The Gillmor Gang — John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — waxed and waned about the latest in social media buildout. Most notable was Twitter’s new Activities and @mention views, which rolled up not only your @mentions but follow and favoriting signals in a realtime notification stream. Activity view did the same thing for those you follow, with an aggregate stream of their attention.

Yes, it’s the Attention and Gestures meme finally coming home to roost, and with it a fascinating series of political pebbles being skipped across the realtime stream. @borthwick remains juried out on the PlusPlex, while @scobleizer and @kevinmarks debate not if, but when, + will resolve its lack of search, filtering, and realnamification. @jtaschek is heard but not seen as he returns for a brief cameo before Comcast pulls the plug, but at least he’s back in the clubhouse.

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@dannysullivan would prefer Google unleash the hounds of celebrity and brands, surprised as he and we are that the Plus team was caught flatfooted by the viral adoption of the field trial, or whatever Danny calls it. When we (Danny and I) started complaining about the lack of iPad support and Robert about the perils of high speed Scoble flow via the iPhone, @kevinmarks pointed out the ANdroid support sucked for tablets in general. All in all, much to look forward to and little or no competition from Facebook for Google to worry about.

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Step 1: Note the controversy du jour Here we go again. Google+ is in the midst of another spat with a core of dedicated users.

Over the past week, the unhappy mutterings that initially greeted Google’s social network’s requirement that members use their real names escalated into a roar after the Google+ team removed a number of high profile members, such as William Shatner.

Step 2: Note that, once again, Google has managed to offend the wrong people Among the victims, according to ZD Net and other sources were A.V. Flox of the Los Angeles Times, open source hardware expert Limor Fried, iPhone hacker MuscleNerd and Kirrly “Skud” Robert, a former Google employee. Robert was quick to create a Suspended Google+ Accounts database, inviting banned members to share the who, what and why relating to their banishment – thus increasing the outrage.

Step 3: Record the multitude of reactions by said offended Compounding the controversy has been the the usual mish-mash of digital action that accompanies this sort of thing: Tweets with the hashtag #GoogleFail and blog posts vowing to radical actions such as a desire to “disconnect permanently” from Google+ services.

Step 4: Note that a high profile tech blogger has taken Google to task on his (or her) Google+ profile Meanwhile Robert Scoble, author of the Scobleizer blog, and a budding Google+ powerhouse whose presence appears in over 92 thousand Google+ member circles, reported yesterday that he had talked with Google+ director Vic Gundotra about the issue. Scoble writes that Gundotra told him that the issue is not with legal names, but about “removing people who spell their names in weird ways, like using upside-down characters, or who are using obviously fake names, like ‘god’ or worse.”

Step 5: Include admission that Google+ is not infallible Scoble says that Gundotra admitted to making some mistakes and “they are still learning.”

Step 6: Facebook does it too Any discussion of Google + would be incomplete without a Facebook comparison. For the record, Facebook also requires users to sign in with their real names.

Step 7: Explain that part of the problem may be in how Google communicated and executed plan A Google spokesperson told Digits that profiles are used to “find real people in the real world” and pointed to a Google + page entitled ‘Your name and Google Profiles.’ The page asks that members “use the name that you commonly go by in daily life.”

This answer has not been enough for some. Wagner James Au, a reporter for the virtual world Second Life noted that there are some people for whom a pseudonym really is what they go by in ‘daily life.’  Others noted that targets of stalking, for example, may also want to use a pseudonym. Nor would dissidents in countries in the Middle East.

Exceptions aside, what really irked critics was the random nature of enforcement—actions that mirrored last week’s business profile controversy. Just like last week’s purge, some profiles were bumped while others remained for all to view (and quietly steam over).

Such random deletions have exposed Google to be at best, clumsy, and at worst, a little creepy.

Google told Digits that violation of its real name policy only resulted in the suspension of the Google+ profile. Access to Gmail and other Google products were left untouched.

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Originally posted at News – Digital Media

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OK, maybe I’m exaggerating a little about hitting the 5,000-user limit – but you’ll definitely find some new people to follow on these sites, especially if you’re interested in technology.

With Circles, You Can Follow More People!

From the comments I’ve read on Google Plus, many of you out there are still using Google’s new social network a lot like Facebook when it comes to how many friends you add…err…”encircle.”

In fact, one particularly controversial thread started this weekend by Digg founder Kevin Rose called out über-power user Robert Scoble for “using the Internet wrong.” Scoble was complaining about the noise on Google Plus, which struck Rose as ridiculous, given that Scoble follows 5,000 people.

While personally, I think everyone should feel free to use social networks as they see fit, if anyone was really missing the boat regarding Google Plus’ potential, it was Rose, not Scoble. Although Scoble’s stress-testing often does hit levels “regular” users will never reach, on Google Plus, 5,000 people is not an inconceivable limit.

Here’s why:

Google Plus is the first social network that actually encourages users to follow more people, not fewer.

On sites like Facebook and Twitter, adding too many friends turns your streams into a mess. Add real-time updating, and it’s impossible to even read the content as it zips by. There are workarounds for this problem – Facebook lists and groups, or Twitter lists, for example, but none are as elegant a solution as Google Plus’s Circles.

The “Other” Dunbar Number

Until now, typical social network user behavior was that, instead of over-subscribing, you would limit your friending activities to match your cognitive limits. In many cases, people max out at “Dunbar’s number,” or 150. According to Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at the University of Oxford, human beings can hold only about 150 meaningful relationships in their heads.

But here’s a side note to that oft-quoted research – Dunbar also said that human beings have the ability to recognize about 1,500 people. So why shouldn’t there be networks that tap into our ability to function in a wider community filled with familiar faces?

Hello, Google Plus.

Circle Suggestion Sites

As soon as Google Plus launched, Circle suggestion ideas popped up all across the network, as well as in the occasional blog post – like this one with a suggested Photographers Circle. Now we’re starting to see more formal efforts appearing. Although reaching the 5,000-person limit may be difficult for the average user, there are several new sites that may help get the creative juices following.

For example, I’ve been enjoying Share This Circle, a site that offers everything from niche Circles like “Italians abroad” to more mainstream fare like “Authors” or “Celebrities.” In most cases, the Circles were curated externally, by individuals or other media outlets, but have been centralized here for easy access.

Another new site, RecommendedUsers.com, groups techies into Circles like “Podcasters” and “Bloggers.” However, the categories on this site have too much overlap in some cases. We wonder why some bloggers are listed as “authors,” while others are “journalists” and others still are just “bloggers?”  It’s a little confusing. The site’s owner Alireza Yavari says that he’s updating the lists soon based on feedback, so hopefully they will be cleaned up a bit.

And even more lists are coming, too, thanks to crowdsourcing. (You can see all the new categories in the dropdown list on the suggestions page.)

If you have time to kill, it’s fun to dig around in these pre-made groups to see if there are people you missed, or Circle ideas you want to duplicate on your own.

Do you have any great Circle ideas? Let us know in the comments!

Discuss

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Of course, it is. But it’s also Twitter without the 140 character limit, Facebook without the unseen authority algorithm, and the Gillmor Gang without a human director (Hangouts). @kevinmarks says it a little differently, seeing G+ growth gaining on Club Penguin. And that’s the fundamental reason Google has a winner, by underlining the best parts of each of these services and floating all boats on a rising tide.

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Of course, it is. But it’s also Twitter without the 140 character limit, Facebook without the unseen authority algorithm, and the Gillmor Gang without a human director (Hangouts). @kevinmarks says it a little differently, seeing G+ growth gaining on Club Penguin. And that’s the fundamental reason Google has a winner, by underlining the best parts of each of these services and floating all boats on a rising tide.

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I downloaded the buggy version and found many of the same issues Robert Scoble complained about (it crashed, kept logging me out, froze, etc). After downloading the update, I couldn’t sign in until I powered down my iPhone and started again. But now the app is much more stable and I can actually try it out.

The iPhone app is designed to let you see your Google+ stream, photos, Circles, and Huddle with other G+ mobile friends and followers.  The stream still seem a little bit slow to load, but that may be because I have a pretty full stream already. You can swipe between your Circles, Incoming (posts from people who follow you but you don’t yet follow), and Nearby. You can geotag posts, which is great. A big feature that is missing is that you can’t share posts in your stream. Soni says that is coming for both Android and iPhone. All you can do right now from mobile is comment on posts or +1 a post.

The Photos feature lets you see just the photos in your stream and upload photos from your phone. This feature is key for mobile, but it doesn’t automatically sync all photos on your phone to Google+ in the same way that the Android app does (and iPhoto will once iCloud launches).

The other key feature is Huddle. Like the Android app, it lets you “Huddle” with other people on G+ mobile.  A Huddle is a single or group text chat. Anyone can request to Huddle with you as long as you both have mobile G+ apps. My first Huddle was with Brad Howell, someone I ran Cross Country with in high school who saw me playing with the app. It wasn’t Scoble or even MG. To me that is a good sign. Howell says, “I hope G+ will take off to the point that I can get rid of my Facebook acct.”

Once you are in a Huddle, you get new messages as notifications if the app is closed. But otherwise, you don’t get notifications of Huddle requests until you launch the app. That seems like a bug. The notification counter, however, does register every time someone adds you to a Circle, which can become noise for some users.

Despite the false start, Google picked itself up quickly. The mobile app is an improvement over the browser-only mobile Web app, which is pretty solid in its own right. My biggest issue with it right now is that my stream still tends to choke up and freeze, although not as terribly as at first. I’m sure the speed freaks at Google will keep improving the performance.

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I downloaded the buggy version and found many of the same issues Robert Scoble complained about (it crashed, kept logging me out, froze, etc). After downloading the update, I couldn’t sign in until I powered down my iPhone and started again. But now the app is much more stable and I can actually try it out.

The iPhone app is designed to let you see your Google+ stream, photos, Circles, and Huddle with other G+ mobile friends and followers.  The stream still seem a little bit slow to load, but that may be because I have a pretty full stream already. You can swipe between your Circles, Incoming (posts from people who follow you but you don’t yet follow), and Nearby. You can geotag posts, which is great. A big feature that is missing is that you can’t share posts in your stream. Soni says that is coming for both Android and iPhone. All you can do right now from mobile is comment on posts or +1 a post.

The Photos feature lets you see just the photos in your stream and upload photos from your phone. This feature is key for mobile, but it doesn’t automatically sync all photos on your phone to Google+ in the same way that the Android app does (and iPhoto will once iCloud launches).

The other key feature is Huddle. Like the Android app, it lets you “Huddle” with other people on G+ mobile.  A Huddle is a single or group text chat. Anyone can request to Huddle with you as long as you both have mobile G+ apps. My first Huddle was with Brad Howell, someone I ran Cross Country with in high school who saw me playing with the app. It wasn’t Scoble or even MG. To me that is a good sign. Howell says, “I hope G+ will take off to the point that I can get rid of my Facebook acct.”

Once you are in a Huddle, you get new messages as notifications if the app is closed. But otherwise, you don’t get notifications of Huddle requests until you launch the app. That seems like a bug. The notification counter, however, does register every time someone adds you to a Circle, which can become noise for some users.

Despite the false start, Google picked itself up quickly. The mobile app is an improvement over the browser-only mobile Web app, which is pretty solid in its own right. My biggest issue with it right now is that my stream still tends to choke up and freeze, although not as terribly as at first. I’m sure the speed freaks at Google will keep improving the performance.

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I’m as guilty of this as anyone. When I constantly bitch that my Gmail account is SO DAMN SLOW, I forget that I also have a full 20 GB of email — something which Google PR always kindly reminds me is not normal. (And I came up with my own solution — quitting email entirely.) Robert Scoble is perhaps the consummate power user. Every time a new service launches, he quickly friends or follows as many people as he can, testing the limits. Then he inevitably bitches when limits are hit, or the service doesn’t work well with that many connections. Because, you know, most people don’t have 30,000 friends. (Nor does Scoble — but that’s another matter.)

Anyway, Scoble is the king of power using a product to its breaking point and then complaining about it. One recent example: Scoble complaining that Quora isn’t really any good as a blogging platform — a straw man argument that he himself set up, no less. This weekend, he was back at it. And the victim of his rage this time was a familiar one: Twitter.

In a post entitled, “Google+ has made Twitter boring, here’s what Twitter should do about that“, Scoble goes on a long-ish rant about what features Twitter needs to add immediately to compete with the just-launched Google+. Missing in this rant is one very critical thing: introspection. Scoble fails to recognize that he is a power user to the Nth degree.

Put more bluntly: if Twitter is batshit crazy enough to implement even half of the things that Scoble lays out, they will effectively kill their own product.

Of course, we can rest-assured knowing that Twitter is very likely not this foolish. After being in business for a full five years, they must know by now that their strength is not to mimic every just-launched and hot-right-now new social network (in this case, Google+). Their strength is to remain true to what got them to where they are now: simplicity.

That’s not to say Twitter should not add new functionality or improve upon their service. Of course they should. But if they added some of the things Scoble suggests like adding Twylah information (really?), removing the pushing of links from other services, and re-creating Google+ Circles for Twitter, a product that many people already don’t use after signing up would become completely unusable for most people.

Twitter is not Google+. Nor does it need to be. If they tried to make it into Google+ on the fly, the millions of current users would rightfully throw a shit-fit. I have a feeling that Scoble would too.

In a guest post this weekend, Tom Anderson (more affectionately known as “MySpace Tom”) made the key point that many people often overlook — most services aren’t killed by competitors, they kill themselves. Facebook didn’t kill MySpace, MySpace killed itself (through mismanagement). MySpace didn’t kill Friendster, Friendster killed itself (through scaling issues).

The truth is that Twitter almost did kill itself a few years ago also due to scaling issues. But for whatever reason, none of their competitors were able to capitalize and Twitter emerged, stronger.

But Twitter trying to become Google+ would lead to their death. It would be them killing themselves. And while you could argue that them doing nothing in the face of Google+ could also lead to them killing themselves, I think that’s way too early to call. And it assumes Twitter is not doing anything to improve their product — which is ridiculous.

Let’s look at Scoble’s ideas, step by step.

“First Experience”

Scoble says that when a user first looks at Google+ versus Twitter, Twitter seems boring. That might be true for some, but the opposite is true for others. I’ve talked to many people who take one look at Google+ and think it looks like a nightmare of content.

He’s right in that Twitter needs to do something more to get users engaged when they first sign up. But they know this. It’s probably their biggest problem (well, perhaps beyond monetization). The solution is not to fundamentally change your product though.

Implementing Twylah would be way too confusing for most users and unnecessary. Revamping Twitter Lists would also not work for most users (more on that in a bit). Getting rid of spam is constantly a problem, there’s no arguing there. Scoble suggests they filter results by Klout score, I suspect Twitter will eventually do something like this (though I think they have their own internal scores of that nature).

“Pictures & Videos”

Um, Twitter did just launch a major entry in the photos space. If it’s deemed important enough, I’m sure the same will be true of videos. Scoble seems upset that images and videos aren’t shown inline in your Tweet stream (instead, they’re one click away in the right column on twitter.com). Again, I suspect that there are at least as many people who would hate that feature, as would like it.

Twitter’s current scan-ability (the ability to quickly scan over content) is great because it’s streamlined. Google+, by comparison, is horrible. This was effectively illustrated by Mike Monteiro a few weeks ago.

This is a preference. And maybe Twitter will offer this option eventually. But by default, this would make a lot of current users want to vomit. Like me, for example.

“Controls Over Content Distribution”

What Scoble wants here is the equivalent of Google+ Circles. He wants to be able to message just a few Twitter users at a time, and groups of them. But this is not what Twitter is about. Twitter (for the most part) is a public broadcast system. This has served them well — while others, like Facebook, have moved more in this direction.

Google+ is taking a different approach with Circles (though it still has a Public channel which basically everyone I know seems to be using). Scoble wants Twitter to revamp the little-used Lists product to be more like Circles. But I’d argue that would not work. I’m still not sold that the Circles concept will work the way Google hopes it does long term. Right now, people are enjoying the ease of setting up these groups, but maintaining them will be hard.

Further, as Twitter’s own Kevin Cheng argued this weekend on his personal blog (and well before Scoble’s post), it’s not clear that organizing your friends in a digital way will ever fully work. Social groups often have too much of a gray line (which Cheng calls a “soft line”). Fred Wilson takes this a step further, saying that beyond family and co-workers, which are well-defined groups, all groups change over time, and without automation far beyond what we see now, grouping largely will not work.

Google may have solved the “no one wants to make lists” problem, but it very much remains to be seen if they’ve solved the larger fundamental issue. I’m skeptical. And while I love Twitter lists (for populating Flipboard, in particular), I know that most users simply do not take the time to make them. Nor am I sure they ever would/should, even if the right interface is there.

This. Is. A. Pure. Power. User. Problem. — At least for Twitter.

“No Auto-Pushing Of Content”

Scoble is following 32,297 people on Twitter. That’s 31,600 more people than me, and I’m also a power user. When he complains that “I look at Twitter and a lot of it has turned into a boring RSS feed,” why doesn’t he, you know, unfollow a few hundred of those accounts that are just pumping in RSS content — like the TechCrunch account, for example? Because that would be an easy solution, and he doesn’t think he should have to change his completely outrageous use-cases.

The fact is that many people use Twitter for just this purpose. I increasingly use Twitter to replace my RSS reader, for example. If I don’t want to see content pushed in, I unfollow that account. Simple.

Further, the thought that if Google+ continues to gain popularity, the same users won’t happen is laughable. Several of our competitors are already blanketing G+ with auto-pushed links. We haven’t been doing that yet just because Google keeps saying they’d prefer we wait until they have their proper business accounts set up (any day now, Google). This is going to happen. A lot. Welcome to the world of distribution tools.

“You Can See Who You Excited And Who You Pissed Off”

Okay, I don’t even know where to start here, so I’ll keep it short and sweet. This is mainly about ego, but it’s also another power user feature that would just piss off a bunch of regular users.

“The Posts Autoflow”

Scoble, you use a Mac, download Twitter for Mac. Boom. Done.

Seriously though, Twitter used to have this as a feature back in the day. They turned it off as scaling became an issue. They certainly could turn it on again, but they’ve deliberately made the call not to. Certainly, they have a reason for this. They also just bought TweetDeck, which also does this. So maybe they view it (like TweetDeck itself) as, surprise, surprise, a power user feature.

Also, while Google+ does auto-flow, I find the functionality to be extremely buggy right now. Sometimes my stream auto-updates, sometimes it does not. Often, I have to refresh to see the latest comments, +1s, etc. This actually pisses me off more than I find it useful. I’m sure Google will figure it out — FriendFeed had this nailed back in the day.

Twitter Is Not Google+

Let me just wrap this up by stating the obvious: Twitter is not Google+. If it tried to be, it would be the suicide of a massively popular product — one the freaking President of the United States uses — one Apple just handed the keys of iOS to. In my opinion, Twitter’s rise can be directly attributable to something which is the opposite of everything Scoble is asking for: simplicity.

Twitter’s core concept is the extension of simple, short messages throughout the past many decades. The postcard begat the SMS message begat the IM status message begat Twitter. Sometimes the simplest ideas resonate because of the very fact that they are simple.

Twitter has had a few moments in their history where they had to add a feature that would make the service more complicated — like the new-style retweets, for example — and they were able to pull it off, but it was a rough-going transition for a bit. Imagine if they tried to tack-on some of these other things Scoble is suggesting? Actually, don’t bother. Because Twitter is not going to commit suicide any time soon.

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Already using Google+? Follow Mashable News for the latest about the platform’s new features, tips and tricks as well as our top social media and technology updates.

The Social Analyst is a column by Mashable Editor-at-Large Ben Parr, where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space. You can follow the author on Twitter and Google+.

Give credit to Google: Its strategic and orchestrated launch of Google+ has been nearly flawless.

Early reviews were positive but reserved, thanks to Google’s failure with Google Buzz. Like clockwork though, technology celebrities like Robert Scoble and Kevin Rose starting flooding Google’s social network and singing its praises. Taking a cue from Gmail, Google released invites in small bursts, sparking a clamor for invites across the web.

The result of Google’s carefully planned campaign is an estimated user base of 10 million in just two weeks. More importantly, engagement on Google+ is extremely high, with many reporting they get more responses on Google+ than they do on Twitter or Facebook. It’s clear that Google+ has momentum.

That’s nice, but the momentum is starting to blind Google+ users and the press to reality. Here’s the truth: Google+ is dominated almost entirely by early adopters. And early adopters, while important, are not great predictors of the success of a social network.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane and revisit some social media services that have been embraced by early adopters. What has happened to them and what it might mean for the future of Google+?

The Technology Adoption Lifecycle

Image courtesy of Wikipedia, Natebailey

Many of you have probably heard of the technology adoption lifecycle and Rogers’ bell curve. It is a sociological model developed in the 1950s to predict the normal distribution of technology adoption. Innovators and early adopters make up the first 16% of any given population that accepts a new technology. They are more risk-oriented, tend to be community leaders and aren’t afraid to try new things. However, that still leaves 84% of the population to adopt a new technology.

Let’s put these percentages in the context of Facebook and Google+. Zuckerberg said last week that he believes Facebook has hit critical mass. He also announced that Facebook has 750 million users. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that’s the potential market for the adoption of a social media service. If we do the math, that means that the first 120 million users are early adopters for social networking. That’s a long way from the current 10 million.

Whether you agree with my math or not, it’s clear that Google+ is dominated by an early-adopter crowd. Only early-adopter crowds could make Robert Scoble, Leo Laporte and Kevin Rose among the top ten most popular users on Google+. I even have a term for this phenomenon: The Robert Scoble Effect.

A History of Early Adoption

There’s nothing wrong with early adopters — you need them to test and evangelize your products. Every product starts with early adopters, though some start with a different crowd than others (remember, Facebook started out as a social network for college students).

However, early adopters shouldn’t be used as an indication that a technology product is destined for success. Let’s look at what has happened to a couple of technology products that either are or were once hot with the early adopter community:

FriendFeed: In 2008 and 2009, FriendFeed was all the rage. Its real-time stream and long comment threads were the precursors to the technology now standard on Facebook and Google+. The tech press wrote about it constantly, predicting that it would beat out the competition.

FriendFeed gained a cult-like following, but it never broke out into the mainstream. In 2009, Facebook acquired FriendFeed for $50 million. It was a nice exit, but with companies like Groupon and Zynga filing for IPOs that could be worth more than $20 billion, FriendFeed never turned early adopters into a mainstream audience.

Quora: At the end of last year, nobody could shut up about Quora, the social Q&A startup co-founded by former Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo. It was in the middle of a perfect storm.

Since then, discussion of Quora has dropped off tremendously, and so has usage of the Q&A site. Follower growth has stalled since May. It also suffers from the Robert Scoble Effect, as the technology enthusiast is still Quora’s most followed user.

Let’s be clear: it’s still too early to make a final judgment on Quora, but the Q&A site is a good example of the fickleness of early adopters.

Twitter: On the other hand, Twitter is a good example of how an early adopter product can go mainstream. Twitter was dominated by early adopters for the longest time. It wasn’t until Ashton Kutcher, Oprah and Shaq joined that the social media service’s growth shot to the moon.

Now Twitter users generate more than 200 million tweets per day, and its most popular users aren’t Robert Scoble or Kevin Rose: it’s Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Barack Obama.

Buzz: Let’s not forget that Google launched a social product last year, one that received a ton of accolades. We all know how that turned out.

Image courtesy A. Stiffler

Google+ Hasn’t Truly Been Tested

Let’s be clear: We’re not trying to predict the future of Google+ after just two weeks of use. Overall, we like Google+ and think it brings some new ideas to the table. In fact, we’ve been surprised by the engagement we’ve received on Google+ thus far.

Still, all of this can be attributed to the early adopter effect. Is your mom using Google+? Is your sister using Google+? Have your friends in finance or medicine joined the Google+ revolution yet? We bet the answer is a resounding “no” in the vast majority of cases. At least your grandma has heard of Facebook.

So while Google+ may be riding a tidal wave of momentum at the moment, it’s still a toy of the early adopter. And until it can prove that it has a place in a world dominated by more mainstream networks, we suggest not abandoning your Facebook profile just yet.

The Google+ project: A quick look

Google provides an overview of the entire Google+ project.

The Google+ project: Explore Circles

Google+ Circles is Google’s take on the friend list or the Twitter list.

The Google+ project: Explore Settings

In this video, Google explores the different settings available on Google+.

The Google+ project: Explore Mobile

Google+ will launch with an Android app. In this video, Google explores the app’s features.

The Google+ project: Explore Hangouts

Google+ comes with a group video chat feature called Hangouts. This video explains how it works.

The Google+ project: Explore Sparks

In an attempt to get users to share more content, Google+ includes a feature called Sparks. It provides recommended content based on keywords or topics.

The Google+ project: Circles

In this video, Google talks about the impact of friends and social groups.

The Google+ project: Hangouts

Google talks about spontaneous hangouts in this video.

The Google+ project: Huddle

Google introduces Huddle, the company’s group-texting feature.

The Google+ project: Instant Upload

Google+ for mobile includes an instant upload feature for photos and videos. They’re uploaded to a private album where they can then be shared from the desktop.

The Google+ project: Sparks

Google talks about exploring interests through Sparks in this video.

More About: Column, facebook, Google, Google Plus, social network, social networking, The Social Analyst, trending, twitter

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Go to Source

Already using Google+? Follow Mashable News for the latest about the platform’s new features, tips and tricks as well as our top social media and technology updates.

The Social Analyst is a column by Mashable Editor-at-Large Ben Parr, where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space. You can follow the author on Twitter and Google+.

Give credit to Google: Its strategic and orchestrated launch of Google+ has been nearly flawless.

Early reviews were positive but reserved, thanks to Google’s failure with Google Buzz. Like clockwork though, technology celebrities like Robert Scoble and Kevin Rose starting flooding Google’s social network and singing its praises. Taking a cue from Gmail, Google released invites in small bursts, sparking a clamor for invites across the web.

The result of Google’s carefully planned campaign is an estimated user base of 10 million in just two weeks. More importantly, engagement on Google+ is extremely high, with many reporting they get more responses on Google+ than they do on Twitter or Facebook. It’s clear that Google+ has momentum.

That’s nice, but the momentum is starting to blind Google+ users and the press to reality. Here’s the truth: Google+ is dominated almost entirely by early adopters. And early adopters, while important, are not great predictors of the success of a social network.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane and revisit some social media services that have been embraced by early adopters. What has happened to them and what it might mean for the future of Google+?

The Technology Adoption Lifecycle

Image courtesy of Wikipedia, Natebailey

Many of you have probably heard of the technology adoption lifecycle and Rogers’ bell curve. It is a sociological model developed in the 1950s to predict the normal distribution of technology adoption. Innovators and early adopters make up the first 16% of any given population that accepts a new technology. They are more risk-oriented, tend to be community leaders and aren’t afraid to try new things. However, that still leaves 84% of the population to adopt a new technology.

Let’s put these percentages in the context of Facebook and Google+. Zuckerberg said last week that he believes Facebook has hit critical mass. He also announced that Facebook has 750 million users. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that’s the potential market for the adoption of a social media service. If we do the math, that means that the first 120 million users are early adopters for social networking. That’s a long way from the current 10 million.

Whether you agree with my math or not, it’s clear that Google+ is dominated by an early-adopter crowd. Only early-adopter crowds could make Robert Scoble, Leo Laporte and Kevin Rose among the top ten most popular users on Google+. I even have a term for this phenomenon: The Robert Scoble Effect.

A History of Early Adoption

There’s nothing wrong with early adopters — you need them to test and evangelize your products. Every product starts with early adopters, though some start with a different crowd than others (remember, Facebook started out as a social network for college students).

However, early adopters shouldn’t be used as an indication that a technology product is destined for success. Let’s look at what has happened to a couple of technology products that either are or were once hot with the early adopter community:

FriendFeed: In 2008 and 2009, FriendFeed was all the rage. Its real-time stream and long comment threads were the precursors to the technology now standard on Facebook and Google+. The tech press wrote about it constantly, predicting that it would beat out the competition.

FriendFeed gained a cult-like following, but it never broke out into the mainstream. In 2009, Facebook acquired FriendFeed for $50 million. It was a nice exit, but with companies like Groupon and Zynga filing for IPOs that could be worth more than $20 billion, FriendFeed never turned early adopters into a mainstream audience.

Quora: At the end of last year, nobody could shut up about Quora, the social Q&A startup co-founded by former Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo. It was in the middle of a perfect storm.

Since then, discussion of Quora has dropped off tremendously, and so has usage of the Q&A site. Follower growth has stalled since May. It also suffers from the Robert Scoble Effect, as the technology enthusiast is still Quora’s most followed user.

Let’s be clear: it’s still too early to make a final judgment on Quora, but the Q&A site is a good example of the fickleness of early adopters.

Twitter: On the other hand, Twitter is a good example of how an early adopter product can go mainstream. Twitter was dominated by early adopters for the longest time. It wasn’t until Ashton Kutcher, Oprah and Shaq joined that the social media service’s growth shot to the moon.

Now Twitter users generate more than 200 million tweets per day, and its most popular users aren’t Robert Scoble or Kevin Rose: it’s Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Barack Obama.

Buzz: Let’s not forget that Google launched a social product last year, one that received a ton of accolades. We all know how that turned out.

Image courtesy A. Stiffler

Google+ Hasn’t Truly Been Tested

Let’s be clear: We’re not trying to predict the future of Google+ after just two weeks of use. Overall, we like Google+ and think it brings some new ideas to the table. In fact, we’ve been surprised by the engagement we’ve received on Google+ thus far.

Still, all of this can be attributed to the early adopter effect. Is your mom using Google+? Is your sister using Google+? Have your friends in finance or medicine joined the Google+ revolution yet? We bet the answer is a resounding “no” in the vast majority of cases. At least your grandma has heard of Facebook.

So while Google+ may be riding a tidal wave of momentum at the moment, it’s still a toy of the early adopter. And until it can prove that it has a place in a world dominated by more mainstream networks, we suggest not abandoning your Facebook profile just yet.

The Google+ project: A quick look

Google provides an overview of the entire Google+ project.

The Google+ project: Explore Circles

Google+ Circles is Google’s take on the friend list or the Twitter list.

The Google+ project: Explore Settings

In this video, Google explores the different settings available on Google+.

The Google+ project: Explore Mobile

Google+ will launch with an Android app. In this video, Google explores the app’s features.

The Google+ project: Explore Hangouts

Google+ comes with a group video chat feature called Hangouts. This video explains how it works.

The Google+ project: Explore Sparks

In an attempt to get users to share more content, Google+ includes a feature called Sparks. It provides recommended content based on keywords or topics.

The Google+ project: Circles

In this video, Google talks about the impact of friends and social groups.

The Google+ project: Hangouts

Google talks about spontaneous hangouts in this video.

The Google+ project: Huddle

Google introduces Huddle, the company’s group-texting feature.

The Google+ project: Instant Upload

Google+ for mobile includes an instant upload feature for photos and videos. They’re uploaded to a private album where they can then be shared from the desktop.

The Google+ project: Sparks

Google talks about exploring interests through Sparks in this video.

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Google + should buy Twitter, suggested @arrington from his retirement center in the Pacific NorthWest. Having immediately shut down its live stream to Google the day after Plus went public, it seems unlikely Jack and Dick (and Ev and Alice for that matter) are any closer to selling. As the ghost of Walter Cronkite peered down from the “permanent” CBS News bunker, CBSNewsOnline editor in chief @dbfarber schooled @arrington on the news of the day. We all got a little older. And that’s the way it was.

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Editor’s note: Guest writer Rocky Agrawal  blogs at reDesign and Tweets @rakeshlobster.

I finally blocked Robert Scoble in Google+. I have absolutely nothing against Scoble. I quite admire him, actually. He’s a great asset to the startup scene and he works damn hard. I’ve met him a few times and I’m sure we’ll meet again. But he was just getting to be way too much.

My Google+ feed was dominated by him. I tried to take a half-step and just remove Scoble from my circles. But then he became Google’s perpetual #1 suggestion for a new friend.

I’ve seen the Scoble effect elsewhere. When Scoble joined Quora a while back, his entry caused a sudden shift in Quora behavior. His legions of followers followed him onto Quora and upvoted his answers to the detriment of others. (Often, it seemed, without even reading the answer.) Quora regulars retaliated by downvoting his answers, even when they were good answers.

This is an ongoing problem with new social networks. Silicon Valley celebrities dominate the conversation. A close friend is on the Google+ top 100 list; I can’t comment on one of his posts without keeping my notification indicator lit for days at a time as his large following continually responds to the post.

While this may create a great experience for popular people in Silicon Valley and even for readers in Silicon Valley, it’s not the way to build a mass-market social network.

Although I like a lot of the content I currently see on Google+, it has limited appeal. It also has a dangerous priming effect as new entrants either look at the conversations and mimic them or decide that this isn’t their scene. It’s like peeking into a party and realizing that the people who are inside are nothing like you.

I’ve seen this happen time and time again with hyped properties like digg, delicious, FriendFeed, Wave, buzz and now Google+.

I wasn’t on Facebook in its very, very early days. But I would be willing to bet the conversation was not primarily about tech companies and the lives of tech executives. It was more likely about hot people on campus, Cambridge bars and restaurants, terrible professors, crappy weather, the success of the crew team and who hooked up with whom.

One of my early experiences with what drives social behavior online was when I was working at AOL. A portion of our team had gone to Dublin to meet with our dev team. One night we were out and my boss chugged a Guinness. I took a video of that and posted it to the failed AOL UnCut video site. I IMed the link to a friend. Within an hour, pretty much every one on our team around the world had seen it.

That type of content is a shit-ton more interesting to most people (me included) than discussions on whether Google+ should resurface a post every time someone comments or whether clicking a +1 button on a Web site has an effect on Google+.

Paradoxically, the extent to which the constraints of Twitter stifle conversation helped its growth. Because real conversation is hard using Twitter (vs. just tweeting out your own story) there isn’t the expectation that people will engage with you in it. Because tweets disappear as the firehose continues to gush, it’s easier to ignore them. I know—I’ve done it.

This appeals to a lot of the people that have popularized Twitter: A-list celebrities, media outlets, politicians and megabrands. Their primary purpose on Twitter is to relate their version of events. It isn’t about conversing with their audience. CNN doesn’t really want to talk to you. They want to talk at you. This isn’t entirely about lack of desire, it’s also a matter of time. Ashton Kutcher can’t possibly respond to every @aplusk from his 7 million+ followers.

You only need to look at recent changes in Quora to see this dynamic in action. Three key elements of Quora were the ability to comment on answers, to ask questions directly of people and to message them through Quora. I’ve built a number of great friendships through Quora’s behind-the-scenes interactions.

But Quora recently gave users the power to block all of these features. This is essential to attracting celebrities to the platform. Larry Summers and JJ Abrams blocked these features. Former D.C. schools chancellor and education reform activist Michelle Rhee recently joined Quora. I would love to engage with her on education reform (a topic I’m passionate about), but she blocked these features as well.  Kutcher is one Quora celebrity who has left his account open to user interaction. (I’m not a celebrity, so feel free to ask me a question.)

The current Google+ interface would be less appealing to celebrities, because the interface is designed to invite conversation and engagement.

For Web celebrities, this kind of conversation and engagement is great. Joshua Schachter recently tweeted that he got “30 responses on twitter w/ 14000 followers, 42 on plus w/ 1500 followers.” That doesn’t surprise me at all—it’s a natural result of Google’s user interface decisions. Google+ continually resurfaces threads that get comments; Tweets keep sinking as time goes on.

How Google responds to the Scoble challenge will be interesting. Robert, I’m sorry I had to block you. But when you get back from Florida, I’d love to buy you a drink.

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Editor’s note: Guest writer Rocky Agrawal  blogs at reDesign and Tweets @rakeshlobster.

I finally blocked Robert Scoble in Google+. I have absolutely nothing against Scoble. I quite admire him, actually. He’s a great asset to the startup scene and he works damn hard. I’ve met him a few times and I’m sure we’ll meet again. But he was just getting to be way too much.

My Google+ feed was dominated by him. I tried to take a half-step and just remove Scoble from my circles. But then he became Google’s perpetual #1 suggestion for a new friend.

I’ve seen the Scoble effect elsewhere. When Scoble joined Quora a while back, his entry caused a sudden shift in Quora behavior. His legions of followers followed him onto Quora and upvoted his answers to the detriment of others. (Often, it seemed, without even reading the answer.) Quora regulars retaliated by downvoting his answers, even when they were good answers.

This is an ongoing problem with new social networks. Silicon Valley celebrities dominate the conversation. A close friend is on the Google+ top 100 list; I can’t comment on one of his posts without keeping my notification indicator lit for days at a time as his large following continually responds to the post.

While this may create a great experience for popular people in Silicon Valley and even for readers in Silicon Valley, it’s not the way to build a mass-market social network.

Although I like a lot of the content I currently see on Google+, it has limited appeal. It also has a dangerous priming effect as new entrants either look at the conversations and mimic them or decide that this isn’t their scene. It’s like peeking into a party and realizing that the people who are inside are nothing like you.

I’ve seen this happen time and time again with hyped properties like digg, delicious, FriendFeed, Wave, buzz and now Google+.

I wasn’t on Facebook in its very, very early days. But I would be willing to bet the conversation was not primarily about tech companies and the lives of tech executives. It was more likely about hot people on campus, Cambridge bars and restaurants, terrible professors, crappy weather, the success of the crew team and who hooked up with whom.

One of my early experiences with what drives social behavior online was when I was working at AOL. A portion of our team had gone to Dublin to meet with our dev team. One night we were out and my boss chugged a Guinness. I took a video of that and posted it to the failed AOL UnCut video site. I IMed the link to a friend. Within an hour, pretty much every one on our team around the world had seen it.

That type of content is a shit-ton more interesting to most people (me included) than discussions on whether Google+ should resurface a post every time someone comments or whether clicking a +1 button on a Web site has an effect on Google+.

Paradoxically, the extent to which the constraints of Twitter stifle conversation helped its growth. Because real conversation is hard using Twitter (vs. just tweeting out your own story) there isn’t the expectation that people will engage with you in it. Because tweets disappear as the firehose continues to gush, it’s easier to ignore them. I know—I’ve done it.

This appeals to a lot of the people that have popularized Twitter: A-list celebrities, media outlets, politicians and megabrands. Their primary purpose on Twitter is to relate their version of events. It isn’t about conversing with their audience. CNN doesn’t really want to talk to you. They want to talk at you. This isn’t entirely about lack of desire, it’s also a matter of time. Ashton Kutcher can’t possibly respond to every @aplusk from his 7 million+ followers.

You only need to look at recent changes in Quora to see this dynamic in action. Three key elements of Quora were the ability to comment on answers, to ask questions directly of people and to message them through Quora. I’ve built a number of great friendships through Quora’s behind-the-scenes interactions.

But Quora recently gave users the power to block all of these features. This is essential to attracting celebrities to the platform. Larry Summers and JJ Abrams blocked these features. Former D.C. schools chancellor and education reform activist Michelle Rhee recently joined Quora. I would love to engage with her on education reform (a topic I’m passionate about), but she blocked these features as well.  Kutcher is one Quora celebrity who has left his account open to user interaction. (I’m not a celebrity, so feel free to ask me a question.)

The current Google+ interface would be less appealing to celebrities, because the interface is designed to invite conversation and engagement.

For Web celebrities, this kind of conversation and engagement is great. Joshua Schachter recently tweeted that he got “30 responses on twitter w/ 14000 followers, 42 on plus w/ 1500 followers.” That doesn’t surprise me at all—it’s a natural result of Google’s user interface decisions. Google+ continually resurfaces threads that get comments; Tweets keep sinking as time goes on.

How Google responds to the Scoble challenge will be interesting. Robert, I’m sorry I had to block you. But when you get back from Florida, I’d love to buy you a drink.

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But as early adopter Alyssa Milano found out, there’s always Twitter. Milano has been tweeting her thoughts about Google Plus (cooler than Facebook, not as cool as Twitter), and even tweeted a direct link to her profile page. That will work for now, but it’s clear that an official process will be needed soon, especially considering the number of “celebrity” accounts we’ve uncovered lately.

Sponsor

No Verification System Yet

Earlier this week, Google Plus ads lead Christian Oestlien replied to my question about whether it was the “real” Alyssa Milano or a clever fake, saying that her account was legit. But when asked what the process was for the confirmation, he replied that there wasn’t one yet.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve run into the problem, despite the social network’s extremely young age. (It’s barely more than a week old!)

For example, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed up, no one knew if that was really him until tech blogger Robert Scoble texted Zuckerberg personally to confirm.

Who’s Really Here?

And now other celebrities are appearing too, including Mark Cuban, Soulja Boy, Michael Dell, Ashton Kutcher, Kayne West and the aforementioned Milano. Then there are the celebs who aren’t participating yet, but show up in search, like Justin Timberlake and Sarah Palin. And there are the ones you just wonder about – like, is that the real Lady Gaga, for example? And if so, why is she only following this guy? Looks suspicious.

And what about Britney Spears? Angelina Jolie? Miley Cyrus? Selena Gomez? Justin Beiber? And, oh c’mon, Harry freakin’ Potter? Well, that one is probably fake. Jesus Christ!

While it’s understandable that a verification system was not at the forefront of Google’s mind when preparing to launch the network, it looks like one is desperately needed now. We want to be able to tell the real stars from the fakes, so we’re not wasting our time. Or even better – maybe there should be a way for the fakes to never exist in the first place.

Have you found any questionable celebs on Google Plus? Let us know in the comments.

Discuss

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A list ranking the top users on Google’s invite-only social sharing platform Google+ turned up some interesting results. Mark Zuckerberg topped the list, but his profile is almost entirely inactive — that is, if the profile is actually his to begin with.

We’ve scoured the profiles, Twitter accounts and blogs of the top Google+ users that aren’t Google employees or Mr. Zuckerberg. You might be surprised to read their thoughts and reviews of the recent social networking phenomenon.

Do you agree with what they have to say, standing atop their invitation-only soapboxes? Let us know in the comments below.

Robert Scoble

Tech blogger Robert Scoble ranks #5 on the most-followed Google+ list. This week he posted a link to Cinch in which he interviews his wife Maryam about her hesitations to join Google+.

She says: “I have only so many minutes during the day, and the minutes that I choose to waste I like to waste on Facebook. Why do I have to go somewhere else, be lonely by myself and waste time when I can be on Facebook like everybody else? … If within a year, I see that a lot of family and friends are there, and they’re doing things I cannot do on Facebook…then I’ll probably get on Google+, but that’s far away from now.”

Robert Scoble himself posted some thoughts to his Google+ profile:

“Google+ sometimes removes me from following someone that I know I already followed. This has happened dozens of times now, so I think it’s a bug but I haven’t figured out a pattern to it.”

“Even with all of its noise, Google+’s feed is 600x more interesting than my Google Buzz feed. Why? No Tweets. All organically added stuff.”

“I’m getting more engagement here than anywhere else.”

“The speed of notifications and new items here doesn’t match Twitter, yet, but blows away Facebook’s speed.”

“The Google+ mobile experience on web is quite nice. I am using Google+ exclusively this weekend on Safari on iPhone. Yes, it is missing lots, like I dont see a way to upload photos. But the UI and your posts are great looking … This week I will be using G+ on Android, which is a lot better.”

Leo Laporte

Twit.tv technology broadcaster and author Leo Laporte reserves precious space on his phone’s home screen for a Google+ widget. Here are some reviews Leo Laporte posted on his Google+ profile:

“Add TWiT (and BBC, Al Jazeera, and more) to your Google+ toolbar. Perfect for people who live in G+. Freaking awesome.”

“It’s really hard to remember that G+ is still in closed beta. I was going to talk about it on KFI this morning, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to sing the praises of something most people can’t access.”

Markus Persson

Markus Persson is the founder and game developer at Mojang, creators of the indie gaming megahit Minecraft.

“Dear Google+, I want to be able to have public circles that people can join. That way, I can post to the “wants to know about Minecraft” circle when I want to talk about Minecraft without having to invite every single fan out there manually.”

“Holy moly, I have like 2200 followers! (but my profile page seems to be stuck at 191).”

Kevin Rose

As the co-founder of Digg and Milk, Kevin Rose isn’t the most active Google+ user yet, but he certainly has an opinion about the service. Here are some of his thoughts we found on Twitter:

“just started using Google+, i get it.. just not sure if I need it..”

“liking Google plus, hoping the Sparks get better / more news integration, those could be powerful”

MG Siegler

The TechCrunch writer shares his reactions to Google+ on both the site itself and his Twitter:

“If only Google+ had search…”

“The Google+ photo uploader is pretty great. Fast.”

“Yep, the G+ realtime comment sections are pretty great.”

“All I know for sure is that Google+ needs to figure out a way not to have comments boost an old story back to the top of the stream. Makes everything feel very stale, even though it makes some sense to do this. FriendFeed battled with this issue as well, but there was more data constantly flowing in due to Twitter imports, etc.”

“Whether or not Google+ succeeds remains to be seen, obviously. But they’re adding a sh*t ton amount of users like I’ve never seen before.”

“Whereas previously 90% of the talk on Google+ was about Google+, now it looks like only 75% or so is. That’s good, but it needs to keep dropping fast.”

Gina Trapani

Coder and blogger Gina Trapani is the most-followed woman on Google+. She shares her thoughts via the site and her blog.

“I’m fine with comments from strangers on public posts (though I’m a blogger first, so very used to that). However, the fact that strangers can start Huddles render that feature useless for me. Otherwise, an interesting take on Google’s social effort from a Facebooker.”

“Is it possible to enjoy the Circles interface TOO much?”

“I’ve been been watching Google flail around social web apps for a few years now, so what I appreciate most about Google+ is that it’s a well-thought out product informed by past experience. The more I use Google+, the more I see just how many lessons Google learned from Wave and Buzz…”

Tom Anderson

Tom Anderson, creator of MySpace, uses his Google+ profile to pose questions about the product. He’s generated thought-provoking discussions about the features of the site and released his own views as well:

“Analyst video about Google+ — suggests Google won’t disrupt FB or Twitter, that the cost to build/retain engineers has been a big hit to Google’s bottom line, and monetization is unclear. Suggests Facebook gets social search … He seems to be missing that Google+ has already integrated +1 and Twitter into search …”

“I’ve also noticed that my own ‘circle’ count is quite different than what I see on my circles page (like it’s showing I’m 3,000 and I actually have 6,000). Guess there’s some lag between counts/dbs.”

“If you’re following a huge user (like MG [Siegler]) and he chooses to upload 500 photos (go MG!) then you’re stream is going to be inundated till the end of time with people commenting on his photos. You can “mute” the sharing of his album, but each photo is its own item, and thus you’d have to mute each photo as it comes up with its first comment, right? Am I missing something here? I know the potential for feed noise is crazy on Google+ right now, but this example seems nuts. It really seems like Google+ will have to provide a “sort by post date,” at the very least.”

“Google+ does seem like it could take a bite out of Twitter – it seems to let you do what Twitter does (but maybe better), and it definitely lets you commmunicate with your followers in a more normal fashion (not stuck with 140 character DMs).”

Jeff Jarvis

CUNY professor and blogger Jeff Jarvis sounded off on Google+ pros and cons on his blog:

“To paraphrase Mark Zuckerberg, it is too soon to know what Google+ is. But I’ve been trying to imagine how it will and won’t be useful to news. You should add rock salt to anything I say, as I thought Google Wave would be an important journalistic tool.”

“Note this good news: Google+ made ‘ranking changes … that demote such comments if the commenter is not in your circles.’ That’s a good start. I still want the option of a feed of only latest posts, regardless of comment timing.”

“RWW looks at how Google+ could be useful in teaching. +Rebecca MacKinnon sees potential. So do I.”

“I REALLY want to be able to embed links in posts here. That alone makes this far inferior to blogs and even Twitter for writing pieces with responsible linking.”

“This whole notion that one can/should be able to “disable reshare” is setting a treacherous precedent for the rest of the web. Will news organizations tell me I can’t share their story? We never had the expectation until G+ gave it to us. Don’t go too far with it, friends.”

Loic Le Meur

Founder of Seesmic and LeWeb conference, Loic Le Meur reviews Google+ on his Twitter account:

“I wish google did circles for just gmail contacts too, I would totally use them, wouldn’t you?”

“Testing the google plus app on samsung tab honeycomb, not optimized but it works”

“What’s my incoming stream? Anyone who added me in a circle? I don’t get it”

“So, if I do a circle “assholes” and add people in them, they won’t even be able to know I tagged them that way? That’s disappointing ”

“Google+ is entirely streaming, no delay, all push, no reloading a page or clicking anywhere, that’s way cool.”

“Google+ might hit Twitter more than Facebook, it’s so clean…”

“okay, I’m more and more impressed by Google+, I think it’s a real competitor to Facebook in the making.”

“One thing that frustrates me with G+ is that I don’t have a stream of every feedback I get: plusses and comments, see all interactions only. Do you not?”

Felicia Day

Actress and gamer Felicia Day uses some humor to review Google+ on the site and her Twitter account:

“Lots of appealing features in Google+. Can’t wait to see what Twitter updates next to counter.”

“WHOAH when can you collapse comments? The train gets crazy-sauce long in the feed!”

“This service is confusing! I’m part of people’s circles but I didn’t agree to be in them, I don’t know who I’m sharing with and how … eeep! Trying to figure out how to use it more like Twitter than involuntary Facebook groups. #1: Email notifications OFF!”

Image courtesy of Flickr, halilgokdal

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• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Social Media channel
• Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Go to Source

A list ranking the top users on Google’s invite-only social sharing platform Google+ turned up some interesting results. Mark Zuckerberg topped the list, but his profile is almost entirely inactive — that is, if the profile is actually his to begin with.

We’ve scoured the profiles, Twitter accounts and blogs of the top Google+ users that aren’t Google employees or Mr. Zuckerberg. You might be surprised to read their thoughts and reviews of the recent social networking phenomenon.

Do you agree with what they have to say, standing atop their invitation-only soapboxes? Let us know in the comments below.

Robert Scoble

Tech blogger Robert Scoble ranks #5 on the most-followed Google+ list. This week he posted a link to Cinch in which he interviews his wife Maryam about her hesitations to join Google+.

She says: “I have only so many minutes during the day, and the minutes that I choose to waste I like to waste on Facebook. Why do I have to go somewhere else, be lonely by myself and waste time when I can be on Facebook like everybody else? … If within a year, I see that a lot of family and friends are there, and they’re doing things I cannot do on Facebook…then I’ll probably get on Google+, but that’s far away from now.”

Robert Scoble himself posted some thoughts to his Google+ profile:

“Google+ sometimes removes me from following someone that I know I already followed. This has happened dozens of times now, so I think it’s a bug but I haven’t figured out a pattern to it.”

“Even with all of its noise, Google+’s feed is 600x more interesting than my Google Buzz feed. Why? No Tweets. All organically added stuff.”

“I’m getting more engagement here than anywhere else.”

“The speed of notifications and new items here doesn’t match Twitter, yet, but blows away Facebook’s speed.”

“The Google+ mobile experience on web is quite nice. I am using Google+ exclusively this weekend on Safari on iPhone. Yes, it is missing lots, like I dont see a way to upload photos. But the UI and your posts are great looking … This week I will be using G+ on Android, which is a lot better.”

Leo Laporte

Twit.tv technology broadcaster and author Leo Laporte reserves precious space on his phone’s home screen for a Google+ widget. Here are some reviews Leo Laporte posted on his Google+ profile:

“Add TWiT (and BBC, Al Jazeera, and more) to your Google+ toolbar. Perfect for people who live in G+. Freaking awesome.”

“It’s really hard to remember that G+ is still in closed beta. I was going to talk about it on KFI this morning, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to sing the praises of something most people can’t access.”

Markus Persson

Markus Persson is the founder and game developer at Mojang, creators of the indie gaming megahit Minecraft.

“Dear Google+, I want to be able to have public circles that people can join. That way, I can post to the “wants to know about Minecraft” circle when I want to talk about Minecraft without having to invite every single fan out there manually.”

“Holy moly, I have like 2200 followers! (but my profile page seems to be stuck at 191).”

Kevin Rose

As the co-founder of Digg and Milk, Kevin Rose isn’t the most active Google+ user yet, but he certainly has an opinion about the service. Here are some of his thoughts we found on Twitter:

“just started using Google+, i get it.. just not sure if I need it..”

“liking Google plus, hoping the Sparks get better / more news integration, those could be powerful”

MG Siegler

The TechCrunch writer shares his reactions to Google+ on both the site itself and his Twitter:

“If only Google+ had search…”

“The Google+ photo uploader is pretty great. Fast.”

“Yep, the G+ realtime comment sections are pretty great.”

“All I know for sure is that Google+ needs to figure out a way not to have comments boost an old story back to the top of the stream. Makes everything feel very stale, even though it makes some sense to do this. FriendFeed battled with this issue as well, but there was more data constantly flowing in due to Twitter imports, etc.”

“Whether or not Google+ succeeds remains to be seen, obviously. But they’re adding a sh*t ton amount of users like I’ve never seen before.”

“Whereas previously 90% of the talk on Google+ was about Google+, now it looks like only 75% or so is. That’s good, but it needs to keep dropping fast.”

Gina Trapani

Coder and blogger Gina Trapani is the most-followed woman on Google+. She shares her thoughts via the site and her blog.

“I’m fine with comments from strangers on public posts (though I’m a blogger first, so very used to that). However, the fact that strangers can start Huddles render that feature useless for me. Otherwise, an interesting take on Google’s social effort from a Facebooker.”

“Is it possible to enjoy the Circles interface TOO much?”

“I’ve been been watching Google flail around social web apps for a few years now, so what I appreciate most about Google+ is that it’s a well-thought out product informed by past experience. The more I use Google+, the more I see just how many lessons Google learned from Wave and Buzz…”

Tom Anderson

Tom Anderson, creator of MySpace, uses his Google+ profile to pose questions about the product. He’s generated thought-provoking discussions about the features of the site and released his own views as well:

“Analyst video about Google+ — suggests Google won’t disrupt FB or Twitter, that the cost to build/retain engineers has been a big hit to Google’s bottom line, and monetization is unclear. Suggests Facebook gets social search … He seems to be missing that Google+ has already integrated +1 and Twitter into search …”

“I’ve also noticed that my own ‘circle’ count is quite different than what I see on my circles page (like it’s showing I’m 3,000 and I actually have 6,000). Guess there’s some lag between counts/dbs.”

“If you’re following a huge user (like MG [Siegler]) and he chooses to upload 500 photos (go MG!) then you’re stream is going to be inundated till the end of time with people commenting on his photos. You can “mute” the sharing of his album, but each photo is its own item, and thus you’d have to mute each photo as it comes up with its first comment, right? Am I missing something here? I know the potential for feed noise is crazy on Google+ right now, but this example seems nuts. It really seems like Google+ will have to provide a “sort by post date,” at the very least.”

“Google+ does seem like it could take a bite out of Twitter – it seems to let you do what Twitter does (but maybe better), and it definitely lets you commmunicate with your followers in a more normal fashion (not stuck with 140 character DMs).”

Jeff Jarvis

CUNY professor and blogger Jeff Jarvis sounded off on Google+ pros and cons on his blog:

“To paraphrase Mark Zuckerberg, it is too soon to know what Google+ is. But I’ve been trying to imagine how it will and won’t be useful to news. You should add rock salt to anything I say, as I thought Google Wave would be an important journalistic tool.”

“Note this good news: Google+ made ‘ranking changes … that demote such comments if the commenter is not in your circles.’ That’s a good start. I still want the option of a feed of only latest posts, regardless of comment timing.”

“RWW looks at how Google+ could be useful in teaching. +Rebecca MacKinnon sees potential. So do I.”

“I REALLY want to be able to embed links in posts here. That alone makes this far inferior to blogs and even Twitter for writing pieces with responsible linking.”

“This whole notion that one can/should be able to “disable reshare” is setting a treacherous precedent for the rest of the web. Will news organizations tell me I can’t share their story? We never had the expectation until G+ gave it to us. Don’t go too far with it, friends.”

Loic Le Meur

Founder of Seesmic and LeWeb conference, Loic Le Meur reviews Google+ on his Twitter account:

“I wish google did circles for just gmail contacts too, I would totally use them, wouldn’t you?”

“Testing the google plus app on samsung tab honeycomb, not optimized but it works”

“What’s my incoming stream? Anyone who added me in a circle? I don’t get it”

“So, if I do a circle “assholes” and add people in them, they won’t even be able to know I tagged them that way? That’s disappointing ”

“Google+ is entirely streaming, no delay, all push, no reloading a page or clicking anywhere, that’s way cool.”

“Google+ might hit Twitter more than Facebook, it’s so clean…”

“okay, I’m more and more impressed by Google+, I think it’s a real competitor to Facebook in the making.”

“One thing that frustrates me with G+ is that I don’t have a stream of every feedback I get: plusses and comments, see all interactions only. Do you not?”

Felicia Day

Actress and gamer Felicia Day uses some humor to review Google+ on the site and her Twitter account:

“Lots of appealing features in Google+. Can’t wait to see what Twitter updates next to counter.”

“WHOAH when can you collapse comments? The train gets crazy-sauce long in the feed!”

“This service is confusing! I’m part of people’s circles but I didn’t agree to be in them, I don’t know who I’m sharing with and how … eeep! Trying to figure out how to use it more like Twitter than involuntary Facebook groups. #1: Email notifications OFF!”

Image courtesy of Flickr, halilgokdal

More About: facebook, Google, Google Plus, reviews, social media, social networking, top 100, twitter, users

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Some Twitter ecosystem partners will likely call this a betrayal of Twitter’s public calls to build analytics services on its platforms, instead of Twitter clients, after Twitter acquired favored client software providers. Personally, I see this as another failure of the social media economy to sustain providers of more than crude self-interested promotion and broadcast.

Sponsor

Last summer, we wrote about a rumored Twitter analytics program we believed was going to be launched soon. It appears that such a product hasn’t made a big splashy launch but is being offered to some degree behind the scenes.

When companies like Twitter or Google talk about publisher analytics, they don’t mean analytics that will help new media publishers more effectively listen to the world around them that they are reporting on. They mean they are providing tools for old-fashioned one-way broadcasters to optimize their message-pushing to get maximum results in a strange, new pseudo-two-way media world.

BackType used to do a lot of different things. Originally the startup provided the ability to track a person’s comments posted on blogs all over the Web. You could enter a website URL and BackType would give you an RSS feed of all the comments posted around the blogosphere that were signed with that URL in the URL field.

It was awesome and a great way to follow what your favorite people were saying in distributed conversations. Here at ReadWriteWeb, we took Robert Scoble’s Twitter List of the Most Influential People in Tech and we scraped all their Twitter bios for homepage URLs. Then we built an OPML file of the RSS feeds from BackType for all the comments those people posted around the internet, with those scraped URLs in the URL field of the comment.

Last spring when the Activity Streams Working Group added a new type of social network update type called Action Streams to its tech spec wiki, group leader Chris Messina posted a comment about it somewhere around the web. I received an SMS notifying me of the comment (as I always do whenever Messina or a handful of other high priority people post a comment on a blog, anywhere) and was able to get a story about the news and its significance up within an hour.

When real-time feed middleware service Superfeedr added support for automatic geolocation text parsing to every feed it delivered content for last Spring, founder Julien Genestoux asked me, “How did you know we had done that?” I later told him late at night at South by Southwest that it was because he had posted a comment on a 2 year old blog post about the Yahoo Placemaker API complaining about the shortage of tech support.

When Mitch Kapor or Bram Cohen posts a comment on someone’s blog, I want to know about it.

I assume this feature will be killed promptly.

Not everyone engages in competitive news blogging and wants every little whisper from a white labeled list of people sent to them in real time, but anyone could benefit from a tool for listening to distributed conversations around the Web. Unfortunately, just as was the case with Google’s recent acquisition of magic listening tool turned publisher analytics provider Postrank, listening to other people as competitive advantage still hasn’t caught on widely enough to be a sustainable business.

The collapse of DIY screen scraping and RSS feed creation tool Dapper into an ad network and then a Yahoo property is another example.

You keep swallowing up the sad shells of formerly great social software startups, though, you big companies and your retrograde, black-hearted, disinterested incumbent customers. You can turn their algorithms and code towards nihilistic optimization for optimization’s sake that yesterday’s media will pay for today – but you can’t take us power users alive.

Some of us will continue loving those startups while they are still on the frontiers: optimistic, lungs full of clean fresh air and interested in what other people have to say – the promise of truly social media.

Maybe someday that model of social software as truly social will become economically sustainable. Or maybe not. In the meantime there will probably remain a fresh supply of beautiful, if short lived, visions for using all these platforms for listening, engaging, amplifying the voices of others and for building value for ourselves through adding value to others. I sure hope so.

Discuss

Go to Source

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg joining Google+ was a major media event, with everyone from Forbes to The Daily Mail covering the fact that the founder established a Google+ profile, building Circles that include former Facebooker Dustin Moskovitz and current Facebook CTO Bret Taylor.

While many were doubtful that the real Zuckerberg would join a competing social service, tech blogger Robert Scoble texted Zuckerberg himself to confirm, tweeting out “Name drop moment. Zuckerberg just texted me back. Says “Why are people so surprised that I’d have a Google account?”

In case anyone is still doubting that it is the real Zuck on there, Scoble tells me that Zuckerberg indeed meant Google+ account when he referred to Google account. But the real question is, why are people so surprised that Zuckerberg would chose to be on Google+?

Perhaps the answer lies in the precedent set by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who seem to have shied away from interacting on Facebook as themselves. (According to Steven Levy, Brin is actually on Facebook as a pseudonym. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is also rumored to be on the service, independently of when Mike impersonated him).

Page’s and Brin’s behavior aside, plenty of other founders (Myspace Tom for example) have shown that it’s perfectly normal to partake and enjoy competitive services, and that it shouldn’t necessarily be considered an act of espionage. I for one just hope Zuckerberg is more prolific on Google+ than he is on Twitter.

Follow @Scobleizer@Scobleizer
Robert Scoble

Name drop moment. Zuckerberg just texted me back. Says "Why are people so surprised that I'd have a Google account?"

July 2, 2011 5:45 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

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For @borthwick, the project is a substantial undertaking for a company we’ve been trivializing in recent months along with its stock price. For @scobleizer, it means the battle between reach and rich, this time in social circles as Google defines graphs. For @kevinmarks, plenty of work ahead but a strong effort. For @stevegillmor, well, you’ll have to watch the show. But a hint: +1s to Twitter, FaceTime, and whoever makes new mistakes fast.

Go to Source

The beauty of Google’s Circles is that it does allow for this sort of public relationship with people in your industry – in my case, fellow tech enthusiasts. But at some point, I’m concerned the “put people into boxes” model may break down. Relationships aren’t binary (friend or not), but they’re also not static (e.g. “Friend A in Circle X”). Relationships change. How will Circles adapt to change with them?

Sponsor

2 Examples of Changing Relationships

Here’s one simple example to illustrate the problem with Circles: you change jobs. Let’s say you go to work for a competitor. Now, everyone in the circle called “Work” need to be put into a circle with less access to your daily thoughts and posts, assuming you were using Google Plus to talk about projects you’re working on or you were talking to others in your same industry. Those conversations may need to remain private.

Even if privacy is not a concern, for organizational purposes alone, the title “Work” is no longer accurate.

Here’s another example: you become friends with someone – real friends, not “Internet friends.” Thanks more public social networks like Twitter or even niche communities like “People You Follow” on Google Reader, there’s now an opportunity to know of someone, even chat casually with them in a safe, public, space. With Circles, you can easily dump all these same folks into one big Circle. From my initial foray into Google Plus, that’s precisely what many of the early adopters have done. They’re using Google Plus the way they used Google Buzz, or FriendFeed before that. Friend everyone, and engage in public chats – mostly about Google Plus, of course.

But what about when one of those people becomes a real-world friend? Maybe you first run into them at a conference, putting a face to a name. They’re now an “Acquaintance.” Later, you spend a night out on the town with them, and realize you have a lot in common. You make plans to see each other again, at a non-work event, perhaps. This person has become a “Friend.” Depending on how your Google Circles are set up, you may have had to drag-and-drop them into multiple different circles over time, as this relationship changes.

Be Prepared: Circle Management Overhead Coming Soon

No big deal, you say – it’s just one person. But are you prepared to do that with all your relationships, from this point forward? Is that a sustainable system? How much of your time with Google Plus will be spent organizing and quantifying your degrees of closeness with your contacts? And if you choose not to, deciding to just friend only your “real” friends, or “return friend” everyone, then how exactly would Google Plus’s system be any different from Facebook or Twitter (respectively) for you, in terms of relationship management?

These are some of my initial concerns with the Circles model of managing relationships. It’s not a system I personally mind, to be fair – I’m a geek too, and I like organizing things. But what about the mainstream user, arriving from Facebook? Circles are a lot like Facebook’s friend lists, a feature which Facebook has shown less support for and interest in over time. Maybe regular folks don’t think it’s useful to put people in lists? Maybe regular folks find it easier to live in public, and post things for everyone to see, even if “everyone” now includes mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, and that random friend from high school who wanted to catch up?

What Can Google Do?

To continually differentiate itself from Facebook, and keep Circles from becoming an organizational overhead nightmare, Google Plus needs to get smarter, quickly. Google should use its engineering brilliance to build algorithms that do relationship management for you. It should know when you change jobs (you update LinkedIn, for example) and suggest or enact a Circles change to reflect that. It could monitor the frequency of your conversations with fellow friends and suggest they’re moved into a more personal circle – all you have to do is click “Accept.” Or it could even auto-create Circles for you based on those interactions, or based on keywords in Google Profiles, or based on whether or not you were friends on other networks, and so on.

But should Google intervene? Or would that cross the “creepy line” it so likes to toe? And if it does not intervene, will Circles become end up being too much work to keep up with, thereby destroying the entire value proposition of Why Google Plus and Not Facebook?

What do you think? Do you share this concern, or find me overly pessimistic? Let me know your thoughts via comments, Twitter, or heck, Google Plus.

Discuss

Go to Source

The beauty of Google’s Circles is that it does allow for this sort of public relationship with people in your industry – in my case, fellow tech enthusiasts. But at some point, I’m concerned the “put people into boxes” model may break down. Relationships aren’t binary (friend or not), but they’re also not static (e.g. “Friend A in Circle X”). Relationships change. How will Circles adapt to change with them?

Sponsor

2 Examples of Changing Relationships

Here’s one simple example to illustrate the problem with Circles: you change jobs. Let’s say you go to work for a competitor. Now, everyone in the circle called “Work” need to be put into a circle with less access to your daily thoughts and posts, assuming you were using Google Plus to talk about projects you’re working on or you were talking to others in your same industry. Those conversations may need to remain private.

Even if privacy is not a concern, for organizational purposes alone, the title “Work” is no longer accurate.

Here’s another example: you become friends with someone – real friends, not “Internet friends.” Thanks more public social networks like Twitter or even niche communities like “People You Follow” on Google Reader, there’s now an opportunity to know of someone, even chat casually with them in a safe, public, space. With Circles, you can easily dump all these same folks into one big Circle. From my initial foray into Google Plus, that’s precisely what many of the early adopters have done. They’re using Google Plus the way they used Google Buzz, or FriendFeed before that. Friend everyone, and engage in public chats – mostly about Google Plus, of course.

But what about when one of those people becomes a real-world friend? Maybe you first run into them at a conference, putting a face to a name. They’re now an “Acquaintance.” Later, you spend a night out on the town with them, and realize you have a lot in common. You make plans to see each other again, at a non-work event, perhaps. This person has become a “Friend.” Depending on how your Google Circles are set up, you may have had to drag-and-drop them into multiple different circles over time, as this relationship changes.

Be Prepared: Circle Management Overhead Coming Soon

No big deal, you say – it’s just one person. But are you prepared to do that with all your relationships, from this point forward? Is that a sustainable system? How much of your time with Google Plus will be spent organizing and quantifying your degrees of closeness with your contacts? And if you choose not to, deciding to just friend only your “real” friends, or “return friend” everyone, then how exactly would Google Plus’s system be any different from Facebook or Twitter (respectively) for you, in terms of relationship management?

These are some of my initial concerns with the Circles model of managing relationships. It’s not a system I personally mind, to be fair – I’m a geek too, and I like organizing things. But what about the mainstream user, arriving from Facebook? Circles are a lot like Facebook’s friend lists, a feature which Facebook has shown less support for and interest in over time. Maybe regular folks don’t think it’s useful to put people in lists? Maybe regular folks find it easier to live in public, and post things for everyone to see, even if “everyone” now includes mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, and that random friend from high school who wanted to catch up?

What Can Google Do?

To continually differentiate itself from Facebook, and keep Circles from becoming an organizational overhead nightmare, Google Plus needs to get smarter, quickly. Google should use its engineering brilliance to build algorithms that do relationship management for you. It should know when you change jobs (you update LinkedIn, for example) and suggest or enact a Circles change to reflect that. It could monitor the frequency of your conversations with fellow friends and suggest they’re moved into a more personal circle – all you have to do is click “Accept.” Or it could even auto-create Circles for you based on those interactions, or based on keywords in Google Profiles, or based on whether or not you were friends on other networks, and so on.

But should Google intervene? Or would that cross the “creepy line” it so likes to toe? And if it does not intervene, will Circles become end up being too much work to keep up with, thereby destroying the entire value proposition of Why Google Plus and Not Facebook?

What do you think? Do you share this concern, or find me overly pessimistic? Let me know your thoughts via comments, Twitter, or heck, Google Plus.

Discuss

Go to Source

Benjamin Lang is the founder of EpicLaunch and co-founder of MySchoolHelp. You can follow him on Twitter @entrepreneurpro and find out more at BenjaminLang.com.

Everybody needs to get their name out there on the social web. For entrepreneurs, however, it’s an even more critical aspect of the job. A social presence gives you the credibility to attract clients, partners and investors by making yourself available and demonstrating your personality and experience.

Building your online brand in a meaningful way is no easy task, and there are many tools available to get you on the right path. Below, we’ve picked 10 tested methods and highlighted some of the best web tools to help your brand gain momentum in a crowded online marketplace.

1. Media Requests

Being quoted in news articles is an excellent way to demonstrate your authority. It’s a free way to promote yourself and demonstrate thought leadership. There are a few excellent tools out there that connect reporters with people looking to get quoted.

• HARO is an email digest that connects reporters and sources.
• NewsBasis allows you to pitch stories to journalists.
• FlackList is a Rolodex to help the media meet and maintain relationships with experts.
• Media Kitty is a network that connects journalists with sources.

2. Custom Short URL

Having your own custom URL shortener is a great way to get your name out there. If you often share links on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, it’s very useful. Eric Ries is a prime example. When he distributes a link, he uses his own shortened URL: ericri.es.

Here’s an informative tutorial on how to set up your own shortened URL.

3. Q&A

Sharing your knowledge on Q&A sites is a superb way to build credibility around your name. There are quite a few sites to choose from, so start with the one that has the most buzz around it at the moment: Quora. Robert Scoble has demonstrated the value the site can provide. Having answered more than 500 questions, he’s built a following of more than 22,000 people.

4. Profiles

Be present and active on social networks. It’s crucial to set up your profiles and use the sites to your professional advantage.

Below are some of the top site to establish your presence:

• About.me: Personal landing page
• Facebook Page: A valuable way to stay connected with your fans
• LinkedIn: A business network with full resumes
• Google Profiles: An important tool for ranking high in search results
• Twitter: A means to engage and spread your influence through conversation
• Disqus: Share your knowledge through comments

5. Meetups

Participating in meetups is another excellent way to network and build clout. There a few good tools for finding interesting events in your area. Here are two to get started with:

• Meetup: Join groups of people that interest you then meet in person.
• Plancast: You can see which events your friends are attending.

6. Social Email Signatures

Turn your email signature into a social and informative experience. When exchanging emails, everyone in your network will easily be able to find out more about you.

Wisestamp is a popular signature plugin that allows you to create sleek signatures with social icons, RSS feeds and more.

7. Guest Posting

Search for blogs in your area of expertise and pitch them specific ideas for posts. Each blog has its own style and focus, so make sure to tailor your pitches to each outlet. Be ready to share writing samples if asked, and be open to working with editors to revise your post as necessary. Alltop and Technorati are good places to start looking for tops blogs within your area of expertise.

8. Virtual Business Cards

Create a virtual business card so that it’s easy for people to find you and share your information with others. There are many ways to go about this:

• MiniCard: Buy a domain name and set up a business card-like site.
• QR Code: Have people scan your unique QR code instead of handing out text-filled cards.
• Twtbizcard: This site lets you transform your Twitter profile into a business card.
• Bump: This is an app that allows you to bump phones together to connect with people.

9. Newsletter

Sending out a monthly newsletter will allow you to build up a vast network. If you share valuable content with subscribers, they will then share it with their friends — bringing you a new subscribers and fans. If you do a good job, your list will continue to grow.

Some of the more popular newsletter services include:

• Mailchimp: A newsletter platform that is free up to 2,000 subscribers
• Tiny Letter: A simple platform for creating and distributing a newsletter
• Aweber: Users rave about this paid service, which comes with many options for building out your newsletter

As an example, Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg, shares interviews, products and knowledge through his Tiny Letter newsletter, Foundation. At $3.99 per month, it’s a bargain for readers who value his content.

10. Eat with Influencers

The opportunity to grab a meal with other potentially influential people is within your grasp. These days, it’s easy to set up networking meals through online tools like Let’s Lunch or GrubWithUs.

Let’s Lunch is a one-on-one lunch meeting generator that matches people based on reputation, influence, requests and practicality. Right now, it’s only available to people in NYC, Silicon Valley and San Francisco. GrubWithUs allows you to connect with others at group meals that you either find or set up yourself.

What tools have you used to build your online brand? Let us know in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Flickr, loop_oh

More About: brand, branding, busines, entrepreneurs, List, Lists, MARKETING, social media, social networking, startups, trending

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We’ve been enjoying a busy, news-filled day at Google I/O, the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco, and we’ve got the pics to prove it.

We spotted some of our favorite people, as well as a few good robots, around the convention center. Here’s our digital photo album of Google I/O memories — and fair warning, those memories are pretty Android-heavy.

In fact, the Googlers and Android devs have been using the Android OS as a versatile means to some pretty interesting ends. As you’ll see below, Androids are powering player pianos, hydroponic gardens, super-sized labyrinth games and a lot more. Plus, the Android mascot itself has been brought to life as everything from mobile charging stations to miniaturized C3PO-like bots.

Wee Android

This tiny bot was scooting around the third floor of Moscone West all by himself.

Chris Taylor, Mashable’s San Francisco Bureau Chief

Chris blogging and editing in a sunny corner of the Google I/O Press Lounge.

Droids On Wheels

Salesforce’s Kevin Marks at Google I/O

Giant Tablet-Controlled Labyrinth Game

This game took up several hundred square feet and was controlled by a player with an Android tablet. The whole thing rose, fell and tilted just as a smaller version would.

Google SVP Mobile Andy Rubin

Rubin during a panel on the many Android announcements today.

AndroidLand

The Happiest Place on Earth… if you’re a fandroid, that is.

Android Charging Android… How Meta

These charging stations were strategically positioned throughout the conference center.

Android-Powered Piano

No rolls required.

Google Swag

We each received a T shirt and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Rackspace’s Robert Scoble

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Hall of the Androids

Hugo Barra, Product Management Director, Mobile at Google

Barra onstage during the Google I/O keynote

Android-Powered Garden

This hydroponic garden was monitored and controlled from an Android phone.

Androids For Your Health!

Just Another Robot

AndroidLand

Not Something We Expected to See

If your Android phone is going to get borked, Google I/O would be the place to take it.

Developers at Google I/O

More About: android, gallery, Google, google io, pics

For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:

• Follow Mashable Tech & Gadgets on Twitter
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Go to Source

We’ve been enjoying a busy, news-filled day at Google I/O, the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco, and we’ve got the pics to prove it.

We spotted some of our favorite people, as well as a few good robots, around the convention center. Here’s our digital photo album of Google I/O memories — and fair warning, those memories are pretty Android-heavy.

In fact, the Googlers and Android devs have been using the Android OS as a versatile means to some pretty interesting ends. As you’ll see below, Androids are powering player pianos, hydroponic gardens, super-sized labyrinth games and a lot more. Plus, the Android mascot itself has been brought to life as everything from mobile charging stations to miniaturized C3PO-like bots.

Wee Android

This tiny bot was scooting around the third floor of Moscone West all by himself.

Chris Taylor, Mashable’s San Francisco Bureau Chief

Chris blogging and editing in a sunny corner of the Google I/O Press Lounge.

Droids On Wheels

Salesforce’s Kevin Marks at Google I/O

Giant Tablet-Controlled Labyrinth Game

This game took up several hundred square feet and was controlled by a player with an Android tablet. The whole thing rose, fell and tilted just as a smaller version would.

Google SVP Mobile Andy Rubin

Rubin during a panel on the many Android announcements today.

AndroidLand

The Happiest Place on Earth… if you’re a fandroid, that is.

Android Charging Android… How Meta

These charging stations were strategically positioned throughout the conference center.

Android-Powered Piano

No rolls required.

Google Swag

We each received a T shirt and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Rackspace’s Robert Scoble

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Hall of the Androids

Hugo Barra, Product Management Director, Mobile at Google

Barra onstage during the Google I/O keynote

Android-Powered Garden

This hydroponic garden was monitored and controlled from an Android phone.

Androids For Your Health!

Just Another Robot

AndroidLand

Not Something We Expected to See

If your Android phone is going to get borked, Google I/O would be the place to take it.

Developers at Google I/O

More About: android, gallery, Google, google io, pics

For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:

• Follow Mashable Tech & Gadgets on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Tech & Gadgets channel
• Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Go to Source

We’ve been enjoying a busy, news-filled day at Google I/O, the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco, and we’ve got the pics to prove it.

We spotted some of our favorite people, as well as a few good robots, around the convention center. Here’s our digital photo album of Google I/O memories — and fair warning, those memories are pretty Android-heavy.

In fact, the Googlers and Android devs have been using the Android OS as a versatile means to some pretty interesting ends. As you’ll see below, Androids are powering player pianos, hydroponic gardens, super-sized labyrinth games and a lot more. Plus, the Android mascot itself has been brought to life as everything from mobile charging stations to miniaturized C3PO-like bots.

Wee Android

This tiny bot was scooting around the third floor of Moscone West all by himself.

Chris Taylor, Mashable’s San Francisco Bureau Chief

Chris blogging and editing in a sunny corner of the Google I/O Press Lounge.

Droids On Wheels

Salesforce’s Kevin Marks at Google I/O

Giant Tablet-Controlled Labyrinth Game

This game took up several hundred square feet and was controlled by a player with an Android tablet. The whole thing rose, fell and tilted just as a smaller version would.

Google SVP Mobile Andy Rubin

Rubin during a panel on the many Android announcements today.

AndroidLand

The Happiest Place on Earth… if you’re a fandroid, that is.

Android Charging Android… How Meta

These charging stations were strategically positioned throughout the conference center.

Android-Powered Piano

No rolls required.

Google Swag

We each received a T shirt and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Rackspace’s Robert Scoble

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Hall of the Androids

Hugo Barra, Product Management Director, Mobile at Google

Barra onstage during the Google I/O keynote

Android-Powered Garden

This hydroponic garden was monitored and controlled from an Android phone.

Androids For Your Health!

Just Another Robot

AndroidLand

Not Something We Expected to See

If your Android phone is going to get borked, Google I/O would be the place to take it.

Developers at Google I/O

More About: android, gallery, Google, google io, pics

For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:

• Follow Mashable Tech & Gadgets on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Tech & Gadgets channel
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We’ve been enjoying a busy, news-filled day at Google I/O, the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco, and we’ve got the pics to prove it.

We spotted some of our favorite people, as well as a few good robots, around the convention center. Here’s our digital photo album of Google I/O memories — and fair warning, those memories are pretty Android-heavy.

In fact, the Googlers and Android devs have been using the Android OS as a versatile means to some pretty interesting ends. As you’ll see below, Androids are powering player pianos, hydroponic gardens, super-sized labyrinth games and a lot more. Plus, the Android mascot itself has been brought to life as everything from mobile charging stations to miniaturized C3PO-like bots.

Wee Android

This tiny bot was scooting around the third floor of Moscone West all by himself.

Chris Taylor, Mashable’s San Francisco Bureau Chief

Chris blogging and editing in a sunny corner of the Google I/O Press Lounge.

Droids On Wheels

Salesforce’s Kevin Marks at Google I/O

Giant Tablet-Controlled Labyrinth Game

This game took up several hundred square feet and was controlled by a player with an Android tablet. The whole thing rose, fell and tilted just as a smaller version would.

Google SVP Mobile Andy Rubin

Rubin during a panel on the many Android announcements today.

AndroidLand

The Happiest Place on Earth… if you’re a fandroid, that is.

Android Charging Android… How Meta

These charging stations were strategically positioned throughout the conference center.

Android-Powered Piano

No rolls required.

Google Swag

We each received a T shirt and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Rackspace’s Robert Scoble

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Hall of the Androids

Hugo Barra, Product Management Director, Mobile at Google

Barra onstage during the Google I/O keynote

Android-Powered Garden

This hydroponic garden was monitored and controlled from an Android phone.

Androids For Your Health!

Just Another Robot

AndroidLand

Not Something We Expected to See

If your Android phone is going to get borked, Google I/O would be the place to take it.

Developers at Google I/O

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A lot of that was due the fact that they raised $41M prelaunch, have a well-known team, and the mobile photo-sharing space is really hot.

The other reason it was so talked about was because, for a $41M application, the product itself was really ineffective as a first-time user experience. Tech blogger Robert Scoble famously ranted about it, and many others tweeted or blogged about how confused they were by the user interface and the lack of social interaction.

Blowing the first-time user experience is never good, and I also felt like my first usage of Color was not fun or interesting.

However, due to the hype I fortunately knew enough to know that Color was designed for group experiences, so I didn’t write it off immediately and decided to try and use it with others.

I started using Color at a restaurant with GuideMe lead developer Joe Garstka, and later we added a couple of other users at my house.

The pictures and videos we were taking were automatically popping up in our applications and creating group albums based on time and location without us having to create and specify anything. Less work from the user is always good.

There is amazing potential behind implicit social networks and the automatic grouping of people based on location for an application. Also, creating a history of photos and videos at a specific location holds a lot of potential, and made it more likely that I would take a picture to leave it for future people to see when they were near that spot.

I think the key thing though that may make Color work, is that I found myself telling other people to try it with me. For the application to work, I needed others to participate. This is one of the key growth engines for successful network applications, and Color has that going for it.

On the flip side, it means early adopters without early adopter friends probably won’t use Color. People who are living in areas that are sparsely populated will also have a hard time getting that much value out of the application.

That might be okay though if Color can do various things to improve that first-time use while also letting the network effects happen.

There’s also a big opportunity here for Color, or other companies, to do the same type of creation of implicit location-based networks for other applications like gaming, chat, and more.

Color has a bright future, and enough cash in the bank to get over their initial rough launch.

Originally published on Conversion Rater

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Mark Gilbreath is the Co-Founder and CEO of LiquidSpace the mobile application that helps anyone find a great space to work now.

Despite the unending stream of party invites, panels, and events, major events like SXSW are ruled by the people who actually come to work. These are the people who want to get things done, to achieve, and to produce. Even the most hyped conferences still need that element of “get ‘er done.”

The actual work that happens at conferences is, by design, quieter and more humble — off the public record and off the beaten path. It is there, it’s just never in your face. Robert Scoble hit the nail on the head with his “micro SXSW” post back in January: The real work of SXSW happens in small groups, on the fly — and it rarely gets tweeted about.

The truth is that the people who can effectively work at SXSW are the people who benefit the most from the conference. Deals get done at SXSW; partnerships formed, term sheets accepted, acquisition plans hatched. Entrepreneurs ideate and gestate new companies. Code is hacked, sales are closed, hires are made, press are briefed and new clients are won.

This post outlines five basic things that you can do to actually get things done amidst the insanity.

1. Find a Great Space

My company has put together some “pop-up” spaces at SXSW to support mobile workers here. But, there are plenty of other options too.

The most commonly-used conference hacks for workspace include coffee shopping (uncomfortable, but immediate) coworking (depending on availability and location) and hotel rooming (lonely and spotty on the Wi-Fi, but at least quiet). Some of the lesser-known ways to find great space include:

• Lawyers: Most of you have lawyers, and many firms have offices in cities across the US, including Austin. Your attorney might be able to put you up. These spaces are usually swank and in the downtown core. Same goes for PR firms, design shops, and more, ask around to anyone that regularly calls on your services.
• Private restaurant dining rooms: These can be pricey at night, but during the day it’s remnant inventory. You can go in with a few peers or colleagues and reserve these spaces for less than you’d think –- instant boardroom with top-notch service.
• Outdoors: Austin is often beautiful in March, and it’s a common complaint that despite the weather, we spend most of our time indoors. Nearby the convention center are numerous parks and trails and micro-spaces that are perfect for a few hours of work on a bench. You’d be surprised how efficient you are when you’re gazing out on the water, or doing that bizdev meeting walking the trail around Town Lake. Take advantage of the fact that everyone needs a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively.

It’s just as important to know the type of environment in which you get your best work done. It’s easy to focus soley on your functional space needs. Oft neglected are the human factors that have a substantial impact on your productivity like natural light, air quality, and social environment.

2. Power + Internet Access

All this talk of the great outdoors gets us to the #1 thing that thwarts productivity at SXSW and almost any other conference: The essentials. Power and Internet access can make or break you. With these firmly in hand, you can do anything, and go anywhere.

• All the outlets occupied? Whip out a PowerSquid, make sharing possible, and meet a few new friends in the process.
• Mobile devices: The basic DigiPower pack is only $50 and it is amazing. Backup power will save your life –- or the life of an influencer you’re spending time with.
• MiFis and dongles: These can range from $25 to $80/month, but when hotels are running $400 a night, why risk getting screwed at the last minute when it matters most? Carrying multiple personal hotspot options with different networks isn’t redundant, it’s prudent.
• Brain power: I carry a bevy of nuts, chocolate-covered espresso beans, Cliff bars and a large water bottle with me at all times (always enough for me and that special someone I might be meeting with). A little sustenance can make the difference between a great meeting and a sleepy one, a productive hour spent revising your presentation, and an unworkable mess of goo. Get in touch with your inner Boy Scout.
• Sleep: I turn in early and wake up early. I beat everyone to the punch. You’d be surprised, most of the influencers and high-value prospects get up early as well, and they’re not hungover. They didn’t get to where they are by getting behind. The early morning hours of SXSW are more productive than you think. And, the best places to work get claimed early, too.

3. Your Most Valuable Asset — Attention

Don’t try working during panels. How many of you show up and are half paying attention to the content in front of you, and half paying attention to your email and/or Twitter?

Focus on one thing at a time. You’ll get more done in less time, and you’ll actually remember the key takeaways. People complain that they don’t remember the panels and blame it on quality. This is rarely the case.

Same for when you’re in a quiet space and aiming for intensity, or a deep dive. Make a clear gesture at the outset by closing your machine, and taking your phone out of a pocket and laying it to the side. This kind of non-verbal communication helps set the tone.

4. Mission Control

Tactics like auto-responders are only effective if your organization is amoeba-like, and can keep going even when you’re hunkered down.

This gets us to the next hack, something that the most skilled conference-goers long ago learned, namely, that a fully-briefed and well-prepared team back home can make all the difference. Not everyone gets to come to SXSW, but the role of those left behind is even more important than your own.

Who is triaging email? Who is responding to support queries? Who is sending calendar invites for new meetings? Who is watching Twitter, reading blog posts, and highlighting comments? Whether it’s your co-founder or an assistant, a research intern or a PM, have both brains and brawn back at home as a “SXSW prosthetic.”

5. The Lay of the Land

The first thing to do when you get to any conference is get the lay of the land. Walk the land, study a map, and get visually familiar. This will take at least an hour. You will be tempted not to do it.

Where is your panel? Are you prepared to give directions if someone wants to come to it? A quiet space to prepare beforehand? Ask yourself all the important questions and figure out those last minute directions before you’re scrambling to get somewhere.

You can win friends and fans with your knowledge, too. The fact that few people actually survey the battlefield plays in your favor in many different ways.

SXSW is expanding even more to new hotels and new venues. Even if you’ve been before, the changes each year are substantial.

If you know where you are and where you are going, you can proceed smoothly from meeting to meeting, time your arrivals, and make fuller, more productive time of the precious few hours you do have to yourself.

Summary

Don’t get caught in the hype. SXSW is about business and money, winning and losing. It comes in a candy-coated wrapper, but don’t be fooled. Know where you work best. Productivity FTW.

Some simple, good habits can make all the difference in whether you return home victorious, or depleted and empty-handed.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Artiii

More About: south by southwest, southby, sxsw, sxsw 2011, work, working

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HP is about to launch a wave of new webOS devices, including the Palm Pre 3 and its answer to the Apple iPad.

We’re here live at HP’s webOS event in San Francisco, where the company is expected to unveil a series of new phones and a tablet called the TouchPad. HP has decked out the Herbst Pavilion in San Francisco for the main event, and the room is filled with journalists, analysts, partners, staff and guests.

HP acquired Palm last year for $1.2 billion, and now the company is looking to cash in on its investment. Can the hardware giant help Palm make a comeback in a market dominated by Android and iOS? Will the TouchPad be a viable competitor to the iPad or will it simply flop? What else does HP have up its sleeve?

We’re about to get some answers. Here are my live notes from today’s event:

HP’s WebOS event: Live Notes & Pics

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All times are in Pacific Time

9:55 a.m.: After waiting in line for 20 minutes, I’m finally in the Herbst Pavilion. There is HP blue everywhere.

9:58: We’re being ushered into the room now. There’s a giant screen with HP’s logo and at least 200 people packed in this room. I hear there won’t be any “special guests,” so don’t expect some type of surprise partnership announcement.

10:05: Event still hasn’t started yet. So, who wants a TouchPad? I wonder how much it will cost.

10:10: Still no event. It’s been leaked that one of the phones it’s launching today is incredibly small, like pebble-sized. At least that’s what tech blogger Robert Scoble says.

10:14: The techies are still working on the podium. And I just spotted a photographer that looks just like Justin Bieber. As you can tell, I’m getting bored waiting for HP. Show us some tablets already!

10:15: Lights are dimming, here we go.

10:15: Todd Bradley, the EVP of HP’s Personal Systems Group is on stage. He’s speaking about “firsts” — first experiences, breakthroughs, etc. He’s going to argue that what they’ve done with webOS is a “first.”

10:18: HP made the first portable PC, the first inkjet printer, the first pocket calculator, Bradley brags.

10:21: More on HP: It ships 120 PCs per minute and 120 printers per minute.

10:22: Bradley is talking about his relationship with the Palm team. He assigned hundreds of extra engineers to an “already talented team” to take webOS to the next level.

10:23: It’s a connected world with Facebook, YouTube, Pandora, etc. But nobody has created a solution for effortless access to “that digital universe, no matter which HP device you access it on.”

10:24: We’re making something unique, that will engage and get people excited, Bradley says.

10:25: Bradley is introducing John Rubinstein, the former CEO of Palm and senior vice president and GM of the webOS division.

10:26: “Synergy” — Rubinstein is talking about the webOS feature…but nothing revealed quite yet.

10:28: Rubinstein just quoted one of my articles! Kind of exciting. Will upload a picture.

10:30: The industry has been moving toward larger and larger phones, but that’s not the right size for everyone.

10:31: HP Veer announced. Size of a credit card, 2.6-inch 320×400 touch screen, QWERTY keyboard, GPS, Adobe Flash. USB port…

10:32: HSPA+, 802.11 b/g, bluetooth, 8GB storage, same RAM as the Pre 2, uses Qualcomm Snapdragon second generation processor. Accelerometer included.

10:33: HP Mobile hotspot feature.

10:34: HP’s second phone is for professionals: the Palm Pre 3.

10:34: Largest QWERTY keyboard, gesture area, 3.6-inch 480×800 WVGA display, 5-megapixel camera, front-facing camera.

10:35: HSPA+ and EVDO rev. 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor.

10:35: Pre 3 available this summer.

10:36: HP Touchstone technology. When you’re charging your phone, the phone goes into “exhibition mode” to show off your calendar, pictures, etc. It’ll know what content to show based on where you’re docked — it’ll be work stuff at work and personal stuff at home.

10:38: HP launches the Touchpad. 13.7mm thick, 1.6 pounds, 9.7-inch 1024×768 display, 1.3-megapixel webcam, video calling, Beats Audio technology, stereo speakers.

10:39: Wi-Fi 802.11 and Bluetooth 2.1, 16 or 32 GB storage. Gyroscope, accelerometer and compass.

10:40 The tablet version of webOS uses “Card Stacks” to manage applications. You just flick applications to open/close/use them.

10:41: “An unmatched e-mail experience.” If you already own a webOS phone, you just have to type in your username and password and all of your information shows up.

10:42: Rubinstein is talking up its ability to work for both the workplace and for fun.

10:43: Accessories: stand, compact wireless keyboard, Touchstone charging docks, can charge it even if it’s in its case.

10:44: Demo by Sachin Kansal, director of product management. He’s demoing some of the new webOS devices and their features.

10:46: He’s discussing how seamless it is to move from one webOS device to another.

10:47: Nice demo. Kansal got a text message on his Pre, but instead of grabbing the phone, he pulled it up on the HP webOS tablet. You can text from the tablet if you have a webOS phone.

10:49: Showing off the different apps. Calendar…browsers…and now stacking. You can stack different apps/activities in one place. To close it, you just flick it off the screen.

10:50: “This takes tablet UI to a whole new level.”

10:51: Now HP is showing off e-mail in the TouchPad. You can just drag the e-mail left and right to make it full screen or reveal your Gmail inbox.

10:52: There are three views for TouchPad e-mail. You can see all of your inboxes, a specific inbox and a specific e-mail on one page.

10:52: “Multiselect” — feature that lets you select multiple e-mails and delete/archive/move them.

10:53: A full version of QuickOffice will be available for the TouchPad.

10:55: Kansal is showing off Flash on the TouchPad. No apparent slowdowns. It works just like a video.

10:57: Demo of the message notification system. You can just swipe through chat messages and e-mails until you find something you want to reply to.

10:58: You can change the size of the virtual keyboard.

11:00 HP has expanded on Apple’s Spotlight Search feature. Not only can you search universally, but you can access actions like sending a tweet, updating your Facebook status and more.

11:01: The TouchPad photo app can access not only your photos, but your Photobucket and Facebook photos. Oh, and it supports printing on HP network printers over the last few years.

11:02: You can even view or add Facebook comments right from HP’s photo application.

11:04: In a few days, a game developer was able to port a game to the webOS platform. Games don’t look as crisp as they do on the iPad, but it does look good.

11:05: Amazon is partnering with HP to include Kindle books on the TouchPad. Smart move — why reinvent the e-book wheel when you can just put the biggest e-book store out there on your device?

11:07: Very simple interface, but with some webOS flair.

11:07: Video chat is being demoed on stage. Rubinstein just called Kunsal on stage. Seems to run pretty smoothly.

11:10: Awesome feature: You can just hold your webOS phone on top of the TouchPad and it will automatically transfer web pages between the two devices. It’s called “Touch to Share.”

11:12: Rubinstein is back on stage to talk about partners. DreamWorks is partnering with HP to deliver movies to the TouchPad at launch.

11:13: Video: DreamWorks CEO talking up HP and the TouchPad.

11:14: Wi-Fi verison available this summer, 3G and 4G-enabled version will follow that launch.

11:15: Qualcomm CEO Dr. Paul Jacobs is now taking the stage.

11:16: “We really focus on building innovative technologies and solutions that enable our customers to deliver the best mobile experiences possible.”

11:17: 399 million chipsets delivered in 2010.

11:17: Focusing heavily in R&D. We can offer what no other company can.

11:20: More rah rah talk about Qualcomm, about being the best at ARM chipsets, more rah rah talk about the Snapdragon processors.

11:23: Still more ‘Hooray, Qualcomm’s processors are awesome’ talk. Nothing you wouldn’t expect from an adept CEO who knows what the hell he or she’s talking about.

11:25: Jimmy Lovine, CEO of Beats by Dr. Dre and chairman of Interscope Records is on stage.

11:26: Beats by Dr. Dre is a company trying to fix the “degradation” of music quality. Working on everything from the file to the PC to the headphones and to speakers that will deliver a better audio experience.

11:27: Interscope, Beats by Dr. Dre, etc. are going for 24-bit music now, rather than the 16 bit that is usually shipped by record labels. Apple’s been working with them on music quality.

11:28: Bradley and Lovine spoke about improving sound quality for HP devices. They started with the HP Envy…had Kanye West, Bono and other musicians listen to the qualities. Now 1 million HP laptops ship with Beats by Dr. Dre.

11:31: You can’t help but listen to this guy. He cares about music quality…a lot. He seems proud to be working with HP to truly improve music quality. “Only PC in the world that can do that.”

11:34: HP SVP of Applications and Services Steven McArthur is talking about developers. They worked with Facebook for the new webOS app.

11:38: WebOS 2.1 will launch soon. McArthur is talking about application developers, different applications that are being built for the device, and tonight’s webOS developer event (we will be there).

11:39: HP Movie Store…and a series of new webOS games. Rock Band, Sims, Assassins Creed…

11:40: Oh, and of course, he’s thrilled the Amazon Kindle app is on webOS.

11:41: Digital video about Time Magazine‘s integration with webOS.

11:44: Randall Rothenberg, Time‘s chief digital officer, is now on stage. As you might expect, he’s talking about Time‘s integrations with webOS.

11:48: My laptop’s at the end of its battery, so I’m closing shop. Things are wrapping up here. Will have more pictures of the device later today. Thanks for reading with us!

More About: HP, Mobile 2.0, palm, Palm Pre, PalmPad, Touchpad, webOS

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HP/Palm is holding a special webOS event in San Francisco Wednesday and thanks to a leak from the HP website, we know the company will be announcing the HP Veer, the Pre 3 and the pièce de résistance, the TouchPad.

We’ve been expecting some sort of webOS tablet to hit the market, practically from the moment HP announced it was acquiring Palm. According to PreCentral, the new TouchPad — formerly known as Topaz — will weigh 1.5 lbs and be 13 mm thick. If that sounds familiar that’s because those are the same dimensions as the iPad.

As for the other two devices, the Pre 3 is expected to be an update to the venerable Palm Pre. Meanwhile, Robert Scoble has already had a look at the HP Veer and he calls it “the smallest little phone I’ve ever seen.”

Mashable will be reporting live from the HP/Palm event.

[via Precentral 2]

Photo courtesy of @derSnemelc

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Students at Carnegie Mellon University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Michigan, the University of Texas, and the University of Toledo can participate, and OnStar wants to see what apps they can create related to responsible connectivity, informed driving, and location.

Then, an official statement explained, “Student entries will be judged by OnStar IT and Engineering executives as well as API and technology thought leaders including Robert Scoble, Scobleizer; Daniel Jacobson, director of engineering for the API, Netflix; David Pogue, technology columnist, New York Times; and Valerie Casey, founder, Designer’s Accord.”

Six semifinalists will all get to attend O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 Conference, while the winner (whether a team or an individual) will get to pick between two $10,000 prize packages consisting of various laptops and gadgets.

We wouldn’t be surprised if a job offer resulted from all the attention, as well.

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What is Mozilla’s plan for making the web more open? The chairperson of the non-profit foundation behind the Firefox browser has the answer, starting with a reinvention of the browser itself.

Last week in a Q&A at the LeWeb conference in Paris, Mitchell Baker, chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation and the former CEO of Mozilla Corporation addressed the rapidly changing web and the new competitive landscape for its Firefox web browser.

Baker made clear that Mozilla is focusing on a lot of new innovations, especially around its upcoming Firefox 4 browser. “On the innovation side, the area where I think you will see Mozilla look different from everyone else is that the focus of our innovation is much more integrative across the web,” Baker told interviewer Robert Scoble on stage. “We’re not trying to integrate our browser with our business stack or our services; we’re trying to build an innovative way for people to manage their experience across multiple websites.”

The Mozilla chairperson also revealed that she thinks “browser” is the wrong word for the windows we use to access the web. “The way we think about it is much too concrete. We don’t browse anymore for sure.” She believes that the key to the browser is how we customize our experience on the web and she says that personalization will be a major trend for the web browser in the future.

Baker also addressed Facebook on multiple occasions. She says that Facebook creates a risk of being “locked in with identity.” She believes that, no matter how much the social network focuses on privacy, it will never be enough because identity should never be tied to one platform. “I don’t want it to own me,” Baker stated.

Baker addressed many more subjects in her 20 minute Q&A. Check out the video below for more:

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We loved Thesixtyone’s take on web-based streaming music, and we really love what the company is doing with its new iPad app.

Mashable recently highlighted this music startup’s newly redesigned website as one of the best web designs of 2010. Its full-screen, lean-back/lean-in user experience leaves little to be desired and is an immersive way to listen to great music from independent artists.

Similarly, the company’s iPad app, called Aweditorium brings high-quality multimedia and unique content for a stand-out experience that’s already getting rave reviews.

Through the app, you can view beautiful photography, read lyrics, explore related artists, watch interviews, view high-definition music videos and a whole lot more.

Thesixtyone co-founder James Miao told us in an e-mail that ever since the creation of album art as we know it in 1939, the record industry has “captured people’s emotions and imaginations through inspiring, tactile experiences.

“Of course, all this cultural texture was lost in translation when music went digital. Today, it’s a third wheel, low-fi, and exiled to Adobe PDF. Digital music interfaces look like Excel spreadsheets — what kind of backwards society do we live in where we’re limiting the genius of a Thom Yorke or Trent Reznor to a single vertical column?

“And then Apple released the iPad and I told my partner, Sam Hsiung, ‘We’re going to change all of this.’ ”

That ambition is reflected in the app’s name — the desire to bring the awe and majesty of album art back to music.

Here’s a demo video and interview shot by our good pal Robert Scoble:

Competitors in the very exciting “music-related iPad app” category include the already successful Pandora iPad app and MySpace’s Romeo iPad app. Both of those experiences offer something slightly different to their users, but neither app has the multimedia richness of Aweditorium. Another thing that distinguishes Aweditorium from other music apps for iPad is its focus on independent artists; currently, Thesixtyone works almost entirely with indie artists, although some majors are playing around with the platform, as well.

The app is free and available now in the App Store. If you’re an iPad user, check it out and let us know what you think.

More About: aweditorium, ipad, ipad app, music, thesixtyone

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There are a lot of questions about how Microsoft will perform in the smartphone space, though they’re clearly up to the challenge. If it doesn’t work with Windows Phone 7, they’ll likely just try again (although some think this one is do or die). The Kin didn’t work, but that doesn’t mean Windows Phone 7 can’t. The company ended Kin abruptly for a reason. 

Microsoft has some catching up to do in this space. There’s no doubt about that. Consumers have been buying up smartphones faster than ever, and established players like Blackberry, iPhone, and Android seem to be at the center of most users’ attention. 

Can Microsoft give consumers a reason to choose Windows Phone 7? Nobody seems to be completely counting them out. Robert Scoble says, "This OS is beautiful. Unlike Nokia or RIM, Microsoft threw out the old OS and started from scratch. For the first time in a while they didn’t just copy Apple, either. They did a whole new UI from scratch. It uses tiles instead of the little icons on my iPhone. It has a very nice contact manager. It shows you all sorts of information from services and your social network up front. Buyers who see it in stores will be very impressed …"

Here are a couple questions for you. Do consumers respect the Windows brand enough to make the move on their phones? Was Microsoft smart to use Windows Phone 7 as the name?  A lot of people continue to buy Windows PCs based on familiarity. These same people aren’t necessarily familiar with Windows on their phones. Granted, it’s not the same experience, but from a brand perspective, it will be interesting to see how the decision pays off. 

If the Windows Phone 7 initiative is successful and the OS gains significant adoption, it could mean big things for Bing. The inclusion of a Bing search hard key alone could dramatically increase the amount of Bing searches that are conducted. That’s just one reason Microsoft really needs this to work. 

Microsoft is coming from behind in the smartphone space, and they have some catching up to do, but the company has shown that its capable of penetrating markets where there is little room for new competitors. They’ve shown this with Bing. Bing is far from having Google’s share of the search market, but there’s no question it has become a significant competitor (much more than any other Microsoft search engine had). Google CEO Eric Schmidt even called it the company’s main competitor. 

The smartphone market is spread around more than the search market. There’s no just one dominant player. There’s no reason why Microsoft can’t be a legitimate competitor. It may take a nice-sized marketing budget and some strategic partnerships, but that is nothing new for Microsoft. See Bing’s history.

Here are the first Windows Phone 7 smartphones. 

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Some are less than thrilled with the new feature, however.The feature was announced during an event based around the concept of giving users more control, but it appears that more control doesn’t necessarily mean complete control. Jason Calacanis, for example, found out the hard way that anyone can be added to a group, regardless of whether or not they actually opted in (hat tip to Matthew Ingram). The group creator has the ability to make the group open, closed, or secret.

Calacanis found out he was added to a Facebook group for NAMBLA (the North American Man-Boy Love Association), along with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. At Calacanis.com, Jason posted an email he sent to Facebook informing them of what happened. He closed with, "If you guys want to run these new features by me before you launch them, I can probably save you from a couple of privacy law suits each year."

This is really the kind of thing you would think Facebook would want to avoid after all of the privacy brouhaha earlier this year. Of course not everyone is going to have people adding them to questionable groups, but if it can be done, some people just aren’t going to be comfortable with it. 

It’s not much different from tagging in Facebook Photos, a feature that I’ve frankly had issues with myself. It’s nice that anyone can tag you in a photo and have that show up first thing in the photos on your profile isn’t it? Groups adds that extra layer of association though, which some my find even more objectionable, as with Calacanis’ case. With this kind of functionality, people could be made to look like they’re Nazis, KKK members, pedophiles, Justin Bieber fans, or anything else.  Granted, users can report groups to Facebok:

I can definitely see the feature being abused for politics. It’s probably already happening. 

The feature does appear to only let you add people who you are friends with to Groups, so you may want to choose your friends carefully. It may not be a good idea to be friends with just anybody, and if you are, at least keep up with your notifications. You will be notified when you’ve been added to a group. 

The email feature has received some criticism as well. If you are added to a group and you don’t keep up with your notifications, you may find your inbox getting filled up by people in that group posting things. You can put an end to this by opting out, but some feel you should have to opt in to this feature to begin with. 

What do you think of the new Facebook Groups? Let us know. 

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Microsoft is encouraging its employees to be evangelists for Windows Phone 7 in an effort to build up the developer community and Windows Phone app marketplace. No surprise there. TechFlash points to a Microsoft internal memo from Andy Lees  who tells all employees to "get involved in the launch."

Microsoft and ARM have signed a licensing agreement for the ARM architecture, which extends the companies’ 13-year relationship. "ARM is an important partner for Microsoft and we deliver multiple operating systems on the company’s architecture, most notably Windows Embedded and Windows Phone," says KD Hallman, general manager, Microsoft. "With closer access to the ARM technology we will be able to enhance our research and development activities for ARM-based products." (via ZDnet)

Apple began its Case program today, in which iPhone 4 users can download an app to sign up for a free case or bumper. The company also announced a delay in the availability of the white iPhone 4.

Verizon shared its quarterly earnings, while AT&T has reportedly begun transitioning customers it acquired earlier this year from Verizon.

According to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, Disney is in "very" late stage acquisition talks with social game makers Playdom. Disney only recently acquired Tapulous, makers of popular iPhone game Tap Tap Revenge.

Social news iPad app Flipboard made a lot of headlines this week, when Robert Scoble introduced it as "revolutionary" and then it ran into some technical difficulties. Now Gizmodo is questioning whether or not Flipboard is even legal, asking if it is scraping content that it doesn’t have the rights to. "It scrapes websites directly rather than using public RSS feeds, opening it to claims of copyright infringement," the publication says.

Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb has an interesting story about U.S. defense contractor Raytheon developing software for soldiers, utilizing Android. "The software, called the Raytheon Android Tactical System or RATS, has already been tested by some members of the U.S. Special Forces," she writes. "It involves a social-networking type of display where soldiers interact as ‘buddies’ and track each others’ movements on the battlefield."

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The group says Google has spent a total of $2.72 million lobbying during the first half of the year. This is based on reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records.

Ars Technica points to a new report from the FCC about broadband access claiming that between 14 million and 24 million Americans still lack access to high speed Internet and that "the immediate prospects for deployment to them are bleak."

Robin Wauters of TechCrunch reports that a California court has ruled that Facebook doesn’t violate competition laws. This is in regards to an ongoing legal dispute between the company and Power.com.

"We are pleased the court rejected Power’s fundamental claim—antitrust violation—and upheld our right to protect our users’ data and enforce the privacy decisions they make on Facebook," a Facebook spokesperson told the publication.

As expected, Facebook announced that it has surpassed 500 million users. Half a billion and no signs of slowing down. The company also says it gets 100 billion hits per day and has 50 billion photos. Meanwhile Facebook Open Graph partner Pandora announced today that it has surpassed 60 million users.

A new social news iPad app called Flipboard has captured the interest of the tech industry today. Robert Scoble calls it "revolutionary." He provides an in-depth look at it and interview with its CEO here:

Skype has upgraded its iPhone app to allow users to make calls over 3G data connections for no additional charges. In addition, it supports multitasking.

Mashable looks at the recently updated Android distribution chart indicating that over 55% of all Android devices are running version 2.1. Just 22.1% are running version 1.6.

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