Netizen

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Brands Will Still Matter

I am as excited about the social web as anyone. But I think sometimes we draw off the mark conclusions as to what the social web is going to do to various market traditions. The market is the invisible hand. It is like that magnetic force that so fascinated child Einstein. The web does not displace the invisible hand, or many of its fundamentals. If anything, the web makes it even more invisible - if that is possible - and more handy. The web makes it more invisible by making possible transparencies that could not have been imagined before. JP is in London - or at least most of the time when he is not jet set - and when he goes for a cup of tea, I get to know like I were sitting next to him. That is amazing transparency, if you think about it.

Brands will still matter, but just like the invisible hand will become even more invisible, brands will become much more alive. The staying power of brands that deserve greater staying power will be enhanced. Brand names that deserve to sink will sink and fast. It will become less possible to prop up brand names through dishonest marketing techniques. In a world thick with the social web, sizzle and buzz will go to those who will deserve sizzle and buzz. The power will shift much more to the individual, and is that a bad thing? Is that not what we wanted all along? But it will not be any one individual. It will be individuals across the board. It will be the masses come alive. But not your faceless masses of demographic research or focus groups. It will be masses of people interacting with close and not so close friends.

A great gift of the social web will be the possibility of many, many niche brands. For someone like me who was born in one country - India - and grew up in another - Nepal - and has been in a third 10,000 miles away for over a decade now - America - the web is the only place where someone can see me whole. Is that amazing or is that amazing?

Facebook Faceoff Firefox
Stand Up Comedy: Thinking On Your Feet: 2.0
Is Reading Socializing?
New York City: Transformed Forever?
Reimagining The Office
Stream 2.0: The Next Big Thing?
Define Social Media
The Stream, The Lifestream, The Mindstream
David Gelernter: Manifesto
Blogging: Monkey Business?
Content Is Queen
Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter
Blogging = Learning + Teaching + Churning + Entertaining
The United States Of Entrepreneurs
My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher
The Human Is The Center Of Gravity In Computing
Blogging Several Times A Day
Visionary Entrepreneurs Will Recreate The World

Facebook Faceoff Firefox

Firefox Could Be the Real Facebook Challenger ReadWriteWeb
Mozilla Weaves Its Firefox Cloud InformationWeek
Google Chrome- Faster Than a Speeding Browser Connected Internet

Google Chrome Update Scheme Beats Firefox, Safari, Opera InformationWeek

Firefox to converge with social networks, predicts analyst StrategyEye (subscription)

C for capitalism. C for competition. Capitalism is all about competition.

Some have compared Facebook to an operating system, to a browser. And that is not recently. To many people on Facebook, that is also how they surf the web. That is how they read the news, consume videos. And look at all those people writing applications for Facebook, like they used to write for Windows, like they do for the iPhone, like they do for Twitter. (Skype: Hub)

Google also thought, we already have the people and their contacts, we call it Gmail. But Gmail is not exactly a Facebook threat.

Firefox would have to go through a fundamental reengineering to give Facebook a run for the money. And how do you do that without losing the basic soul of a web browser?

For now I see a ton of growth space for Facebook, and a ton of growth space for Firefox. And Chrome's got plenty of buzz.

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
What Should Facebook Do
Microsoft, Google, Facebook: NY Tech MeetUp Has Arrived
The Unfacebook

I am not saying the fight is over before it has begun. What I am saying is I am excited as to what a social Firefox might mean.

In The News

Do we all work for Google now? CNet
Kachingle to 'sprinkle' dollars to online publishers
YouTube slowly building ad-friendly content
Refresh alerts come to Facebook's home page 'stream'
Sun shareholders sue to block Oracle acquisition
Study: Bioelectricity bests biofuels on miles per acre

A Mom's Day Menu

Monday, May 04, 2009

Ggoats

Image via CrunchBase

Google Blog: Mowing with goats

Five Years Of Gmail: What Would Gsus Do?

Google gets goats in search for new lawn mowers USA Today
Google Hires Goats Reuters
Google Gets Goats to Mow Lawn at Company Headquarters FOXNews
My Day With The Google Goats Washington Post, United States Google's ever-expanding quest to go more green ...... the area was previously covered in 4-foot tall brush, but within a few days, the goats had eaten it down to basically nothing ..... These goats, which were being picked up today and transported to their next gig (at Morgan Hill), will do this field-clearing once a year for Google ....... a few of them got sick due to people feeding them flowers ....... the lack of shelter for when it was raining, and the electric fence that encircled the goats. ........ the goats did the job they were brought in for, and were very efficient in doing so.
Google Goats to clear brush Computerworld, MA
Google fields low-tech wildfire prevention: goats AFP
Google outsources lawnmowing -- to goats Bizjournals.com, NC
Things to make you happy: Google employs goats CNET News, CA
Google's Got Goats! InformationWeek, NY
Google gets greener with goats The Palmetto Scoop, South Carolina
Bleating Goats and Bleeding Hearts InternetNews.com, NY
Google to mow greenery with goats MINA, Canada
Grazing Goats Green Google's Grounds GreenBiz, CA
Google hires goats as low-carbon lawnmowers Mountain View Voice, CA
Great Green Google Goats! xchange Magazine, AZ
Google gets its goat IT World Canada Blogs, Canada
Google hires a goat herd Pocket-lint.com, UK
Google farms out grass cutting to goats Geek.com
Google Hires Goats UberGizmo, CA
Google Uses Goats To Lawnmown Clean Back Garden ITProPortal, UK
Google hires 200 goats to mow the lawn NewsLite, UK
Google Hires 200 Goats to Munch their Weeds Search Engine Journal
Google Hires Goats to Mow The Lawn Sustainability Ninja, Canada
Despite tough economy, Google hires 200 goats CrunchGear, NY
Google Rents Goats To Replace Lawnmowers (I'm Not Kidding) Norfolk.VA.MyCityTalk.com, Virginia
Latest Google staffers are a herd of goats TechRadar UK, UK
Google using goats to clear weeds at their campus TechWhack, India
Google lowers hiring standards, now employing goats The Inquisitr, Australia
Google Harnessing the Power of Goats to Mow the Lawn Gizmodo.com
Google Rents Goats to Replace Lawnmowers and Fertilizer Fast Company
Google and Yahoo Both Use Goats for Lawn Mowing WebProNews, KY

Just when you thought all the buzz had shifted to Twitter, Google got goats!

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Stand Up Comedy: Thinking On Your Feet: 2.0

What would be the 2.0 version of thinking on your feet? Thinking on your feet is having something to say. But it is not like your friends on the other end can tell. Ah, you looked at my status update for 50 seconds before you could press that Like button. That does not count.

The first thing that would count is being in the loop. You might have been my college roomie, but are you on Facebook? Sure we met at that party two months ago, but do you have my Gmail address? If you are not on Twitter, I am not going to hold that against you, but you are no friend on the bleeding edge, are you?

My enthusiasm for the various social networking sites comes from reading about stuff in the news. LinkedIn showed up, and I signed up, although I have never used it the way it is meant to be used. Friendster showed up and I signed up. I got my invite to Gmail from Google itself when Gmail came out. There was at least one smart relative I could not convince to switch to Gmail back then. Hotmail gives me more space than I need, he kept saying. It is more than extra space, it is different, I said. Not listening.

My own enthusiasm for the various social services has had its ups and downs. For example, right now I am kind of lukewarm on Twitter use. I still "get" it, don't get me wrong. But these past few weeks I have been more into blogging. I blog and then I send the blog post links down the Twitter stream. Because my blog posts automatically show up in my Facebook stream, I find myself logging into Facebook after a new blog post. Is it there yet? Is it there yet? I guess it is not real time. The delay can be anywhere between a half hour to several hours.

Recently I have found a whole new use for my blog posts. I put out a blog post. And wait until it shows up in my Facebook stream as a note, and then I tag a whole bunch of people to any particular note. I think 30 are allowed. You show up in all of their Facebook streams. Cheesy. Yes, I have been thinking about you.

Like my most recent blog post/Facebook note: Is Reading Socializing?

I decided to tag all my black/African friends from college days to that note, or at least those that are on Facebook with me. Let's have a little reunion here. Yesterday I created a few different groups.

Reimagining The Office (High school classmates)
My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher (A whole bunch of women from the college days)

I like the idea that when one of the tagged individuals will click on the note, they will meet a whole bunch of other people that they know. Happy Reunion!

Now think on your feet. Say something funny.

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