Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Mark Zuckerberg and Robert Scoble ARE meant for each other!

Why does Facebook make young men swoon? I analyzed way back when (September 2007). To start the New Year, on the heels of the Scobleizer’s unauthorized intrusion into Facebook property, I pointed out “Robert Scoble’s Facebook heaven turns to hell,” Beware Extreme Evangelism, underscoring the on again-off again, here today, gone tomorrow, Scoble whale of a love-hate relationship with Facebook.

First, Scoble declared an unabashed, but insufficiently researched, love for Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, imploring the world to join HIS Facebook world, deemed by the Scobleizer to be the future of the world. Lo and behold, though, Scoble tired of his newfound Facebook love faster than a New York minute.

Scoble to Mark Cuban: “I’ve just given up on managing this stuff. Which is just as well cause now I’m getting more work done.”

Scoble’s Zuckerberg ennui then quickly turned to Facebook unrest, with a helping nudge from Plaxo, a company with ambitions to profit from its own idea of the “next-generation social network.”

Rather than soliciting all to share in his once Facebook love, Scoble’s Facebook New Year cry turned to one of passionate public indignation, deploring Zuckerberg’s unlitateral corporate power to “erase” a Scobleizer trail for a few moments from publicly accessible servers owned by Facebook.

What does it take to “erase” Scoble’s supposed fury over Zuckerberg’s modus operandi?  A personal invitation by the “shy” Zuckerberg to Davos breakfast together with Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf.

Scoble’s commenters have been commenting on his chameleon Facebook flip-flopping and inconsistent editorializing:

CALI LEWIS (re: Scoble’s claims of Facebook “erasing”): Robert, you embrace and endorse third party services all the time. You’re blog is stored on Wordpress.com rather than using the amazing Wordpress software on your own hosted site. If you don’t host it, IMO, you don’t own it. You’re giving a lot of content to companies that may or may not have your best interest in mind.

Facebook sucks. Your endorsement of it almost got me interested, but ultimately, I can’t except a social network owning my stuff when it’s just as easy to get a domain name, get hosting and keep control. When I speak to kids in college. I tell them to register a domain and buy hosting and work to own their stuff. You should do the same thing. If you do, you’ll never get banned.

DON (re: Scoble’s endorsement of “shy” Mark Zuckerberg): The funny part is that you didn’t discuss your “wrongful” termination, nor the other issues your readers discussed, like the inability to get reinstated, nor the inability to commit “facebook suicide” and remove your content when you wish. That is why your article seems fawning and shallow to me.

Scoble says he did discuss such “other issues.” The net of Scoble’s discussion, though? Facebook PR speak:

“But he didn’t yet have answers as to just what Facebook will allow in the future,” Scoble demeured.

EXACTLY! Zuckerberg and Scoble are better off after their mutual win-win Davos turn, but citizen Facebook users are still in the same old Zuckerberg “no answers yet” boat. Beware Scoble’s Facebook advice, however, as he is now, post-Davos Zuckerberg tete a tete, firmly and supposedly for ever more in the Facebook camp:

This post sounds fawning, I know. But Zuckerberg demonstrated to me that he is, indeed, the real deal and that the hype he’s gotten over the past year has largely been deserved. He definitely won me over. Imagine what’ll he get done when he gets over his shyness.

WHO IS HYPING WHOM NOW? What “real deal” was demonstrated to Scoble by Zuckerberg over a PR breakfast aimed at “winning over” the Scobleizer? Facebook PR mission accomplished. Scoble reposted, seemingly verbatim, the official Zuckerberg PR lines, which did not contain any substantively new, concrete information. Outside of the Facebook VIP treatment he was accorded, there is no “real” reason apparent for Scoble’s latest dramatic editorial turn.

Moreover, there is NO need to imagine what Zuckerberg has in store for his users, as I have been underscoring since Scoble’s new found “shy” Facebook buddy unveiled F8 to the world. FOR EXAMPLE:

Why Zynga, NOT Scrabulous, Has a Lucky Facebook Charm and
Scrabulous At Risk? Zynga $10 million VC Game: Facebook Roulette and
2008 Social Media Warning: Beware Google AND Facebook and
YES! Facebook IS Scarier Than Google! and
Facebook is ‘Sorry’? Savvy Users Will Forget, NOT Forgive, Mark Zuckerberg and
Beacon Privacy Solution: STOP USING FACEBOOK! and
Dear Facebook, Beacon Tracking STILL Evil: Will Zuckerberg Partners Repent? and
Facebook STILL a Danger to Children: Zuckerberg, Attorney General Cuomo in PR Push and
Mark Zuckerberg: Use Facebook at Your Own Risk! and
With Facebook Platform as a Developer Friend, Who Needs Enemies? and
Startups: Why Facebook Platform is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing 

PLUS: Craigslist PR: Same OLD Media?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Google Maps hopes to improve virtual neighborhoods, so does just launched EveryBlock, thanks in part to Craigslist. 

Craigslist, though, is VERY particular about bulk access to its treasure trove of user listings posted with abandon daily, just ask classifieds aggregator Oodle!

I was therefore surprised to see yesterday that EveryBlock launched proudly offering the latest “Missed Connections” and “Lost and Found” for the three cities it covers at present, “thanks” to Craigslist.

EveryBlock creator Adrian Holovaty hails as a competive advantage that EveryBlock has “forged relationships with governments” to make available civic information that “has never been posted online.” I noted yesterday, though, that the “fun from across the Web” lisitngs that EveryBlock also (re)posts ARE already available online, readily, such as Craigslist “Missed Connections” and “Lost and Found” for Chicago, NYC and San Francisco, the three EveryBlock founding cities.

I asked Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster last June about why the site restricts classifieds aggregators, such as Oodle, and classifieds mashup players, such as Listpic, from accessing Craigslist classifieds ads postings. SEE  Craigslist Q & A: Classifieds Community NO ‘Walled Garden’:

We have received vanishingly few requests from craigslist users that we open the site to companies that want to capitalize on the craigslist community–in fact it’s been quite the contrary, we generally receive complaints from users when sites create derivative services based on craigslist, particularly commercial ones.

SO, what about EveryBlock’s derivative serviced based, in part, on Craigslist, and commercialized via Google AdSense? To date, EveryBlock is redistributing 660 Craigslist user postings.

I asked EveryBlock how the site is physically obtaining the Craigslist listings. Holovaty told me:

We’re using Craigslist’s publicly available RSS feeds, pretty much every page has an RSS link.

YES, but there are Craigslist restrictions on how such publicly available Craigslist RSS feeds may be used, such as:

We offer RSS feeds so that our users can embed a little piece of craigslist into their personal blog or home page, or watch the best-of postings come rolling into their desktop news aggregator. Look for the RSS symbol at the bottom of each of our listings pages. craigslist RSS feeds are for your personal use only, and are not available for commercial use without first obtaining a license from craigslist.

Craigslist warns about “access to its RSS service” in its Terms Of Use:

craigslist offers various parts of the Service in RSS format so that users can embed individual feeds into a personal website or blog, or view postings through third party software news aggregators.  craigslist permits you to display, excerpt from, and link to the RSS feeds on your personal website or personal web blog, provided that your use of the RSS feed is for personal, non-commercial purposes only…you do not redistribute the RSS feed, and your use does not overburden craigslist’s systems. craigslist reserves all rights in the content of the RSS feeds and may terminate any RSS feed at any time.

SO, Will Craigslist terminate EveryBlock’s RSS feed at any time?

ALSO: Craigslist Q & A: Craig Newmark Philanthropy Matches Google’s Page and Brin and  EveryBlock: Why Hard Civic News TRUMPS Web 2.0 Anonymous ‘Fun’ and Craigslist vs. EveryBlock? UC Berkeley New Media Case Study and Craigslist PR: Same OLD Media?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Who are the biggest winners in the latest Internet fueled business model disruption? Independent filmmakers and videographers. YouTube may not be a big money maker for Google, but it has spurred the money making ambitions of unsung video creators and the monied interests that seek to leverage their low-cost video production skills.

On the local video advertising battlefield, ambitious players TurnHere and Spot Runner not only duke it out for lucrative video production and distribution contracts, but fight for the highest quality, most prolific independent video producers as well.

TurnHere has built its 3200 member “Filmmakers Network” from the ground up, Spot Runner has fueled its ”Production Network” with the absorbtion of GlobeShooter, a 1200-person strong group of local video professionals.

TurnHere leverages its base of independent video creatives for a variety of vertical applications–travel, publishing, local directories–while Spot Runner has its roots in a core local advertising message.

SpotRunner CEO Nick Grouff: “The acquisition of GlobeShooter is a natural extension of our strategy to be a central resource for local businesses’ broad spectrum of advertising needs.”

TurnHere “has established a strong foothold in the directory and local markets,” said John McWeeny, Business Development, TurnHere, in announcing a video production agreement with YellowPages.com this week, on the heels of its non-exclusive vendor agreement with Superpages.com, announced last month. TurnHere has been supplying video production services to Citysearch since last May.

Why such local business interest in videos?

According to Matt Crowley, CMO, Yellowpages.com, “Advertisers recognize that video can play a key role in delivering a unique and memorable message that engages the consumer and influences action.”

TurnHere’s McWeeny offers: “We continue to see rising industry demand as small merchants embrace online video as a platform to attract new customers and drive businesss growth.”

Citysearch itself, however, is more nuanced in evaluating video traction among merchants online. In November, President Jay Herratti spoke of the need to lower cost of video entry for advertisers in order to spur greater adoption, while keynoting at the Kelsey conference in Los Angeles.

The local video battle for advertisers and production contracts is NOT solely an online one. The Spot Runner founding claim to fame is ”the first Internet-based ad agency that makes it easy and affordable for local businesses to advertise on TV.” Nevertheless, GlobeShooter’s video producers serve to “expand the company’s ability to offer highly customized ads for both TV and the Internet.”

The TurnHere founding Internet message was Web-centric, offering “studio quality Internet adverising and Web distribution for building online traffic.” TurnHere is now poised to leverage good old fashioned television as well, however.

When I spoke with TurnHere CEO Brad Inman about the Yellowpages.com online video deal this week, he began by underscoring how TurnHere is key to bringing “television quality advertising” and television like distribution to the reach of local merchants. What’s more, the TurnHere video product is “more micro-targeted than cable television.”

Inman also hailed the television worthy work of the TurnHere “Filmmakers Network.” Will videos by TurnHere soon be playing then on a TV near you? Stay tuned!

ALSO: Spot Runner Sells For Rival Google: Local SEM Bandwagon Grows and TurnHere Video Gets the Book Marketing Party Started

PLUS: Reach Local Advertising? How Google Squeezes SEMs and AdWords Buyers and Google Apps & Maps: Enterprise and Local Business STILL Missing and
Local Advertising Online: SMEs Hold the Billion Dollar Keys, ILM ANALYSIS and Google TV Ads Auction: NO AdWords Buyer’s Remorse

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Bill Gates wants a “kinder capitalism”?

Craig Newmark’s namesake Craigslist has continuously prided itself on its community “service mission” and “uncommercial nature,” although the .org “was incorporated as a for-profit in 1999″ and the company is “doing well.”

Craig Newmark publicly shares that he has “everything he needs,” on the material front, thanks to his Craigslist endeavor, and is now particularly interested in non-financial returns:

I just have a reasonable sense of what matters to me, and I figure once a guy’s living comfortably and maybe if you can prepare for your future, then it’s more satisfying to change things. This is not that unusual in my basically nerd subculture; sometimes we’re surprised that people will pay us a lot of money, which is fun. And then once you do that, it’s more fun to change things. That does in fact reflect sometimes values most of us share, which includes the kind of Judeo-Christian tradition that the early Christians showed. So did the founding fathers. (as cited by PBS, November, 2006)

Craig Newmark has been using both his Craigslist fame, and “fortune,” in seeking to “change things,” through a variety of methods and vehicles.

Newmark is invited around the globe to share his insights and opinions on every aspect of the human condition: business, politics, social welfare…Newmark shares his Craigslist derived financial gains via diverse vehicles and strategies.  

Craigslist and team, however, are as close to the vest about their “charitable” financial state of affairs as they are about their “for-profit” one. Public confirmations of Craigslist and/or Craig Newmark related “donations” include:

The Craig Newmark Foundation pledged $10,000 to NewAssignment.net’s “first reserve fund” in 2006, according to Jay Rosen, who underscored the money comes from “his personal charity, not the company.”

The Craigslist Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization featured at Craigslist, reported $231,000 in expenses to the IRS in 2005 for producing a “non profit bootcamp.”

A big $1.6 million charitable splash was made by Craigslist proper last week: The Universlty of California, Berkeley announced “plans to establish the first endowed faculty chair at the Berkeley Center for New Media with a donation of $1.6 million from craigslist.” The Craigslist $1.6 million will “support research, symposia and lectures” in the areas of “privacy, reputation, trust, access and new ways to encourage socially constructive actions.”

At the time of Craig Newmark’s direct contribution to NewAssignment.net, I asked him how he evaluates the “return” on his “investment” and timeframes for measuring success. Newmark told me:

I don’t see a way to evaluate this, and I guess I’m not too concerned, since this project I figure will mature in the two to twenty year time frame. Sometimes, you gotta stand up, and have confidence in others.

Craigslist has $1.6 million worth of confidence in UC Berkeley. Newmark underscores “Jim gets the credit regarding the craigslist endowed chair at UC Berkeley.” Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist CEO, also gets to serve as a founding member of the Berkeley Center for New Media’s executive advisory board.

What will Buckmaster’s role be at UC Berkeley? What does Craigslist hope to gain from the personal and financial collaboration? I asked Buckmaster for insights into the Craigslist $1.6 million donation for the Berkeley Center for New Media.

What will Buckmaster personally lobby for, in his executive advisory role, as areas of initial research pursuit and what specific actionable types of deliverables does he expect such research projects to produce? It’s too early to say, according to Buckmaster, but he will strive to be “useful in any way that makes sense.”

In explaining the Craigslist affitinity for UC Berkeley, Buckmaster said: “We rely upon technological innovations from the UC Berkeley community every day. We’re excited to partner with the Berkeley Center for New Media, as it is uniquely positioned to change the very way we think about new media.”

I asked Buckmaster which specific UC Berkeley innovations Craigslist has benefitted from to date and how future work products of the Berkeley Center for New Media will directlly impact Craigslist. Buckmaster told me:

Specific technical innovations that we benefit from everyday include Berkeley UNIX relational databases, BIND domain name server, RAID storage management and vi editor. We are not counting on the new center for specific innovations, but will enjoy collaborating with them in the years to come.

I asked the Craigslist CEO to drill down on the hows and whys of the $1.6 million donation.

INSIDER CHATTER: Did shareholder eBay have a voice in the Craigslist decision to donate to the new Berkeley center? 

BUCKMASTER: No.

INSIDER CHATTER: Will Craigslist rasise the rate of existing listings fees and/or implememt listings fees in new catgegories in order to support further large donations to other organizations?

BUCKMASTER: We don’t forsee any change in fees to support philanthropic contributions.

INSIDER CHATTER: Has Craigslist set aside a specific percentage of its earnings to specifically fund such donations?

BUCKMASTER: In recent years we have generally donated 1% or more of our annual revenue to charitable concerns.

The one percent rule? Sounds very Googley! According to Google.org:

In 2004, when Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote to prospective shareholders about their vision for the company, they outlined a commitment to contribute significant resources, including 1% of Google’s equity and profits in some form, as well as employee time, to address some of the world’s most urgent problems. That commitment became Google.org.

Craig Newmark’s commitment is Craigslist.org. The little email list that could is as generous as the world famous $200 billion market cap Googley corporation.

SEE: Frugal Google.org: How NOT To Save the World On $159,000 a Day and Yahoo Shareholder on Microsoft Bid: AOL, Time Warner All Over Again?

PLUS: EveryBlock Tests Craigslist RSS Feed Generosity: Missed Connection? and Craigslist PR: Same OLD Media? and Craigslist vs. EveryBlock? UC Berkeley New Media Case Study

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Adrian Holovaty was granted $1,100,000 by the “Knight News Challenge” to “release open-source software that links databases to allow citizens of a large city to learn (and act on) civic information about their neighborhood or block.”

The EveryBlock “project” which opened for “business” yesterday, however, is not content to do its unique civic duty. Instead, Holovaty also takes the typical Web 2.0, easy user generated content redistribution tack, diluting the hard, real local news that drives the real workings of real urban centers’ citizens everday with the same old personal musings of a minority of Internet users, anonymous ones. 

Holovay knows that the real value he brings to the local table online is what is unique to EveryBlock, aka “civic information”:

Building permits, crimes, restaurant inspections and more. In many cases, this information is already on the Web but is buried in hard-to-find government databases. In other cases, this information has never been posted online, and we’ve forged relationships with governments to make it available.

Flickr, Craigslist and Yelp, however are NOT buried, are NOT hard to find, and are already on the Web, ALL over the Web in some cases: Yelp redistributes, free of charge, its anonymous babble about food to any takers.

Holovaty calls the tack on snippets of non-representative, anonymous Web posters “fun from across the Web.” EveryBlock’s value proposition, however, is NOT Web 2.0 UGC “entertainment.”

EveryBlock ought to be about what it is uniquely supposed to be: Real world “civics” real goings on, undiluted.

ALSO:  Yellow Pages Get Reprieve? The Myth of King Google Local Advertising ROI and Judy’s Book: What’s On Sale? WE ARE! Ten Reasons Why

PLUS: Facebook To Particls: What IS Your Data Portability End Game? and Craigslist Q & A: Craig Newmark Philanthropy Matches Google’s Page and Brin and Facebook Davos PR Blitz: Beware Scoble Hype, Users Still at BIG Risk

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Here we go again? Another Internet “bombshell” is in the works? OMG, Microsoft is shrewdly keeping its social eyes and ears open by agreeing to evaluate the “work” of Chris Saad’s pet project, DataPortability.org? 

What does Saad’s Australian startup Faraday Media’s Particls’ “personalized aggregation” tool REALLY get out of the DataPortabilty.org agenda he is non-stop “evangelizing,” in the United States, supported by pre-announcements, via two preferred, hand picked third-party blogs (ReadWriteWeb/TechCrunch–this time though, Faraday Media was apparently “out exclusived” itself, much to the chagrin of ReadWriteWeb!), of Data Portability Workgroup “announcements,” in lieu of DataPortability.org communicating the “news” of new “members” directly to the public itself?

I have been asking here at Insider Chatter and “member” Facebook has apparently been wondering as well.

Facebook is ”evaluating what [data portability] really means,” according to a Facebook statement provided the Financial Times, adopting a “wait and see” approach.

Faraday Media’s Chris Saad–the man behind DataPortability.org–continues his non-transparent goings on by pre-briefing a Microsoft “member” announcement to blogger co-promoters in lieu of making a public, open, direct, clear communication himself at DataPortability.org. While Saad evangelizes a spirit of Data Portability “openess,” Saad’s evangelism of his own Faraday Media product roadmap supporting “data portability” project is nevertheless an amalgam of promo pitches that continue to leave the public in the dark as to how Faraday Media’s ”sponsorship” of DataPortability.org supports the business objectives of Faraday Media itself.

Chris Saad IS DataPortability.org, literally, according to the DataPortability.org “Contact Us” button. Faraday Media, of which Chris Saad is the founder, is the sole sponsor of DataPortability.org. according to DataPortability.org. Faraday Media’s company blogs–Particls and Engagd–host Chris Saad’s belated DataPortability.org new “member” announcements.  

What is the end game of Chris Saad’s Faraday Media? To be the “epicenter of the attention ecosystem,” Saad boasts. Sounds like a (business) plan, thanks in no small part to his DataPortability.org. High profile “members” of DataPortability.org, however, are NOT as easily impressed as blogger fans are!

LinkedIn’s far from ringing comittment to Saad’s Faraday Media “vision”:

It makes sense that we would support efforts like DataPortability.org and Social Network Portability. We’re happy to share what we’ve learned along the way with the community and look forward to learning from the experience of others.

MORE: Data Portability Games: Australian Faraday Media Pushes Web Agenda in U.S. and Web 2.0 Social Power Grab: Will Faraday Media Open Up?

ALSO: EveryBlock: Why Hard Civic News TRUMPS Web 2.0 Anonymous ‘Fun’ and Facebook Davos PR Blitz: Beware Scoble Hype, Users Still at BIG Risk

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN