta testing but I have not found it to be buggy. You can download it from the TweetDeck website (free).

P.S. If you use LinkedIN, TweetDeck now has support for LinkedIN.

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Recognizing that Facebook has a significantly greater user-base than Twitter (Zynga’s FarmVille alone has more users than Twitter, reportedly), we have added a Facebook fan page. Please consider becoming a fan of Tech Bottle on Facebook. We also will continue to push our content to @techbottle on Twitter.

All of the methods of following Tech Bottle are now listed on our Contacts page.

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One of the big stories this week is that Twitter will turn a net profit this year simply due to its content sales to Google and Bing, according to Bloomberg. For a cool $25 million, Google and Bing are indexing every public tweet. Twitter’s operating expenses for 2009 will be approximately $20 million. Accordingly, Twitter will return approximately a $5 profit for 2009, which comes as a surprise to many. Currently, Twitter has no other sources of revenue. 2010 is expected to be turning point for Twitter in terms of cranking up the revenue, according to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.  How can this be accomplished without alienating users?

Twitter is expected to generate additional revenue through a combination of advertisements and premium features.

Advertisements

Advertisements work well for Facebook, which is almost exclusively accessed through its web interface and mobile apps. Twitter, on the other hand, is more frequently accessed by Twitter clients like TweetDeck, Seesmic and others. Consequently, advertisements that simply appear on Twitter.com will probably not generate as much revenue per user as Facebook advertisements. I expect Twitter to push sponsored Tweets which would show up in a user’s all friends timeline. This would push the advertisements to every platform. The problem with this approach is that it dilutes a user’s timeline if too many advertisements are pushed. I predict that sponsored tweets will come in 2010 but they will push infrequently, perhaps once every 30 minutes.

Premium Features

I expect that current Twitter services, all of which are completely free, will remain free. If it were otherwise, users would be up in arms. Twitter can’t exactly charge for services it has been giving away, e.g., Twitter searches, RTs, etc. I think what we will see if better content management for profile pages which could be implemented on a subscription basis. Currently, only text colors, the profile pic and desktop background are customizable. I think we’ll see Twitter offer a blogger-like profile page with direct Twitter integration. So, Twitter pages will support widgets, full posts (not 140 characters), pictures, music and video. This will be an assault on WordPress, Posterous, Google’s Blogger but probably warmly received. Certainly, Twitter could charge for blogger-like profile pages but it could, instead, rely advertisements. If properly implemented, this could make Twitter a preferred platform to Facebook. Facebook fan pages are simply blue-and-white boring and are not easily customized. Business will be attracted to a platform that allows for better customization, provided that that interface is intuitive and user-friendly.

I think we’ll see a substantially improved Twitter search engine. Users will be able to limit and sort tweets by date, location (now that the Twitter location API has been updated) and other criteria. I don’t expect this addition to be a paid-only feature. This would be supported by advertising and integration with the sponsored tweets.

Implications

Twitter wants to create a more comprehensive platform, something akin to Facebook. Blogging on other platforms may become less popular. The improved search capabilities may draw users away from traditional search engines, including Google and Bing. Although they will also have real-time Twitter results, it will be a rare instance where a user who wants to find tweets actually visits a web search engine to do so when Twitter begins offering an adequately comparable or superior search service of its own.

I think we’ll see Twitter incorporate the best of Facebook. Along with this will come some challenges, including privacy issues, which has plagued and will continue to plague Facebook. Nonetheless, I think we’re in for a record-breaking, blow-out year for Twitter in 2010, provided they don’t alienate users with petty charges or significant content dilution through excessive advertising and Facebook doesn’t beat Twitter to the punch on implementing the premium features.

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SocialScope is the combined Facebook and Twitter App for the Blackberry smartphone that is under development. It is currently in invitation-only beta testing. I wrote about it a last month. The @SocialScope Twitter account was silent for about a month but just tweeted this evening that the release version will support FourSquare, the location-based networking/game of sorts.

Keep in mind that RIM has its own Twitter app under development and the Ubertwitter beta looks strong too.  FourSquare also has its own Blackberry app in development that is expected any day now. So, where’s the place for SocialScope in the Blackberry app wars? Well, it aggregates streams from a variety of sources and could, if properly executed, be a terrific app.

I’m mildly skeptical because of past failures of other apps like this, e.g., Snaptu. On the other hand, Nimbuzz is going to be a huge success and it aggregates virtually all commonly used IM services and Skype.

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TweetDeck Beta 0.32.1 was released today. As the second most popular twitter interface (just behind twitter’s own web interface), this is big news! The new release supports Twitter lists, LinkedIN and keyboard shortcuts. Head over to TweetDeck.Com to download (Adobe AIR).

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