MarketMe 2.0

When I think of Amazon, I think of all the money I spend there buying books and CDs. But the company isn’t just focused on selling Harry Potter books online to school kids anymore.

Amazon is trying to lure start-ups to sign up for its Amazon Web Services, which offers storage, virtual server, payment and other services on a pay-per-usage basis. This makes sense for young companies that want to focus on their core business and not have to spend money on expensive hardware.

Five years after it launched its first service, the company is making a name for itself in the utility computing space and attracting customers like Web pioneer The Internet Archive and newby Justin.tv. “Amazon Web Services has saved us a lot of money,” Kyle Vogt, vice president of engineering at the start-up said at an Amazon event this week aimed at explaining the services to start-ups.

Other customers concurred, some saying they were able to skip venture capital funding because they didn’t have infrastructure capital expenditures. But several, including execs at The Internet Archive and Mashery, an API management provider, said the fact that Amazon doesn’t offer a service level agreement raises some eyebrows. Amazon’s track record on its own services was good enough for them, they said.

Is this just an experiment for the Web retailer? No, says Adam Selipsky, vice president of Amazon Web Services. “We’re a technology company, and we’re going to expand on this technology base to other markets,” he said. “We’re definitely in this business to stay.”

Amazon wants to help entrepreneurs realize their dreams–and become Web services customers–and is launching a Start-Up Challenge contest for the best new Internet company idea. The winner will get $50,000 cash, the same amount in Amazon Web Services credits, mentoring and a “seed investment offer,” Selipsky says.

An Amazon spokeswoman wouldn’t tell me what impact the Web services business has had on the company’s financials. “We remain in the early days of this business, but we’re already pleasantly surprised by the growth we’re seeing,” she says.

CNet.com

While Google is leading a charge to create a global privacy standard for how companies protect consumer data, the search giant is recommending that remedies focus on whether a person was actually harmed by having the information exposed.

Google’s proposal is scheduled to be presented by Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel in a speech Friday in Strasbourg, France, at UNESCO’s meeting on ethics and human rights. He briefed reporters on Thursday.

The proposal follows the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Privacy Framework, which has been endorsed by many of the APEC nations, including Australia and Hong Kong, but not all. China, for instance, does not endorse it, Fleischer said.

“Google believes we need to work together to create minimum global standards partly by law and partly by self-regulation,” he said in a telephone conference call. “We need a collaboration between government and the private sector.”

The APEC framework “promotes a flexible approach to information privacy protection” and is a “practical policy approach to enable accountability in the flow of data while preventing impediments to trade,” according to the group’s fact sheet. The nine principles of the framework are: preventing harm; integrity of personal information; notice; security safeguards; collection limitations; access and correction; uses of personal information; accountability; and choice.

Under a “preventing harm” principle in the framework, “any remedial measures should be proportionate to the likelihood and severity of the harm,” the documents state.

“Privacy standards should focus on actual harms to consumer privacy,” Fleischer said. “Other countries have an ideological bent…APEC has a pragmatic focus on privacy harms…not abstractions.”

Fleischer has been shopping the idea around, meeting with the Spanish Data Protection Authority a few days ago (”He welcomed it warmly”) and the French counterpart, which endorsed it.

Deflecting DoubleClick criticism?
However, a privacy advocate dismissed the move as a desperate attempt by Google to appear to be sensitive to privacy issues in the midst of government scrutiny of its proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of online ad firm DoubleClick.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, called the APEC Privacy Framework “backward looking” and said it “is the weakest international framework for privacy protection, far below what the Europeans require or what is allowed for transatlantic transfers between Europe and the U.S.,” particularly because it focuses on the need to show harm to the consumer. The guidelines were developed before there was data collected on the cost to consumers of identity theft and security breaches, he said.

“Google is under enormous pressure from many countries around the world who are fed up with their arrogance and their unwillingness to make meaningful changes to their business practices,” Rotenberg said. “They’re also trying desperately to push the acquisition of DoubleClick through the Federal Trade Commission. And they’ve met enormous resistance.”

Fleischer denied that the proposed DoubleClick merger had anything to do with Google’s actions.

“What this is is a sustained multipronged effort by Google to improve privacy practices…across the Internet,” he said in his briefing. “People expect us to show some leadership. We would do this regardless of whether DoubleClick were part of the equation or not.”

Google will take its message to the public through a virtual debate it plans to open on YouTube soon, and it will participate in meetings in Montreal on Sept. 24 with global privacy commissioners and in Washington, D.C. in October, Fleischer said.

Also, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt “will add his voice to this debate” in the next few days, Fleischer said, declining to elaborate.

Google has been speaking with Microsoft and Yahoo about the matter and representatives from those companies expressed interest in the effort, he said.

A Microsoft spokeswoman said Google has not discussed its specific proposal with Microsoft but that Microsoft has been working with APEC countries on the privacy framework for a few years.

A Yahoo spokeswoman provided this statement when asked for comment: “Yahoo is dedicated to protecting the privacy of our users. It is a cornerstone of the trusted relationship that we have built with consumers. We are involved in a number of discussions internally and with others in the industry about the best methods for protecting consumer privacy. Those important conversations will continue in the months ahead.”

Fleischer said he was invited to address UNESCO at its meeting, which is focused on ethics in the information society, by the French Data Protection Authority. “We were looking for the right forum to launch this (effort) publicly,” he said.

CNet.com

Do we really need another social networking site? Apparently so, and we’re not talking about start-ups here.

What we’re hearing–and this is industry cocktail-party gossip, albeit a very believable variety thereof–is that MTV Networks is working on its own social network and we’ll be hearing more about it pretty soon. We don’t have a name, or a target demographic (Teens? College kids? Young adults?) or any semblance of screenshots. This is so hush-hush, in fact, that we aren’t even sure whether it’s an MTV Networks (as in MTV, VH1, MTV2, Spike TV and the like) or strictly MTV (as in the channel) property. But what surprises us somewhat is that the evidence really does seem to point to the Viacom-owned MTV Networks building something from the ground up in a market that’s already pretty saturated (to say the least).

You may recall that earlier this year, MTV Networks invested in social networking start-up Tagworld, which briefly was talked about as one of those elusive “MySpace killers” but has since fallen off the radar. When the rumor initially surfaced, PaidContent reported that MTV wanted its foot in the door so that it had access to Tagworld’s technology–and indeed, social networking features are appearing on some smaller MTV properties like the Subterranean blog. It’s not clear yet whether Tagworld technology will be incorporated into this shadowy new social network in any way; maybe not, considering the two-million-member Tagworld hasn’t taken off the way some predicted it would. (It hasn’t yet made a mark on the top social networks list that Nielsen/NetRatings indexes.)

As News Corp.’s MySpace, the social network that made “social network” a household phrase, launches more original video content–like the upcoming Quarterlife, which looks like an updated version of the ’90s Gen-X angst flick Reality Bites–and throws concert tours, it’s tempting to call it “the new MTV.” Indeed, as Facebook stakes a stronger claim to the “social graph,” MySpace has been shaping itself as more of a media and trend hub. If MySpace were still independent, it would seem more logical for a brand like MTV to get its foot in the door there through high-profile partnerships (like the upcoming presidential dialogues), but the News Corp. ownership (MTV Networks is a Viacom property) probably complicates things a good bit.

We can’t say for sure what MTV–or MTV Networks–has in the works for this social networking endeavor, but they’re hoping to keep it well under wraps for the time being. MTV is still struggling with its new-media credentials–recent tech-related headlines from the company have included a music-related partnership with Yahoo, a Twitter tie-in to the Video Music Awards and the aforementioned presidential dialogues. It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out.

On the Web, marketers are becoming editors. Editors are becoming marketers.That’s what you might take away from the first Conversational Marketing Summit held here Tuesday. If you’re like most people, your first question might be, ‘What is conversational marketing media?’ The simple answer is: see the first paragraph.

But the concept is better illustrated. In one example, Yahoo’s photo-sharing site Flickr recently worked with Nikon to host a “Nikon Stunning Gallery,” which was filled with professional photos from the camera maker. The stunning gallery then allowed people in the Flickr community to submit their photos for possible entry into the collection. (Nikon presumably paid Yahoo for this opportunity.)

“It benefited everyone,” Jeff Weiner, Yahoo’s executive vice president of the network division, said during a panel at the opening evening of the conference. “Flickr is an authentic community, and you’re starting to see the same thing in other areas.”

Similarly, marketers like Reebox and Wendy’s are flocking to MySpace, Facebook and other social networks to “start a conversation” with prospective customers–by posting user profiles, widgets and other applications so that members can tangibly adopt their brand. The strategy has become so popular that the advertising agencies that represent these companies are dreaming up new editorial strategies for the brands online.

Sarah Fay, CEO of digital ad agency Carat, said that her agency developed a Facebook application for Reebox in April as part of a larger ad campaign, and it’s still proving popular on the social network. “It’s like we lit the kindling that started the brushfire,” she said.

“We’re entering the age of community and a lot of our advertisers are interested in building an experience for users to participate,” Fay said. “Myspace and Facebook are areas where we can really insert ourselves into the conversation.”

John Battelle, whose publishing company Federated Media was host the event, quickly pointed out that she sounded like an editor.

“I’m an editor too, sometimes I get confused,” said Battelle, who co-founded Wired magazine and pens a search blog.

Battelle emphasized the importance of such strategies for marketers, given the growing importance of talkback forums and blogs on which people discuss products and services. “Conversation sites are becoming a primary source of information,” he said.

Scott Cook, founder of Turbotax-maker Intuit, might have said it best, without any jargon: “Word of mouth trumps everything.”

Sang-Hee Min and her college roommate met each other this July and began planning for their year together. During the summer, they chatted about shared interests, discussed ground rules for living together, and agreed on what to pack.

But as their relationship grew closer, the two girls couldn’t have been farther apart — Min lived in Seattle, her roommate in New York. This fall, when they arrive at Wellesley College as entering freshmen, they’ll finally see each other in person for the first time.

Min is just one of the many college freshmen who will be stepping onto campuses this fall with a jump-start on their new social lives, thanks to friendships they’ve formed during the summer on the social networking site Facebook.com.

When Facebook first launched in 2004, it required a valid “.edu” e-mail address to join, meaning that only current college students could create profiles. But after Facebook opened to high-school students in fall 2005 — a move that boosted the site’s membership to 5.5 million users — it was suddenly easier than ever for students to start getting ready for college early.

Now, by using Facebook to communicate with each other and with upperclassmen at their colleges during the summer months, freshmen are arriving at school with ready-made friendships waiting for them on the first day.

According to Min, Facebook helps ease the anxiety of going off to college by giving incoming students a sense of what to expect.

“Personally, I’d rather meet [people] in person, but Facebook has been a great tool to get to know fellow students before getting to campus,” she said. “Without it, I would probably feel much more lost and unprepared about going to Wellesley than I am now.”

Mike Niconchuk, an entering freshman at Tufts University, has also used Facebook to establish a wide network of contacts this summer. Niconchuk signed up for Facebook in 2005, just after it opened to high school students, and started searching for college friends as soon as he received his acceptance to Tufts.

By joining the Tufts network and entering groups devoted to the class of 2011, he found it easy to identify others with similar interests. Soon, he’d added over 120 other Tufts students to his friend list.

Though Niconchuk admits he’ll “probably never cross paths” with most of the people he’s chatted with online, he does feel that some of his Facebook friendships will last.

“I got to know a few people surprisingly well,” he said. “Religion, politics, sex, love lives, all of it is talked about. We’re just normal friends at this point.” Niconchuk said he expects to spend time socializing with several of his online friends when they arrive at school.

In addition to being a facilitator of friendships, Facebook also serves a practical purpose for many incoming college freshmen. On college message boards within Facebook, entering students can interact with each other and with knowledgeable upperclassmen, trading useful tips and advice about starting school.

“Most of [my Facebook friends] are fellow freshmen, but I do have a few older friends at Wellesley as well. They’ve been extremely helpful with advice on what to bring, what to be aware of, and have answered my many questions concerning dorms and classes,” Min said.

Facebook also gives students a chance to contact their future roommates, as Min did, making it easy to get acquainted and to discuss the logistics of setting up the dorm room on move-in day.

But despite the benefits of preparing for college using Facebook, students do admit that online networking takes some getting used to.

Kat Campbell-Conlon, an entering freshman at the University of Western Ontario, says she’s glad for the friends she’s made on Facebook; at the same time, she says, “There is always the underlying suspense that they are not [the same] in person as they are online. Sometimes it’s easier to meet people in person because then you can judge body language and vocal tone.”

Niconchuk, too, recognizes the difficulties of translating Internet friendships into face-to-face ones. “[Online,] you don’t know how honest someone is being about themselves. You can’t detect any gaping and obvious annoyances that would be easy to see in person,” he said.

Samantha Pillion, an incoming freshman at Wellesley College, agrees that Facebook friendships aren’t necessarily built to last. She has used Facebook to chat with her roommate and to establish contacts with leaders of the ballroom dancing club that she hopes to join, but she’s waiting to meet most of her college friends in person.

“It’s harmless to chat with people in groups and get to know the kind of people you’ll be meeting. But it’s more important to meet people on campus, it will be much easier for these friendships to grow,” she said. “Facebook should just be a starting-off point for meeting new people, and more importantly, a way to keep in touch with people you meet in real time.”

CNN.com

Facebook People Search Engine

Facebook today added public search listings meaning. if you agree, your name and profile picture will appear in organic search results when people look for your name.

A simple Google search for “inurl:www.facebook.com/p/” suggests that there are over 26.5k public profiles on Facebook already.

There’s more - outsiders or non Facebook members can use the public search box on Facebook’s home page to find friends who may have public profiles on Facebook and contact them.

Facebook vs LinkedIn:

Unlike LinkedIn public profiles which show quite a bit of information (example), public search listings on Facebook only include names and profile picture (example).

How Do Search Engines Discover Facebook Profiles ?

Normally search engines like Google or Yahoo! discover new web pages only when they are linked from another website that’s already in the index of search engines.

Would anyone have a clue how Google would discover your Facebook public profile when it’s not hyperlinked from any other site.

There’s a new widget from the team at Amung.us: A mapping plug-in, maps.amung.us, that you can add to your site to show you where your site’s visitors are coming from, updated in real time. At first it looks to be more fun than useful, but underneath the widget, Amung.us collects interesting stats. You need only to click through from the widget to check them out.

I have a love/hate relationship with widgets like this (see also Feedjit and MyBlogLog). Site managers who are thinking of adding these need to be aware that they can expose information about traffic and users to the general public. Some widgets can even expose readers’ browsing behaviors to each other. In many cases, you can disable this, fortunately. For example, in maps.amung.us, you can change the part of the embed code that says, “&link=yes” to “&link=no”. I’ve left the linking enabled here.

Maybe running a site with wide-open stats is what you want. But if it’s not, you may need to forgo the eye candy.

Several signs are pointing to the imminent launch of Google Wiki and the company’s long-awaited presentation service at this week’s Office 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

The biggest indicators are history and vague comments by Google officials. Last year’s Office 2.0 brought the launch of Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and Jonathan Rochelle, the product manager for Google Spreadsheets, will also be at hand for the opening panel at the conference kickoff on Thursday. Between this, an almost-demo by Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt of the presentation application, as well as a post on the Official Google Blog that presentations would be making their way to everyone “this summer,” and we should be seeing something new as early as Thursday.

The new wiki application from Google would fill out its online office suite, and give Google Apps a little more appeal for small- and mid-size business customers who want a consolidated wiki solution. The launch would also coincide with the anniversary of Google’s acquisition of wiki service JotSpot (review) last October. Considering JotSpot served up multiple tiers of service to serve casual to business users, the model could follow suit with Google’s four flavors of Google Apps, including their business and enterprise solutions.

However, the trail of clues about how these services will tie into Google’s existing online office environment is thin. There have been few signs of Google’s presentation service making an early appearance since the acquisition of Zenter and Tonic Systems a few months ago. From the outside, the clearest indicator has been the move of Jotspot’s user help and forums services over to Google’s own native support network.