Category: Tech news

Editor’s note: This is the third of a three-part guest post by venture capitalist Mark Suster of GRP Partners on “Social Networking: The Past, Present, And Future.” Read Part I and Part II first. This series is an adaptation of a recent talk Suster gave at the Caltech / MIT Enterprise Forum on “the future of social networking.” You can watch the video here , or you can scroll quickly through the Powerpoint slides embedded at the bottom of the post or here on DocStoc. Follow him on Twitter @msuster.

In my first post I talked about the history of social networking from 1985-2002 dominated by CompuServe, AOL & Yahoo! In the second post I explored the current era which covers Web 2.0 (blogs, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook), Realtime (Twitter), and mobile (Foursquare). Is the game over? Have Facebook & Twitter won or is their another act? No prizes for guessing … there’s always a second (and third, and fourth, and fifth) act in technology.  So where is social networking headed next?  I make eight predictions below.

1. The Social Graph Will Become Portable

Right now our social graph (whom we are connected to and their key information like email addresses) is mostly held captive by Facebook.  There is growing pressure on Facebook to make this portable and they have made some progress on this front.  Ultimately I don’t believe users or society as a whole will accept a single company “locking in” our vital information.

Facebook will succumb to pressure and over time make this available to us to allow us more choice in being part of several social networks without having to spam all of our friends again.  I know in 2010 this doesn’t seem obvious to everybody but it’s my judgment.  Either they make our social graph portable or we’ll find other networks to join.  I predict this will come before the end of 2012.

2. We Will Form Around “True” Social Networks: Quora, HackerNews, Namesake, StockTwits

Since 2006 I have been lamenting what I see as “the Facebook problem” – they are trying to lump me into one big social network.  Nobody exists in one social network. I have the one with my friends where I want to talk about how wasted we were at the party last weekend that I don’t want to share with my family network where I share pictures of the kids with my parents and siblings.

I don’t want either of these mixed with the business social network in which I want to maintain the appearance that I’m “all business” and certainly don’t want to see college pictures of me in Mexico floating around. I don’t want to mix my “public network” with my “private networks.”  Facebook has jumbled these all together and then tried to bandage it by making groups available.  I don’t think this really solves the problem.

And young people aren’t stupid – they certainly aren’t as digitally naïve as their elders like to think.  To get around all of this jumbling of social graphs they simply create multiple Facebook accounts under pseudonyms or “nom du guerre” for their real discussions and more pristine Facebook accounts for their real names. I wonder how many of Facebook’s 500 million users are created for this purpose?  I’ve confirmed this trend with several young people.

I believe that people already form topical social networks as evidenced in places like HackerNews or Quora.  We are also seeing the growth of social networks around topics of interest like StockTwits for people interested in investing in the stock market.  There are new networks forming to try and address the needs of specific social networks such as Namesake that is in its experimental stage but sees a world in which people want to network outside of Facebook.

3. Privacy Issues Will Continue to Cause Problems: Diaspora

Facebook made a deal with us that our social network was private.  When they jealously watched the rise of Twitter they decided that it should be made more public, but that wasn’t the bargain we made when we signed up in the first place.  If I were Facebook I would have simply created two places where you could network, Facebook “private” and Facebook “open.”  The latter product could have competed directly with Twitter and could have had an asymmetric follow model.

Sure, we would have had to choose which followers to have in that separate timeline and they wouldn’t have gotten all the synergies that they have by just lumping them together.  But if they would have done it this way they never would have crossed the ethical lines that they did and we could all just love Facebook instead of our love-hate relationships.  I’m still there daily to see pictures of my nieces & nephews – but I never connect more broadly with anybody in the business community.  So 95% of my social networking time goes to Twitter.

I know most people aren’t troubled by the loosening of their information – but I believe that’s because most people don’t understand it.

What I realized in working with so many startup technology firms is that even if you don’t give permission to third-party apps to access your information much of it is available anyways as long as somebody you’re connected to is more promiscuous with third-party apps.  Also, all of those “Facebook Connect” buttons on websites are awesome for quickly logging in, but each gives those websites unprecedented access to your personal information.

I believe that privacy leaks will cause a longer-term backlash against misusing our information but in the short-term not enough people understand the consequences to be alarmed. Diaspora was created in direct response to the growing concerns about Facebook privacy and lock-in.  Whether or not Diaspora will take off is anybody’s guess.  But a lot of people would love to see them or similar players emerge.

4. Social Networking Will Become Pervasive: Facebook Connect meets Pandora, NYTimes

As our social graph becomes more portable I believe that social networking will become a feature in everything we do.  You can already see it slipping into services like Pandora where my social graph instantly appears and my friends’ musical tastes are displayed without my knowing this would happen.  On NY Times I’m getting recommended articles by friends and I didn’t explicitly turn this feature on.  This trend of social pervasiveness will continue.

5. Third-Party Tools Will Embed Social Features in Websites: Meebo

One thing that is obvious to me is that while many websites want to have Facebook Connect log-ins to know more about you, they don’t really know what to do with you once they have that information.  They’re mostly now thinking about serving demographically targeted ads to you, but that’s not very interesting.  Third-party software companies will start to offer features to websites to actually drive social features.  This will take a few years but players such as Meebo are already innovating in this category though their toolbar.

6. Social Networking (like the web) Will Split Into Layers: SimpleGeo, PlaceIQ

One of the most interesting trends in the last few years has been watching the Internet split into layers.  At the bottom end of the stack is storage (S3) and processing (EC2).  At the top end is the business logic created by startups and established technology companies.  I’m going to write a whole post on BothSid.es in the next few weeks on the layering of the Internet and the most important layer that will emerge in the next few years.  We know that the layering of the PC era led to huge innovation at each layer in the stack and I expect the same to continue to emerge on the Internet.  But for now suffice it to say that we’re already seeing this happen in social networks.

One interesting layer is the “mapping layer” that is emerging in mobile social networks.  If every startup had to figure out the locations of every business, what type of business they were and where they were located on a map we’d have very few startups.  SimpleGeo is designed with the idea that startups can create new mobile products without having to each build their own mapping functionality.  This is an awesome trend and will further lower the cost of startup development.  I predict that SimpleGeo will do well in the mapping layer but I see more innovative companies emerging at the data layer.

And there are other companies racing to create horizontal platforms.  One I saw recently was PlaceIQ.  Their goal is to create a horizontal platform that allows marketers or developers to know a lot more about the geo-locations and not just the specific businesses / points-of-interest.  They’re capturing information about the demographics of map tiles, levels of LBS activity, what certain zones are known for (i.e. romantic spot, financial district) and want to make this available to others.

7. Social Chaos Will Create New Business Opportunities: Klout, Sprout Social, CoTweet, awe.sm, (next gen) Buzzd

The explosion of data is creating opportunities just in the management of the data in and of itself.  Once we’re uber-connected and getting information online from people we’ve only met online we need to know more about the “authority” of the people we’re following.  Enter Klout, a service that tracks the influence of individuals in social networks.  It can be imported into other products (e.g. StockTwits) where you really want to know more about the person giving you advice.

We know that Twitter is leading to customer service opportunities for businesses but the opposite is also true.  If you don’t manage what is said about you in social networks it could be detrimental.  Products such as Sprout Social and CoTweet are emerging to help businesses better track and communicate with their customers and leads.  Products like awe.sm (I’m an investor) will help you manage the efficacy of your social media marketing campaigns.

And one of the cooler new products that will emerge in 2011 is being created by Nihal Mehta, who has pivoted from his previous company Buzzd, but I’m sworn to secrecy on what he’s up to until he releases it publicly.  I saw the product recently in New York and loved it.  It will address the world of what happens when businesses and consumers are increasingly mobile & social.

8. Facebook Will Not be the Only Dominant Player

I know that in 2010 it seems ridiculous to say anything other than “Facebook has won—the war is over” and I know that it feels that way right now.  Facebook is so dominant it is astounding.  In a complete return to where we all began with AOL—the world is “closed” again as Facebook has become this generation’s walled garden.  When you’re on Facebook you’re not on the Internet—you’re on the InterNOT.  It is an amazing service and I use it regularly myself (although much less than I use Twitter).  But it makes me laugh to now see so many brands advertising their “fan pages” as they did their AOL Keywords back in the day.  Plus ça change …

Well, here’s a quick history primer that may change your mind:

• In 1998 the Department of Justice launched an anti-trust case against Microsoft.  People feared they were going to have a monopoly over the Internet due to “bunding” Internet Explorer with their operating system.  A bit laughable in 2010, just 12 years later.  These days people would sooner fear Apple than Microsoft, proving that reality is stranger than fiction.
• In April of 2000 there were fears that the AOL / Time Warner merger would create a monopoly on the Internet.  As you know, Time Warner eventually spun off AOL for peanuts.  AOL is in the process of rebuilding itself and emulating a little-known LA-based startup called Demand Media.  AOL seems to be doing great things to reinvent itself under the leadership of Tim Armstrong, but monopoly? Never.
• In May 2007 there were fears that Google was becoming a monopoly.  It controlled two-thirds of all Internet searches in the US and as we all knew—search was inevitably going to be the portal to finding information on the Internet.  Or was it?  We now know that social networking is having a profound impact on how we discover and share content online.
• So . . . now it is November 2010 and Facebook has more than 500 million users.  They have more page views than even Google.  More than 10% of all time on the web is now Facebook.  They have become a juggernaut in online advertising, pictures, video and online games.  And now they want to revolutionize email.  It is no doubt that the next decade belongs to Facebook. But the coincidence is that 10 years out will be 2020 and when we look back from that date I’m certain that people will also find a Facebook monopoly a bit laughable.

Social Networks: Past, Present & Future

Earlier today we broke the news that Skype was ramping up in preparation for new web-based products — a big shift for the company, which has historically offered its extremely popular service via native desktop clients.

Now we’ve heard more details from one source about what this new service may entail. We’re still working to firm up the specifics, but here’s what we’ve gathered so far:

According to our source, Skype is hoping to launch its web-based service in the first quarter of next year.  The launch will likely include integrations on multiple partner sites — Skype is gunning for some big partners, and we hear that LinkedIn has been in discussions about a possible integration (LinkedIn declined to comment).

As for the web service itself, we hear it will actually be based on browser plugins — this isn’t a full HTML5 solution (note that Google took a similar approach with its own web implementation of Google Voice earlier this year). Skype will promote the plugins to users of its existing native apps.

To monetize, we hear that Skype will be offering a number of premium features, which may include SMS functionality and advanced telephony options. Partner sites that integrate Skype will get a revenue split for the users that they drive toward these premium features. It is possible that these premium features may not be slated for the initial release and will roll out later.

Finally, in addition to the hiring boost we reported earlier today, Skype is also planning to bolster its growth in these areas by acquiring smaller companies.

Obviously VoIP service is going to play an increasingly important role in the coming years, and it sounds like if Skype has its way, it will become a standard feature on many of the web’s most popular sites. We’ll keep digging for more.

I was talking with Mike Arrington last night, and he asked me if I had any ideas for today’s column. We batted around several topics — GroupOff being the most interesting as it shows a significant signal of Google weakness. But as I struggled this morning to meet my 10AM deadline (note: I’m writing these words at 1:18PM) this week’s Gillmor Gang went live on TechCrunchTV. Well, all except my iPad.

When the show is published to the Ooyala Backlot software, a number of different versions are rendered. The show works on the Web, works on the iPhone, but on the iPad plays the TechCrunch logo bumper and an ad, then goes black. Now, I’m sure that the engineers will shortly fix this, and if they don’t you can go to the YouTube version which works just fine. But my larger, or simpler point is that not supporting the iPad as the base case in today’s environment is ludicrous. I blame the content cartel, Comcast, the FCC, Barnes & Noble, Adobe, and anybody else who is attempting to derail the overturning of the traditional media channels.

The content cartel is really on our side, believe it or not. Mostly because they tremble in fear of being RecordBiz 2.0. They know full well the iPad is their friend, because once NetFlix trains us that there is no window long enough to protect Hollywood from today’s shows being compared to last year’s releases, the jig is up. It’s Microsoft’s problem with Windows and Office updates: they’re competing with themselves, and the only reason we buy the next one is because it comes preloaded on a new machine. That’s why the Beatles own the Top 50 on iTunes. The Beatles play on my iPad.

Comcast doesn’t care about the iPad but that’s because they are acquiring NBC which is paid by Microsoft to not care. They released an iPad app that lets me control my DVRs but doesn’t let me watch them. I can get NBC shows on my iPad by renting them from iTunes, so I don’t blame NBC, just Comcast. The FCC is toothless, Barnes & Noble gives me no reason whatsoever to leave them even a pity tip as I go to the Kindle and iBooks stores to download iPad product, and Adobe…. Ooyala will fix the problem, but Adobe is the problem.

As the guy said in the old movie, what we have here is a failure to communicate. What part of yes fails to penetrate the minds of those who see video as the next bubble? Yes, we want video, we want it streamed, we want access to it even if we never stream it because then we can delete it off of our iTunes server to free up enough OS space to upgrade to the next version of the infrastructure. The Chicken Littles announcing that this streaming thing is gonna use up all the Cloud’s free space have always and continue to be wrong.

OK, well, then we’re gonna have to charge you. Fine. What part of how much do you not get? 3 or 400 for Google TV, no thanks. A hundred for Apple TV, sure. Now that I’ve been able to AirPlay into my bedroom, I’ll buy another one for my new stereo home entertainment system in the living room and even buy the new Hendrix box set on iTunes while I’m standing on line in Starbucks. Comes with interactive liner notes so I don’t mind saving the money for the analog box set that I can’t buy anywhere.

Apple TV shows us we will save up enough money from opting out of clueless suppliers and spend it on what this streaming architecture will cost. I am diverting my acquisition of DVR-constrained TV shows to rental and preferably streaming of socially filtered results. I am moving to iTunes from CDs and BlueRay, to Bluetooth content streaming from radio, to the networks that speak iPad as well as all the rest. Just look at the ABC app; fully one third of the shows my family and I watch (All My Children, The View, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, you get the idea) and all the arguments about saving them on the living room screen are gone. The kids got iPads from the grandparents for the holidays, and now I can blast Hendrix and Neil Young and Dylan outtakes guilt free.

When this sooner than later adds up to real money, the other networks will ante up. Android and Chrome will help, but people will be in those markets as a way of competing with iOS product, not instead of. Comcast will still be useful just because of the economics of that cable coming into the home. But if they keep the iPad at arms length they will provide competitors with an on-ramp to their customers. It’s not so much cable-cutting that is the threat; it’s winnowing the valuable product down via social clouds to the point where the accumulated revenue makes it viable to justify the investment in iOS UI and the supposed wrath of the cartel.

It’s 3:19 now and still no Gang joy on the iPad. But I can tell you that when John Biggs asks whether it’s going to go all streaming, there’s no part of yes to misunderstand. Every time a hard drive crashes, a little bit of us dies. Pictures, stolen moments, the soundtrack of our lives. Facebook thrives because we trust the Cloud, not the company. Gmail we trust because without redundancy they have no product. NetFlix we trust because we know we’re not missing much no matter how long Comcast lengthens the window.

It’s not clear how NetFlix/Level 3 will fare against the studios’ fear of being Appled, but then again the failure of the GroupOn deal suggests we’re seeing a negotiation not a war. The Google strategy appears to be about acquiring the GroupOn salesforce as a way of staffing its +1 social product. Absorb the new social advertising model, they figure. The studios, afraid of iTunes, may realize it’s better to absorb the NetFlix streaming model with variable pricing just like the Beatles waited for $1.29 and the holiday selling season to jump. After years of embargoed Beatles recordings in the media, those Apple Beatle ads look and sound fresh and alive. Yesterday suddenly doesn’t seem so far away.

If you haven’t already picked up on it here, here and here, Facebook has replaced the nightclub as the de riguer setting for foreign music videos. Much like Gergana’s opus “Facebook,” Swiss DJ David May revolves the entire narrative of his “Facebook Love” video around meeting and courting a girl on, what else, Facebook.

Actually the increased prevalence of the social network in cultural artifacts comes as no surprise, as people now spend more time on Facebook then anywhere else online, clocking in a whopping a 41.1 billion minutes spent last quarter.

I’m just wondering when this Facebook music video thing, like the popularity of cellphones, will eventually hit the US. Extremely silly “Facebook Love” lyrics below.

I’ve met the scene a girl in a my life I do before
Her eyes, her lips, her face, that’s all I ever wanted
And this is how all went
She added me as a friend, I accepted …
And now into her profile, just to check her things and all that I could say was wow, wow, wow

My Facebook love, she was my first Facebook love X 2

Now I got to check if the girl is online, yeah, yeah, she is
I gotta make the first step and I hope she’s gonna write back
This is how the story goes on
How you doing, where you’re from?
You look so beautiful to me, cause I went into your profile
And I saw your pics and all that I could say was wow, wow, wow

My Facebook love, she was my first Facebook love X 5

h/t Europopped

A week ago when the first Wikileak cables started coming out, the New York Times reported that some of them shed some more light on the Chinese hacking attacks on Google which led to its withdrawal from operating in China proper. But the actual cables were not released until today. The NYT describes the cables at length in another article today. But the underlying cables are hard to find, so I’ve reproduced the four main ones below. I found three of them on Wikileaks, and the other on on the New York Times’ own Wikileaks documents page.

It appears from the cables that Google’s troubles in China were going on for years, but it got into particular trouble in 2009 when its Chinese site, Google.cn, wasn’t blocking pornographic sites to the level the Chinese government required. At that time, Google also had a link to its main Google.com site on Google.cn, which the Chinese government didn’t like either. In particular, one Politburo member, identified by the New York Times as Li Changchun, “discovered that Google’s worldwide site is uncensored, and is capable of Chinese language searches and search results. XXXXXXXXXXXX allegedly entered his own name and found results critical of him. He also noticed the link from google.cn’s homepage to google.com, which XXXXXXXXXXXX reportedly believes is an ‘illegal site.’” The Chinese government then told China’s three main telecom companies to stop doing business with Google.

The cables also describe denial of service attacks on Google’s sites in China, and concerns dating back to 2006 about Google Earth images of sensitive government facilities.

Cable 09BEIJING1336, Google China Paying Price For Resisting Censorship, May 18, 2009

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 001336

SIPDIS

State for EAP/CM – SFlatt, PPark, AGoodman
State for EEB/CIP – FSaeed, SFlynn
USTR for AWinter, JMcHale, AMain, TWineland
Commerce for MAC
Commerce for ITA – IKasoff, JWu

EO 12958 XXXXXXXXXXXXX
TAGS ETRD, PGOV, SOCI, SCUL, ECON, CH
SUBJECT: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Ref: Beijing XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Classified By: Economic Minister Counselor Robert Luke. Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

Summary
——-

¶1. (C) CDA spoke by phone with XXXXXXXXXXXXX to discuss recent pressure by the Chinese government to censor the company’s Chinese website, accelerated perhaps by the approach of significant political anniversaries.XXXXXXXXXXXXX averred that the root of the problem was China’s Politburo Standing Committee member XXXXXXXXXXXXX who wants the company to remove a link to the uncensored google.com site from its sanitized Chinese version, google.cn. XXXXXXXXXXXXX said Google China has resisted that step as against company principles, though it has taken other smaller measures to try and placate the government. Thus far that tactic has been unsuccessful, and the government has already taken commercial steps against Google, including telling the three dominant SOE telecoms to stop doing business with the company. CDA and XXXXXXXXXXXXX discussed possible USG advocacy, including having imminent visiting Codels and possible Cabinet-level officials raise this directly. For the moment, Google does not wish to go public, preferring to see if current efforts produce results. End Summary.

¶2. (C) XXXXXXXXXXXXX, CDA Dan Piccuta and XXXXXXXXXXXX talked XXXXXXXXXX about the increasing censorship pressure Google is facing.XXXXXXXXXXXX said Politburo Standing Committee member XXXXXXXXXXXX recently discovered that Google’s worldwide site is uncensored, and is capable of Chinese language searches and search results. XXXXXXXXXXXX allegedly entered his own name and found results critical of him. He also noticed the link from google.cn’s homepage to google.com, whichXXXXXXXXXXXX reportedly believes is an “illegal site.” XXXXXXXXXXXX asked three ministries (note: most likely the Ministry of Industry and Information Industry, State Council Information Office, and Public Security Bureau.) to write a report about Google and demand that the company cease its “illegal activities,” which include linking to google.com.

Commercial Consequences Already Visible
—————————————

¶3. (SBU) XXXXXXXXXXXX said that removing the link to google.com is against the company’s principles, and its leadership has definitively refused to make such a change, despite the importance of the Chinese market. Google recently has officially but “politely” told the government this, XXXXXXXXXXXX noted, and their Chinese interlocutors at the time were visibly unhappy and said they would report the news to XXXXXXXXXXXX . XXXXXXXXXXXX reported that Google had, however, already made some changes to its Chinese site and will continue to make others. Nonetheless, he said China has already asked its three state-owned telecom companies to stop working with China, a hard blow because mobile Internet is Google’s “big bet in China.”XXXXXXXXXXXX said one telecom company is seeking to back out of an existing contract with Google, while the two others have stopped moving ahead with negotiations. Other SOEs have also been asked to stop working with Google in China,XXXXXXXXXXXX said.

¶4. (SBU) The best case scenario XXXXXXXXXXXX foresees is that China responds to Google’s official refusal to take down the link by issuing an order warning against further non-compliance. More likely is
BEIJING 00001336 002 OF 003
that google.com will be blocked in China, either sporadically or permanently. This would be similar to China’s current blocking of YouTube, but with greater implications for users including business travelers and tourists, advertisers, and for Google’s network and technology platforms, possibly affecting other services like Gmail.thought it also possible that the government might revoke Google’s license to operate in China. He acknowledged that sensitive anniversaries in 2009 present special challenges to the Chinese government, especially the XXXXXXXXXXXX June 4 Tiananmen anniversary. (Note: Possibly in preparation for this anniversary year, Chinese censors have engaged in a months-long “anti- vulgar” campaign to shut down hundreds of “illegal” websites; see reftel.)

Google Deems its Legal Basis Sound
———————————-

¶5. (SBU) Google lawyers have found no legal basis for China’s demands, XXXXXXXXXXXX reported. While the government has called google.com an illegal website to justify its request for removal of the link, Chinese law does not explicitly identify the site as illegal, the site is not blocked by China, and thousands of other Chinese websites include links to google.com.

¶6. (C) XXXXXXXXXXXX said Google faces the dilemma of losing the Chinese market in retaliation for maintaining Google’s integrity and brand. The CDA and XXXXXXXXXXXX discussed the difficulty of engaging China on this matter, since no trade obligations cover China’s censorship regime, but considered what U.S. Government actions might be possible nonetheless.

USG High-Level Advocacy Requested
———————————

¶7. (C) XXXXXXXXXXXX suggested that high-level USG officials phone or write to XXXXXXXXXXXX to indicate support for Google’s operations in China, in accordance with Chinese law. He suggested the letter could urge further dialogue toward a mutually acceptable resolution and suggest diplomatic or commercial consequences in the event of rash or disruptive action. After some discussion, XXXXXXXXXXXX concluded that intervention by Secretary Locke might be the most effective step.

¶8. (C)XXXXXXXXXXXX He noted that Google has also raised the issue with Representatives Kirk and Larson. However, he stressed, he would like USG support in making contact.

¶9. (C) The CDA said senior Embassy officials will meet with relevant Chinese ministries to make it clear the USG is aware of the issue, and to urge them to work constructively with Google.XXXXXXXXXX stressed that, before the USG engages on their behalf, Google would prefer to wait a few days to see what other steps the Chinese government might take.

Google History in China
———————–

¶10. (SBU) XXXXXXXXXXXX explained that Google entered the Chinese market in 2006 under scrutiny from Congress and shareholders, both concerned with the company’s agreement to be subject to censorship. To enter the China market legally, but remain faithful to its values, the company took a path of
BEIJING 00001336 003 OF 003
“responsible engagement” that included three commitments: Google will never disclose to the Chinese government any personal information about its users or their search habits; Google will always include a disclosure notice to identify when search results had been removed due to censorship; and Google will always provide an uncensored, U.S.-hosted site, subject to U.S. law.

¶11. (SBU) XXXXXXXXXXXX said the Chinese government’s granting of the licenses necessary for Google to operate in China implied passive approval or at least tolerance of the above principles. Since 2006, XXXXXXXXXXXX said, the company has operated responsibly and legally, following censorship orders just as other companies do. The vast majority of Chinese government requests for censorship have been related to pornographic material and illegal activities, XXXXXXXXXXXX said. In total, only about one percent of search results are blocked in China, according to the company.

¶12. (SBU)XXXXXXXXXXXX observed that, before Google China was formed, google.com was blocked in China in 2002 for approximately two months. At the time, he said, scholarly users were the company’s largest constituency, and their complaints about limited access to academic materials through Google ultimately caused the government to re-open the site. This time,XXXXXXXXXXXX observed,XXXXXXXXXX seems unconcerned with such repercussions, and will likely not yield to pressure from China’s Internet community. XXXXXXXXXXXX he said, believes Google is a “tool” of the USG being used to “foment peaceful revolution in China.”

Comment
——-

¶13. (C) While we can neither confirm nor deny the provocative language and views attributed to XXXXXXXXXXXX, the claims of government-forced retribution by the major SOE telecoms companies are cause for serious concern. The potential for continuing escalation by the Chinese, assuming Google sticks to its guns — and the likelihood of loud U.S. Congressional and public outcry if it caves — suggest a high-level USG response may be in order. While we cannot verify XXXXXXXXXXXX’s claims of commercial retaliation, such a move seems quite possible. End Comment.

Cable 09BEIJING1957, GOOGLE CLAIMS HARRASSMENT BY CHINESE GOVERNMENT, July 12, 2009

SUBJECT: GOOGLE CLAIMS HARRASSMENT BY CHINESE GOVERNMENT

¶1. (SBU) Summary. XXXXXXXXXXXXX claim the company’s services have been blocked by the Chinese government periodically over the past three years. After users reported on June 18 that Google.cm search engine was not filtering returns for pornographic sites, the government on June 24 again blocked the company’s services for 24 hours resulting in the loss of 20 percent of its traffic that day.XXXXXXXXXXXXX believe the real reason for the government’s wrath is the company’s refusal to remove a link to google.com from the google.cn website. They argue doing so would be in violation of a commitment the company made with Congress. End Summary.

¶2. (SBU) In conversations XXXXXXXXXXXXX told ADCM and EconOff that the Chinese government has been blocking several of Google’s Internet sites periodically for the past three years. They said the blocking and other harassment had intensified in June 2009, purportedly because of the search engine’s failure to filter some inappropriate or illicit content found on the web.

¶3. (SBU)XXXXXXXXXXXXX said that XXXXXXXXXXXXX a group of Chinese Internet users reported that Google.cn was not effectively filtering pornographic sites. XXXXXXXXXXXXX said Google China representatives were called to a meeting co-hosted by the State Council Information Office (SCIO, responsible for controlling Internet content), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT, responsible for Internet technology and policy), and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS, responsible for Internet crime). The Ministries demanded Google provide better filtering on its Google.cn search engine and temporarily stop indexing sites outside of China. XXXXXXXXXXXXX The company refused this request.

¶4. (SBU) Google then experienced a wave of “attacks” in the media reporting that pornographic material could be found through the Google search engine. (Note: In the nine days following the June 18 incident, an incomplete list of reporting in the Chinese press contains 57 separate articles attacking Google. End Note). On June 24 servers in China were virally infected, causing them to redirect computers attempting to reach Google pages to an unknown web site. These attacks made Google services unavailable to many Chinese users for approximately 24 hours, and caused the company to lose 20% of its traffic on that day.

Lose the Google.com
——————-

¶5. (SBU) BothXXXXXXXXXXXXX believe the real reason for the government’s wrath is Google’s refusal to remove the link to Google.com from the Google.cn website.XXXXXXXXXXXXX explained that, when the company decided to enter the Chinese market, it testified before Congress that it would agree to censor its search results in China as required by Chinese law based on three principles. First, the company would not store private user information so as to avoid persecution of individuals based on their use of Google’s services. Second, the company would disclose to users when a search result had been censored. Third, Google would maintain a link from the Google.cn homepage to Google.com.

¶6. (SBU) According to XXXXXXXXXXXXX, from 2007 through 2009 Google received numerous informal inquiries from the Chinese government as to the possibility of removing the Google.com link. The company repeatedly explained that it could not, based on its promise to Congress. XXXXXXXXXXXXX said the government, for the first time, verbally requested the company remove the link. Google China explained removing the link was not required under Chinese law and reiterated that doing so would violate the company’s commitment. This was the first time the company had explicitly denied a government request, XXXXXXXXXXXXX stated.

Pulling Out an Option
———————

¶7. (SBU) XXXXXXXXXXXXX said the June 24 blocking of Google’s services is only the most recent of a three year history of blockings. He noted the company’s You Tube service has been entirely blocked since March 24. He believes the company is being harassed. XXXXXXXXXXXXX said the negative press coverage and service outages have caused the company to lose market share. XXXXXXXXXXXXXsays the company is regularly audited by tax authorities, and XXXXXXXXXXXXX. XXXXXXXXXXXXX said that, faced with the continual
BEIJING 00001957 002 OF 002
difficulties of doing business in China, the company may even consider pulling out of the market.

¶8. (SBU) Comment. Google is the only international search engine still doing business in China. It is an important symbol. If Google were forced to withdraw from the market, the move could attract heavy international attention. End

Cable 06BEIJING23571, PRC CLAIMS HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGERY ON GOOGLE EARTH, November 7, 2006

SUBJECT: PRC CLAIMS HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGERY ON GOOGLE EARTH
COULD AID TERRORIST ATTACKS ON CHINA

Classified By: Classified by Deputy Chief of Mission David S. Sedney.
Reasons 1.4 (b/d).

SUMMARY
——-

¶1. (C) China wants the United States Government to take
action to get Google to reduce the resolution of the Google
Earth images of China’s military, nuclear, space, energy and
other sensitive government agency installations in order to
deprive terrorists of potentially dangerous information, XXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX told
the DCM on XXXXXXXXXXXX said the Beijing request was
based on possible “grave consequences” if terrorists exploit
the information to harm China. Google Earth is a private
company, the DCM reminded XXXXXXXXXXXX was noncommittal on
whether China would directly contact Google or the European
imagery providers and the other sources of high resolution
imagery on the Internet. Other countries have shared similar
concerns with China, XXXXXXXXXXXX said, but he refused to divulge
country names. End Summary.

Google Earth High Resolution Images a Threat to China
——————————————— ——–

¶2. (C) Google Earth is providing high resolution images of
sensitive Chinese facilities over the Internet, thereby
endangering PRC national security, XXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX told
the DCM during a XXXXXXXXXXXX meeting. These facilities
include military installations, nuclear test sites, satellite
launch sites, oil production facilities, power generating
plants and important government departments. The resolution
is one meter for most of China, and is as fine as 0.6 meters
in Beijing and Shanghai, allowing anyone with Internet access
to view these facilities in great detail. Moreover, Google
Earth allows users to post information about specific
locations, XXXXXXXXXXXX continued, which means information about
important Chinese agencies and sensitive installations is
effectively being published on the Internet.

“Grave Consequences” if Terrorists Use Imagery
———————————————

¶3. (C) XXXXXXXXXXXX said China is extremely concerned that
terrorist organizations could access the high resolution
imagery and posted information and present a grave threat to
PRC national security. If terrorists used the imagery from
Google Earth to cause damage to China, there would be “grave
consequences,” warned XXXXXXXXXXXX. In the spirit of our sound
bilateral cooperative relationship, particularly on
counterterrorism issues, XXXXXXXXXXXX asked that the United States
place “great importance” on China’s concerns, understand the
sensitivity of the matter and take action so that Google will
reduce the resolution of the images of China’s sensitive
facilities.

DCM: Google a Private Company, and Not Imagery Source
——————————————— ——–

¶3. (C) The DCM told XXXXXXXXXXXX that he would report the request
to Washington, but noted that Google is a private company.
The DCM said he had no information to offer on what, if any,
role or response the United States Government might have to
the Chinese presentation. The DCM noted that the Chinese
points only asked for a reduction in the resolution and asked
if the Chinese sought any specific level. The DCM also asked
whether XXXXXXXXXXXX had contacted Google directly and, since
Google purchases the imagery as any individual or entity can,
whether China had contacted the satellite imagery providers.

XXXXXXXXXXXX: Other, Unspecified Countries Have Similar Concerns
——————————————— ————-

¶4. (C) XXXXXXXXXXXX responded that China is approaching the United
States Government because the issue is directly relevant to
counterterrorism and that while Google is a private company
it operates in the United States “political and legal
environment.” China is requesting the United States take
action to prevent the information from being misused to cause
damage to China, XXXXXXXXXXXX reiterated. He offered that China
had been in discussions with other countries with similar
concerns about Google Earth. However, XXXXXXXXXXXX refused to
provide the names of the other countries, noting he was
unable to share the information due to prior agreements with

BEIJING 00023571 002 OF 002

those countries.

Europe the Source of Imagery, But Google Earth is the Key
——————————————— ————

¶5. (C) China will talk to Google about the “technical
details,” XXXXXXXXXXXX continued, adding that it is not for the MFA
to determine the appropriate resolution level. China knows
the source data comes from European companies, satellite
operators and the European space agency but XXXXXXXXXXXX said China
sees Google as the problem because it makes the information
easily accessible. When pressed, XXXXXXXXXXXX admitted that
Beijing had not yet contacted the European providers or the
governments associated with the European space program. XXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX said that while China will look at the other Internet
sources of the high resolution imagery, Google,s well known
imagery is of greatest concern.
Randt

And this one from the NYT (with redactions): Chinese Government Singles Out Google

DATE –––– ––––:––––:––––

SOURCE Embassy Beijing

CLASSIFICATION SECRET

–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––

SIPDIS

NSC FOR BADER, MEDEIROS, AND LOI

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/26/2030
TAGS: ECON, PGOV, PHUM, PREL, EINV, CH
SUBJECT: GOOGLE UPDATE: PRC ROLE IN ATTACKS AND RESPONSE
STRATEGY

REF: –––– ––––

–––– –––– ––––.–––– –––– ––––

Classified By: DCM Robert Goldberg. Reasons 1.4 (b), (d).

1. (S) Summary: A well-placed contact claims that the
Chinese government coordinated the recent intrusions of
Google systems. According to our contact, the closely held
operations were directed at the Politburo Standing Committee
level.

– Another contact claimed a top PRC leader was actively
working with Google competitor Baidu against Google.

– Chinese concerns over the recent Google threat to take
down the company’s Chinese-language search engine google.cn
over censorship and hacking allegations were focused on the
service’s growing popularity among Chinese Internet users and
a perception that the USG and Google were working in concert.

– An appeal to nationalism seems to be the Chinese
government’s chosen option to counter Google’s demand to
provide unfiltered web content.

– Contacts in the technology industry tell us that Chinese
interference in the operations of foreign businesses is
widespread and often underreported to U.S. parent companies.
End Summary.

Attacks Directed at High Level
——————————

2. (S) –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– (––––) –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– (––––) –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––, –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– ––––. –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––’––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––.
(––––: –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––’–––– ––––
––––.) –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––’–––– ––––, –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– (––––). –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– “–––– –––– ––––”
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
––––, –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––, –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– ––––. ––––, –––– –––– (––––
––––), –––– –––– –––– ––––, –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––’––––
–––– –––– ––––.

PRC Sees USG and Google Working Together
—————————————-

3. (C) –––– ––––, –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– (–––– ––––), told PolOff –––– –––– that
Google’s recent move presented a major dilemma (maodun) for
the Chinese government, not because of the cyber-security
aspect but because of Google’s direct challenge to China’s
legal restrictions on Internet content. The immediate
strategy, –––– said, seemed to be to appeal to Chinese
nationalism by accusing Google and the U.S. government of
working together to force China to accept “Western values”
and undermine China’s rule of law. The problem the censors
were facing, however, was that Google’s demand to deliver
uncensored search results was very difficult to spin as an
attack on China, and the entire episode had made Google more
interesting and attractive to Chinese Internet users. All of
a sudden, –––– continued, Baidu looked like a boring
state-owned enterprise while Google “seems very attractive,
like the forbidden fruit.” He said it “seems clear” to the
Chinese people that Google and the U.S. government were
working together on Internet freedom and to undermine Chinese
government controls on the Internet. That made some
intellectuals happy, –––– said, but “some others” regarded it
as interference in China’s internal affairs.

Industry: Interference Common, Paranoia Driving PRC Policy
——————————————— ————-

–––– –––– 002 OF 002

4. (C) –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––’–––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– (please protect) noted the
pronounced disconnect between views of U.S. parent companies
and local subsidiaries. PRC-based company officials often
downplayed the extent of PRC government interference in their
operations for fear of consequences for their local markets.
Our contact emphasized that Google and other U.S. companies
in China were struggling with the stated Chinese goal of
technology transfer for the purpose of excluding foreign
competition. This consultant noted the Chinese were
exploiting the global economic downturn to enact increasingly
draconian product certification and government procurement
regulations to force foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) to
transfer intellectual property and to carve away the market
share of foreign companies.

Chinese Media: American Hypocrisy and Cultural Hegemony
——————————————— ———–

5. (U) The Secretary’s speech continued to dominate headlines
January 25-26, with the official People’s Daily (circ 2.2
million) alleging collusion between U.S. officials and the
business community as evidenced by the propinquity of
Google’s rethink of its China business and the Secretary’s
speech. Chinese media again accused the U.S. of “cultural
hegemony” for setting the standards for “so-called Internet
freedom8 and of hypocrisy for calling for the free flow of
information while using the Internet as a political and
military tool. People’s Daily-affiliated Global Times
English (circ 150,000) called the speech a “milestone”
showing that U.S. and Western political interests were
“taking over every dimension” of cyberspace.

6. (U) The Party-affiliated Beijing News (circ 530,000)
opined that the speech showed “a huge gap between Chinese and
American information industries, which may lead to a trade
war strategy.” In an article headlined “China Intensifies
Counterattack on Internet Accusation,” Global Times Chinese
(circ 1.3 million) quoted Chinese scholar Niu Xinchun as
rejecting the theory that U.S.-China conflict would replace
the “G2″ cooperation model, noting that U.S. attacks usually
ended “poorly” when the U.S. considered its practical
interests. Many papers quoted statements from the State
Council Information Office and Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology calling Chinese Internet controls
“legitimate” and saying they should not be subject to
“unjustifiable interference.” Papers continued to conflate
Google’s China business strategy with the Secretary’s speech.

Blogging Circumscribed
———————-

7. (SBU) Anecdotally, censors appear to have cracked down on
blogging about the Secretary’s speech. –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– (––––) –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– –––– –––– ––––, –––– –––– –––– –––– ––––
–––– ––––. Secretary Clinton’s speech is currently blocked
in Chinese on state.gov but remains accessible on the U.S.
Embassy website in both English and Chinese.
HUNTSMAN

Throw out your touchscreens, kibosh your Kinects: thought-controlled computing is the new new thing. Brain-computer interface technology has been simmering for years, and seems finally ready to bubble out of research labs and into the real world.

Earlier this year, friends of mine at the Toronto art space Site3 built a thought-controlled flamethrower, for fun. (Don’t you hate how it’s always the friends you least want to have the power to project torrents of flame with a flick of their mind who always get it?) Toronto has long been a hub for brain computing, in part because legendary cyborg Steve Mann is a University of Toronto engineering professor. Mann also cofounded the thought-controlled computing consultancy InteraXon, which built the neural installation at this year’s Olympics.

Both InteraXon and my pyromaniacal friends use brainwave-reading headsets made by Neurosky (whose promise was noted by TechCrunch five years ago) and Emotiv. Today’s sets handle much more than mere alpha/beta wave measurement: Emotiv’s, in particular, can track eye motion, facial expressions, emotional state, and even directional thoughts.

The potential applications go way beyond flambés. Ariel Garten, InteraXon’s CEO, ticks off a laundry list that includes advance warning of epileptic seizures, headset-controlled airline entertainment systems, and a company that approached her hoping to build a thought-controlled welding system. Meanwhile, Columbia University’s Paul Sajda has scored $4.6 million from the Department of Defence for his EEG cap and machine-learning algorithms used to improve image recognition and classification.

Gaming is also a big market (making the Kinect seem so five minutes ago) but the ability to connect neural headsets and mobile devices is even more interesting. Garten—who will be speaking at Le Web next week, and at CES in January—sketches a compelling vision of stylish headsets growing more common than Bluetooth earpieces today, and their users interacting with phones, kiosks, and other devices without so much as twitching a lip or finger.

InteraXon, which is self-funded and profitable, already connects neural headsets to iOS devices over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Both Neurosky and Emotiv have made SDKs available for developers, and have app stores up and running. Their futures look ripe with potential—until and unless someone like Apple decides to play in this space. iMind, anyone?

We’re still a long way from real wetware (direct brain-computer connections) . . . but last week an NYU professor had a digital camera implanted in his head. It’ll be many years (if ever) before that goes mainstream, but the line between the mind and its tech is growing finer. “It can be a transformational experience,” Garten says, of the moment users first don a headset. “For the first time, you’re consciously interacting with your own brain.”

The Gillmor Gang went skinnydipping in the politics and technology of the Streaming Era. Kevin Marks took on the technical discussion, suggesting there is really no difference between downloading and streaming. Of course, he’s absolutely correct. What there is a difference is between the content cartel getting a fivespot per view and a buck a view or a penny a view if you’re one of those guys who are streaming NetFlix endlessly at 8 bucks a month. That would be me, if in fact there was any interesting product on NetFlix after Comcast gets through suing them into oblivion. I got your Net Neutrality right here, pal.

Andrew Keen objects to my constant use of the term “cartel”, accusing me of being old as do a stream of Tweets in the chat room. Of course I’m old, enough to know better; why would I still be using FriendFeed? CrunchGear editor John Biggs makes his Gang debut from his Brooklyn lair, hoping that everything will soon come into his broadband connection so he can avoid risking his life going to the movies. And Robert Scoble couldn’t be happier driving around the Bay Area listening to streamcasts of his favorite startups. As he says, we’re just waiting for Hollywood to name its price so we can get it when and where we want it. If Neil Young can have an iPad app, then anything is possible.

As we’re all well aware, Facebook doesn’t offer an iPad app. Well, maybe we’re not all so aware of that. Because Friendly, an unofficial app made by Oecoway, has been a massive hit on the platform. In fact, it has over 500,000 active users, co-founder Cyril Moutran tells us. And that’s pretty amazing considering that they have been charging for the app. But you can probably expect that number to explode even further, as they’ve decided to make the app free.

To be clear, there will still be a $0.99 version of Friendly, but the only difference from the new free version is that it won’t have ads. Undoubtedly, most users won’t care about that and will opt for the free version. And the app will rack up even more downloads because 1) again, Facebook doesn’t have an official app and 2) Friendly is a very solid way to use Facebook on the device.

“We’re making Friendly for Facebook free, because we want to expand our user base and put Friendly for Facebook in as many people’s hands as possible,” Moutran says. The service essentially takes the touch-optimized version of Facebook’s site and wraps it in their own native app wrapper. But this allows them to add more functionality, such as the ability to change fonts and colors. Plus you can browse the web within it and quickly share back to Facebook. You can also easily manage multiple Facebook accounts from the app.

The app also brings a native app look, feel, and performance to Facebook. That may not sound like much, but given the usage numbers, it definitely can’t be overlooked.

But while Friendly is very good, let’s be honest: if Facebook had their own app, most people would likely use that. People currently searching for “Facebook” on the iPad only have the third-party options — and this has tricked some people. And considering that many of these apps are paid apps, that has cost people money — something which Facebook can’t like too much.

So did Facebook pressure Friendly to go free? It doesn’t seem that way. Moutran says that Facebook has been very supportive of what they’ve been doing. “The Facebook Platform team in particular deserves kudos for their around the clock dedication at providing help and guidance to developers on iOS SDK,” he says.

Maybe we should take Friendly going free as a sign that an official app is coming? That also doesn’t seem all that likely given Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent words about the possibility.

While Moutran declined to talk about their revenue numbers, if you simply take the 500,000 user number and multiply it by the one dollar the app had sold for, you get $500,000 (before Apple takes their 30 percent cut). Of course, Moutran did say the 500,000 is active users, so it’s possible the app has been downloaded quite a bit more, bringing Oecoway even more money.

Now they’ll likely have to replace a lot of that money with ad revenue. Will it add up? Who knows, but this move will undoubtedly bring them a lot more users.

“We’re really excited because Friendly for Facebook has been an extremely successful paid application. It’s held the top overall spot for paid applications for more than 40 days, and it’s been the top paid social media iPad app since we launched version 1.0. But we want as many people as possible to be able to experience Friendly for Facebook so that’s why we are making it free,” Moutran reiterates.

That’s great news for Facebook users and iPad lovers alike.

You can find the free version of Friendly here. And the paid version here.

Flashcards for toddlers is a huge business. Ok, I actually have no idea how big of a business it is. But I know parents think they’re an important part of the development of their child, and I have witnessed that toddlers will actually tolerate them for short periods of time. The direct feedback loop is key.

All of this stuff is moving to touch devices, obviously. Children love them, and get how to use them immediately.

Anyhow, interesting data from iTot Apps, the creator of a popular flashcard app for toddlers call, aptly, Toddler Flashcards. The company, by the way, was founded as a hobby by iLike cofounder Hadi Partovi and and Nat Brown, the ex-CTO of iLike.

They have an iPhone version of the app that sells well. And they also have a Windows 7 version. Despite the huge difference in number of available devices, Partovi says he’s surprised that the app only sells 1/10th the number of installs on that platform compared to iOS. Toddler Flashcards is currently ranked #709 for all WP7 apps, and #21 in the paid entertainment category. Despite that they have only sold an average of 7.5 copies a day over a previous week. They sold 71.5 per day on iOS during the same period, about 10x more.

Why do we care? Data like this hints at the total run rate for Win7 phones. Put enough of these data points together and you can start to get a picture of how well the device is selling.

Now please excuse me while I go play startup entrepreneur flashcards. Gotta keep fresh!

Since we broke the news a couple days ago that Google’s secret social project, formerly known as “Emerald Sea“, is now being called “Google +1″, we’ve gotten more confirmation about the naming. This includes people more confident that this could well be the name Google ends up going with. We’ve also heard a couple other new interesting tidbits about the project.

The first is that Google may be testing an iPhone app for +1, which would presumably launch alongside the web variation of the service. One source reports seeing a Google employee’s iPhone with an app called “Loop” on it. This was apparently Google’s social project in native app form. The source says that it looked similar to Facebook and had large portions that were still in development.

This is particularly interesting because we have heard that early iterations of Google +1 itself were much more similar to Facebook. But that version was supposedly scrapped in favor of a more all-web-encompassing toolbar approach (at least as it currently stands). So it’s possible that the app is a bit old, or that Google is thinking a bit differently about the social product on mobile devices.

The “Loop” name is also interesting because we’ve heard that a big part of +1 is groups, and those groups are apparently called “loops”. The idea is that as you add or remove people from these loops, they’re either “in the loop” or “out of the loop”. Get it?

In fact, loops are considered to be such an integral part of the service, that it’s possible that Loop is/was another name Google’s been toying around with for it. That would certainly make the name of the iPhone app make sense. Or perhaps the app is just a certain subset of +1 features that would work better in native app form, rather than on the mobile web. Either way, the location-based app Loopt can’t be happy about the possible name.

It’s also believed that Facebook found out that groups (loops) were going to be a key part of Google’s social service, so they went into “lockdown” over the summer to get their new Groups feature out the door — which they did a couple months ago.

Undoubtedly, if such a Google +1 app does actually exist, the company has an Android version as well. But as we’ve seen with apps like Google Voice, the search giant isn’t opposed to developing for a rival platform. It’s all about reach. And Google would need something for the iPhone if they want +1 to be successful in the mobile space.

Picking our favorite things of 2010 is hard but picking our favorite reviews isn’t. Here are some of our best chunks of opinion, in no particular order, expressing the mirth and wisdom of the entire CG staff.

Read more…

Part of the TRON press event included an advance screening of TRON: Legacy. We’ve been under embargo not to review the movie, but someone broke the embargo, so we are no longer going to keep it secret.

If you do not like movie spoilers, do not click to read more and do not read on, because I’m going to tell you what I think about the movie and I’m going to include some information about it that you might not want to know. I’m not going to give away major plots, because I hate that, but I’m going to go into some of my thoughts on the movie. If you are curious about seeing TRON and don’t mind a tidbit of information, read on.

When I saw TRON the first time as a child it opened up my mind to amazing possibilities. The story around Kevin Flynn was ok, but the ideas around being transported to a virtual world where programs were personified by human representations are what really stuck with me. I liked to believe that one day this would be possible. I could have an avatar and I could meet people on the “grid”. In some ways we can do this now through MMORPGs etc., but we’re still aware of our real world surroundings. We can’t truly get lost yet. We can’t feel, smell and taste virtual things. Maybe someday.

TRON held a different place in my heart during different periods of my life. As a child, it was just a simple and beautiful thing, but as an adult, I dove deeper into the technology that made it all possible. What TRON achieved in 1982 was ground breaking. From what I understand, it was the first movie to incorporate live action with CGI and hand drawn animation. The results were breath taking. I know you look back at it now and maybe you don’t see it, but you have to somehow use a mental wayback machine to put yourself in the early 80s and imagine it. The animations were rendered on the only PDP-10 in the area using 2MB of RAM.

As a young adult, I played TRON at parties with the volume off. We’d watch it in the background and revel at its beauty. When the volume was on, we laughed at the witty and inaccurate technical jokes, but they were endearing. My favorite character was “bit” who only spoke in binary. Yes and No.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes… NO NO NO NO NO! Yes.

When IMDB launched, I immediately looked up TRON and saw – “In production TRON 2.0, release date TBD”. I waited and waited. I heard the production was canceled, restarted, canceled, restarted, etc. As technology accelerated and movies like the Matrix & Avatar appeared, it made me hopeful for what they could create with a new TRON.

I also love the original Star Wars. When I found out they were making Episode 1, I had extremely mixed feelings. Unlike TRON, I’m not sure Star Wars gets better with improved technology. Part of what made Star Wars so special were the models and limitations of the time. I camped out all night with a friend and we played chess while we waited to see the new Star Wars. I was so disappointed. Jar Jar ruined quite a bit of it for me, but really, if I had to be honest, it wasn’t special anymore. Something was lost. I was too young to realize it then, but those movies were not intended for me. They were intended for a whole new audience and a whole new generation of Star Wars fans that had just recently been born. I wasn’t going to relive my childhood through that movie and I had to move on.

So, really, the Matrix is the sequel to TRON in my mind. That’s where you’d take a concept like TRON to a whole new level for adults. The key word being adult. The new TRON, like Star Wars, is for a whole new generation. It is a stand alone movie that needs to be judged on its own.

It is a Frankenstein story, where the artist creates a world that is meant to be perfect, but everything goes wrong. The cost is the real and tangible relationship with the outside world.  It is also a story about the ethics around artificial intelligence. If the original TRON inspired me the way it did, I wonder what our children will take away from this. Maybe they’ll get the message.

So, if the Matrix, Snowcrash, Diamond Age and Avatar are for adults. TRON is the movie for children. It is the introduction to the complex idea of existing in a virtual world by transporting your brain and identity into an electronic form. Think of it as a Madeleine L’ engle book. If you read a Wrinkle In Time as a child, it was an introduction to quantum physics. This is what TRON is. It is a primer for more complex thoughts that require more literature and other movies.

The new TRON is absolutely beautiful. The Cirque Du Soliel of movies. You don’t go for the plot at Cirque, you go to see some amazing stuff. You go to see how far we can push the human body and you are astonished by the skill. That’s TRON, old and new. It is a wonder of the human imagination. A virtual wonderland.

Even the movie Hackers (another favorite) was like this. If you tried to take that movie seriously and compare it to what was really possible, you’d be disappointed, but if you saw it from the creator’s eyes and how computer people “sound” to people who don’t understand what we’re saying, it made perfect sense. That movie was the re-creation of hearing people talking about a kill -9 on a process. If you asked any hacker what his dream girl might be like, maybe she did ride a motorcycle and skate around on rollerblades. She certainly had the fastest computer which was better than yours and could hack you under the table.  That movie was also a work of art.

As a bonus for the Unix geeks, there’s some actual *real* Unix stuff in this movie when Sam goes through his father’s history and executes some previous commands. I thought that was pretty cool. Usually movies get this all wrong. I mean, in the Matrix, Trinity took down some power grid using nmap, which is a port scanner. It sure looked cool, but it really didn’t make any sense.

“This is Unix. I know this.” – Jurrasic Park

One of the members of the TRON team said not to over analyze it and get lost in the world, and that’s my advice as well. Try to become a child again and imagine being a 5-10 year old and being blown away by the light cycle races. Imagine what’s ticking in their mind and what seeds are being planted.

The original TRON is responsible for a lot of things that we enjoy today. Daft Punk draws their inspiration from the movie, many people got into technology because of it, movies were inspired by it and so on.

After watching the movie, I was left wanting more, which is always a good sign. I felt like they could have given us one hour more of this beautiful world. I didn’t want it to end. That’s what Avatar was for me. The story was basically Pocahontas in space, which really didn’t interest me, but the idea around real living things being driven by a remote host was what really piqued my interest. The creation of a whole new world that I could get lost in, was just amazing. I watched it three times just to see that world and I blocked out what everyone was saying.

The new TRON is sexy, the soundtrack is amazing, the world is beautiful, the characters are awesome and the 3D is amazing.

I don’t normally recommend that you see anything in 3D, but I wouldn’t see this movie any other way. As a matter of fact, see it on IMAX if you can. Just remember, it is a Disney film. Put your child hat on and let go of being an adult for a while. I think you’ll really enjoy it. If nothing else, you’ll be pining for your very own TRON suit and End Of Line club with your very own Daft Punk to play songs for you.

You can view a short TRON: Legacy Featurette below. Plus, watch our interviews with cast and crew Part 1 and 2 (with the original Tron director and more about the fashion) here, and Part 3 and 4 (with Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde) here.

You can also pledge your allegiance for TRON vs Avatar here. I watched Avatar 3 times, and I’ve pledged to watch TRON at least 4.

Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part guest post by venture capitalist Mark Suster of GRP Partners on “Social Networking: The Past, Present, And Future.” Read Part I first. Follow him on Twitter @msuster. This series is an adaptation of a recent talk he gave at the Caltech / MIT Enterprise Forum on “the future of social networking.” You can watch the video here , or you can scroll quickly through the Powerpoint slides embedded at the bottom of the post or here on DocStoc.

Social Networking in Web 2.0: Plaxo & LinkedIn

In my last post, I discussed the origins of social networking online, beginning with CompuServe, Prodigy, the Well, then the rise of AOL, Geocities and Yahoo Groups. Next began the era of “spam-based” networks of which Plaxo (founded in 2002) was the king.  Co-founded by Sean Parker (yes, the same one who worked with Mark Zuckerberg in the early days of Facebook), it encouraged groups of people to email everybody in their email address books and “connect” on Plaxo so that when any of their contact information was changed online it could by synchronized with everybody’s local computer version and thus we could all stay in touch.

There was a backlash against the Plaxo spamming yet it paved the way for everybody who came after them to get users to drive viral adoption and we’d throw up our arms and say, “oh boy, here goes another social network that my friends are going to spam me about” mentality that made it acceptable for everybody who came afterward.

And come after they did.  While Plaxo never figured out what to do with us once we were all connected online, LinkedIn did.  They formed us into networks of networkers.  It was suddenly now not only about whom I was connected to, but who they knew and how I could get access to them.  We suddenly all wanted intros.  It added a new dimension to online social networks … business networking.  And they encouraged us to part with a lot more data about ourselves making LinkedIn our virtual resume.

And importantly Web 2.0 ushered in the era of “participation” – we all know that.  But less considered is the fact that the success of the Web 2.0 companies versus the Web 1.0 ones were enhanced because they coincided with hardware that allowed us to capture more content instantly – namely images and video – otherwide Web 2.0 might have been a lot less differentiated.  Suddenly we were all creating blogs on Blogger.com, Typepad & WordPress.  We started uploading images of ourselves to our blogs.

But the masses didn’t want to blog.  They wanted to publish pictures of themselves & their friends, share them, communicate with others, stay connected, have common experiences, find people to date, etc.  As I’ve said, it’s the same shit as the 1980′s – I swear.

Modern Social Networking: Friendster, MySpace & Facebook

We all know Friendster was the trailblazer in this category allowing people to create personal pages and connect to other people in a LinkedIn style but without the “business” and with a little more interactivity (let’s face it, for the longest time most users “friended” people on LinkedIn but then never really did much else).  But Friendster’s computer systems couldn’t keep up with the explosive growth (reportedly due to the complexity of the security model set up to control connections, privacy and authenticity of users) so MySpace was hot on the heels and swept up the market in a very rapid ascent.  Friendster was DOA.

And there it was – MySpace was growing at the exact time we all had cheap digital cameras, smartphones with cameras and new, cheap video cameras like the Flip that allowed us to create video.

Except that MySpace didn’t handle images or video well.  Luckily Photobucket & ImageShack did.  So users put all their photos on Photobucket & their videos on YouTube and shared them with their friends through MySpace.

Fox bought MySpace for $580 million and then did a deal with Google worth more than the purchase price to serve up ads.  For a nanosecond Rupert Murdoch seemed like the smartest guy on the Internet.  Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion, which at the time seemed laughably high and now seems prescient.  Google turned YouTube into one of the most valuable future Internet properties.  MySpace would have liked to own YouTube but didn’t have the public stock valuation to purchase them at the price that Google did.

MySpace later bought Photobucket for $250 million + $50 million earn out.  It did not have the same success as Google’s acquisition and MySpace sold Photobucket 2 years later to a relatively unknown Seattle-based startup called Ontela for a reportedly $60 million.

Murdoch seethed at these “startups” getting rich off the back of MySpace.  The conventional wisdom at Fox’s headquarters is that MySpace had “made” both YouTube & Photobucket by allowing them distribution.  MySpace vowed not to create anymore million dollar successes off of their backs that Google could then acquire.

So Fox ludicrously set up a quasi internal innovation center called Slingshot Labs.  The goal was to create innovations outside of MySpace and then MySpace would acquire them at pre-agreed prices based on how well they performed.  This was Politburo-style innovation and was laughable. I literally snortled when I heard that they were going to do this.  It was obviously a scheme set up by young entrepreneurs to line their pockets and some big-company executives who didn’t understand innovation.

Enter Facebook.  It had grown stratospherically from 2004-2007 to 100 million users, which actually was slightly smaller in December 2007 then MySpace was.  Facebook was everything that MySpace wasn’t.  It was: up-market, exclusive, urban, elite, aesthetically pleasing, ad-free and users were verified.  MySpace was: scantily dressed, teenaged, middle-America, design chaos and on ad steroids.

But the critical distinction in the direction of both companies was that while MySpace was putting up moats to keep outside companies from innovating and making money off their backs, Facebook took the opposite approach.  It launched open API’s and created a platform whereby third-party developers could come build any app they wanted and Facebook didn’t even want (yet) to take any money from them to do so.  So along come companies like Slide, RockYou & Zynga who wanted to build apps across all the social networks but were green-lighted the hardest by Mark Zuckerberg.

It was at that moment that a 22-year-old Mark Zuckerberg completely schooled the 75-year-old Rupert Murdoch.  Within the next 12 months Facebook users doubled to 200 million while MySpace stayed flat at 100 million.  The lesson was learned over 30 years in Silicon Valley: you create ecosystems where third-parties can innovate and thrive and you become the legitimate center of it all and can tax the system later.  Ask Microsoft, Autodesk or Salesforce.com – the evidence was there from Seattle to Sand Hill Road.

Facebook went on become larger than even Google and Yahoo! in terms of time spent on the sites.  Slingshot Labs was unsurprisingly closed within a short period of time and its properties sold-off or dismantled.  Duh.

Social Networking goes Real Time: Twitter

While Facebook was built on the idea that all our information was private and shared only between friend (before they changed this after the fact), Twitter was born under the idea that most of the information shared there was open and viewable by anybody.  This was revolutionary in thinking and worked because as a user you understood this bargain when you started.  Twitter is not the place to share pictures of your kids with your family.

Another Twitter innovation was “asymmetry” because you didn’t have to have a two-way following relationship to be connected.  You could follow people who didn’t necessarily follow you back.  This allowed followers to be able to “curate” their newsfeed with people that they found interesting.  Twitter restricts each post to 140 characters so users often share links with other people – one of the most important features of Twitter.  So this combination of following people you found interesting who share links drove a sort of “news exchange” that mimicked many of the features of RSS readers except that it was curated by other people!

Twitter is much more.  I’ve written extensively on the topic, but in a nutshell it is: an RSS reader, a chat room, instant messaging, a marketing channel, a customer service department and increasingly a data mine.

But what is magic about Twitter is that it is real time.  In most instances news is now breaking on Twitter and then being picked up by news organizations.

The one major thing that Twitter doesn’t have figured out quite yet is that platform thing or at least how to encourage a bunch of 3rd-party developers to build meaningful add-on products.  Twitter seems to have become a bit allergic to third-party developers (or maybe vice-versa).  18 months ago 25% of all pitches to me were ideas for how to build products around Twitter’s API.  Now I don’t get any.  Not one.  Yet the number of businesses looking to build on the Facebook platform seems to have increased.

Given I’m a passionate user of Twitter, I sure hope somebody there will re-read the MySpace vs. Facebook section above.  Lesson learned (to me at least) – let people get stinking rich off your platform and tax ‘em later.  That way other companies innovate on their own shekels (or at least a VCs) and let the best man win.  Close shop to try and control monetization and you can only rely on your own internal innovation machine & capital.  Seems kinda obvious or am I missing somethign?  Rupert?

Social Networking is Becoming Mobile: Foursquare and Skout

The trend that is unfolding before our eyes is that Social Networking is now becoming mobile and that adds new dimensions to how we use social networks.  The most obvious change is that now social networks become “location aware.”  The highest profile brand in this space is Foursquare.  Pundits are mixed on whether Foursquare represents a major technology trend or a fad but undoubtedly it has captured the zeitgeist of the technology elite at this moment in time.  At a minimum it has been a trailblazer of innovation that a generation of companies are trying to copy.

As our social actions become both public and location specific it opens up all types of future potential use cases.  One obvious one is dating where players like Skout are trying to cash in on.  When you think about it, young & single people go out to bars & clubs in hopes of meeting people to “hook up” with.  In a perfect world you’d like that person to be compatible with you in additional to being attracted to them, yet as a society we go into bars and have no idea what it behind any of the people we see other than the immediacy of their looks and whether we can get enough liquid courage into ourselves to talk with them and learn more.

It’s obvious to me that the future of dating will involve mobile, social networks that tell us more about the compatibility of the people around us.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how big people like Match.com and eHarmony became on the trend of helping us find our dating partners and why this would be improved my mobile, social networks.  How long this trend takes is unclear – but in 10 years I feel confident we’ll look back and say, “duh.”

FourSquare obviously brings up a lot of interesting commercial opportunities.  For years I saw companies pitching themselves as “mobile coupon companies” and I never believed this would be a big idea.  I’m not a big believer that people walk around with their mobile devices and say, “let me now pull out my device and see wether there are any coupons around me.”  I always said that if an application could engage the user in some other way – like a game – it would earn the right to serve up coupons as a by-product.  I think that is what Foursquare has done well.

In the future I don’t believe that Foursquare’s “check-in” game with badges will be enough to hold users interests but for now it’s working well.  I’ve always said that if Foursquare has a “second act” coming it could be a really big company.  In the long-run I believe that check-ins will be more seamless – something handled by infrastructure in the background.  So I expect more and new games from Foursquare in the future.  One awesome features of today’s Foursquare that often isn’t talked about is the ability to graph your friends on a real-time map and see where everybody is.  This is a killer feature for the 20 and 30 something crowds for sure.  Me? When I go out I mostly prefer to eat in peace with my wife and friends without people knowing where we are – I guess we all get old 😉

In the next post I will make some predictions about where social networking is going next.  And only one hint —it isn’t all dominated by Facebook.  Stay tuned.  If you can’t wait you can get a sneak peak in the PowerPoint presentation below.

Social Networks: Past, Present & Future

Tim Kendall, Facebook’s Director of Monetization, has left the company. This is particularly noteworthy because Kendall first joined Facebook nearly five years ago, in June 2006. He architected all of the company’s early monetization strategies, although in recent years there have been a handful of high level hires, mostly from Google, that have come in as peers or above him.

One of those more recent hires, David Fischer, sent an email out announcing his departure, saying ” it is safe to say we would not be where we are today without Tim:”

Team,

As some of you may know, Tim Kendall recently announced, in his characteristically modest way, he is leaving Facebook. Tomorrow is officially Tim’s last day.

Over more than four years at Facebook, Tim has had an incredible impact on the company, and in particular on the development of the ads business. Starting back in 2006, Tim wrote the blueprint for our monetization strategy. (You might be wondering how I know this given I haven’t been here that long, but trust me on this — Tim gave me a copy of the document when I started and strongly “advised” me to read it. It was good advice.). In all seriousness, it is safe to say we would not be where we are today without Tim.

Tim recognized early on not only that advertising could be social, but that it should be social on Facebook. What began as “sponsored stories,” social advertising has transformed the marketing business. And again, Facebook has Tim to thank.

Tim is truly a renaissance man. All of us who have worked with him have seen his strong intellect, quiet intensity, and complete focus on the mission at hand, with little tolerance for distractions or bureaucracy. He balances that with a more lively side that seems to come out after dark and has been displayed over the years at fine Palo Alto establishments like Rudy’s and the Old Pro. We will greatly miss all sides of Tim.

It’s a bittersweet honor to be the messenger of news like this. It’s never fun to say goodbye to a beloved and valuable player like Tim, but I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Tim, and to continue to advance the work that Tim started and led for us for such a big part of our company’s history.

So please join me in thanking Tim Kendall for everything he has done for Facebook as a company, and for many of us personally. We will all be watching closely to see what Tim does next and what innovations he brings to light after a well deserved break. All the best to Tim in his next adventure.

Cheers,
David

What’s next for Tim? We’re guessing Pirate or Gentleman Hacker, but no word back from him yet. Maybe he’ll just buy a small central american country with his Facebook stock proceeds and settle down. We do hear that both Zynga and Twitter may be recruiting him aggressively…

Our friends at Wishpond are offering $500 to the winner of this week’s super contest that you can win just by surfing the Internet. That’s right! Five hundred clams just for doing what you do every day anyway.

First, the Wishpond spiel:

Wishpond is a platform that powers a local product search engine and iPhone app.

As a consumer you can find what you want at both big-box retailers and small boutique stores in your neighborhood (Wishpond is in more than 100,000 locations in North America). If you can’t find it, you can just “wish” for it. Like Priceline for travel, Wishpond brings you the power to negotiate—make a “wish” to your local merchants and let them make you a deal. Also, consumers can get green and support their local communities and merchants this season. Local shopping makes a big difference to the air we breath and the communities in which we live.

Now, for the real meat of the deal. For the next five days we’re celebrating the five official parts of Festivus. You must participate each day to win, so no slacking off.

Read more…