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Posted: 07 Jul 2008 10:42 AM CDT

- iPhone Omen Image - This morning I walked back to my computer after taking a shower and saw the dialog box pictured to the left sitting on my desktop. Apparently the Apple iPhone camera was connected to my computer. That’s strange though because no iPhone was ever connected to my computer. I’ve been thinking about the new iPhone a lot recently, even going so far as heading over to the AT&T store to find out the scoop on the new phone and finding out how much I’ll have to pay.

Unfortunately I’m not currently eligible for an upgrade and will find myself paying $299 for the new iPhone. No matter how much it costs, it’s now become my job to buy the new phone and so when it launches on Friday I will be one of the customers waiting in line for the 2nd version of the iPhone. There is a ton of buzz surrounding the new iPhone and much of it is focused on the new games that will be launching in the new iPhone application directory.

I’ve also been hyping the phone as the next device to transform the entire social web. I still stand by that and with f8 following right behind the iPhone launch, I have a feeling that we may see a new mobile offering by Facebook as well. Whatever ends up happening at f8, one thing is certain: this week’s iPhone launch is going to be big. My calling came in the form of a desktop notification. Have you been called upon to purchase the new iPhone?

FriendFeed Starts Sucking Up the Conversation

Posted: 07 Jul 2008 09:18 AM CDT

If you avoided the grid for the weekend you probably missed out on a conversation going on yesterday about the default users recommended when you start FriendFeed. Then today a new conversation began about how FriendFeed is sucking away the conversation from blogs. Allen Stern suggests that commenting traffic to a blog can generate upwards of $100,000.

Losing out on these comments is a big deal. It has gone so far as reducing some bloggers (like Jeremiah Owyang) overall output. While I agree that some of my comments are going to FriendFeed, most of the comments on FriendFeed are not from people that were already commenting on my blog. As long as the users on FriendFeed have to visit my blog, there’s no substantial problem.

There appears to be a larger problem at hand though: thought leaders are reaching their conversational threshold. I for instance have a number of conversations taking place on Plurk and FriendFeed. Add in Twitter and recently launched Identi.ca and you are facing a serious issue. We now need to choose where to have the conversation and with conversations happening all over the place it is simply no longer sustainable to talk everywhere.

FriendFeed clearly acts as a solution to the noise though and my guess is that we will begin to see much more activity taking place on the site. I for one have now begun to actively participate in the FriendFeed conversation. While the conversation may be shifting it is still hard to monitor all of it though. I am now using Ping.fm to post to all the sites I’m active on. This still doesn’t solve the problem of reading comments to my posts though.

FriendFeed actively imports comments from Twitter but they have yet to do the same for other sites. Once I can manage all the conversation in one place, my conversational overload will finally be solved. For now it looks like I’m just going to have to be part of the conversation in one more place. Have you noticed the conversation shift to FriendFeed? Are you having conversational overload?

Google Preparing FriendRank Technology?

Posted: 06 Jul 2008 10:42 PM CDT

A new Google patent was approved last week which sounds eerily similar to my April fools joke earlier this year. The new patent is for, “A computer-implemented method for displaying advertisements to members of a network comprises identifying one or more communities of members, identifying one or more influencers in the one or more communities, and placing one or more advertisements at the profiles of one or more members in the identified one or more communities.”

It’s the exact type of technology that Jeremy Zawodny previously described as well as a number of other industry thought leaders. The new technology will be able to “identify the influencers from among the members of a community. This may provide advertisers with the option of targeting either all members in the community or advertising only on the profile of the influencer, thereby targeting the entire community.”

So how is Google going to leverage their new “FriendRank” (a name already trademarked by social ad network, SocialMedia) patented technology? Technically, the only social network they own is Orkut which is popular in countries that don’t have as large of advertising budgets as the U.S. Google also has an agreement to monetize MySpace as well so perhaps this new technology will be used to help monetize the under-performing inventory on the largest U.S. social network.

The new technology is clearly reminiscent of the personal CPM that I’ve previously discussed on both this site and AllFacebook. As the patent describes, “An influencer may receive financial incentives from advertisers in exchange for permission to display advertisements on the member’s profile.” The systems will also be used to help group individuals based on their shared interests and target them based on those interests.

This is something that Facebook already supports with their SocialAds service but one of the biggest downfalls is that some users may not update their interests. This system will theoretically encourage “members of communities in online social networks to enrich the content on their profiles. The presence of high quality content relevant to shared interests on a member’s profile increases the popularity of the member in the community and improves a member’s chances of being an influencer.”

Whether or not this system will provide a greater incentive than Facebook and other sites already provide is unknown but if updating your profile results in earning more money, I could definitely see this system working. Google has repeatedly stated that social networks continue to provide under-performing advertising inventory. Perhaps this is their solution to combat the problem.

Patent Image 1
Friend Rank Patent Screenshot