Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com's hyperbolic CEO, has been telling anyone who will listen that the "sudden convergence of cloud, social and mobile spheres" is forcing - and allowing - companies to connect with customers in new ways, and to listen with an intensity never before possible.

I'm sure the benefits of social business are dramatic and undeniable, but am I alone in being totally creeped out at what seems to be an obvious invastion of privacy? I don't know about you, but I'm just not ready for companies - even companies I choose to do business with - to closely follow everything I do and say. Even if other humans aren't involved.

Do You Want To Be Connected To A Machine?

At a recent executive event in San Francisco, Benioff entertained customers and journalists wtih a video featuring Beth Comstock, GE's high-profile CMO, claiming her "core belief" is that "business is social." But she didn't just mean people communicating with people, she also meant people communicating with machines. 

The big question for GE, Comstock said, is "how do we connect our customers/employees to our machines?" GE's goal is to combine data from customers and data from its machines - connecting machines to social networks is very big.

The video demonstrated how GE was connecting jet engines to social networks to alert mechanics of their diagnostic status. "If you're in business," Comstock said, "you need social because it will get you closer to your customer… Feedback - that's a marketers dream."

Sounds great, right?

The Menace Of An Internet-Enabled Toothbrush

But consider Benioff's example of the Internet of Things driving social business. He cited Philips' Internet-connected toothbrush that records the time and duration of brushing. With one of these babies, when you go to the dentist and he asks, "have you been brushing" and you answer "yeah," the conversation doesn't end there, Benioff said. The dentist could reply "Let's have a look" and see exactly how much brushing you actually did.

That thought terrifies me. While such a scenario might indeed help keep my teeth from falling out, it's also profoundly creepy and invasive. After all, what if my dental insurance provider got hold of the data, and decided it wouldn't pay to fill that cavity because I didn't brush long enough?

As Benioff correctly noted, the "biggest part is trust." "With all that data about you out on the network, it gets down to another level of trust with the vendors you choose to let be a part of your life."

I trust my doctor with a large amount of intensely personal information - augmented by pretty specific laws and industry practices. For some reason, I'm less comfortable giving my dentist the same degree of trust. Philips and Salesforce? Absolutely not!

How Much Should Your Shirt Salesman Know About You?

Another participant at the event, male-apparel retailer Trunk Club, is also leveraging user information to help "guys that just dont like to shop" said COO Rob Chesney. Trunk Club's goal is to make "it really easy for you to look great" by not just tracking what he's already bought, but whatever other information may be available online. When a customer contacts Trunk Club, "we pull up this guy and find out what is he all about. We see all his social media info. "It's the future of service-oriented retail."

Not for me.

Chesney noted that having this kind of info could help Trunk Club sell higher end clothing to a customer who just got a promotion - an event it might learn of Facebook. That might not be so bad, but what is the company going to do if the customer gets laid off? Offer condolences and try to sell them cheap t-shirts? Awkward to say the least.

Social.com: Salesforce's Facebook & Twitter Tools

Salesforce also pitched its new Social.com tools, designed to help other companies operate this way. Salesforce rolled out the ability to run Facebook campaigns that target users based on what they've posted and linked to on their own Facebook pages.

On Twitter, the idea is start "buying in the moment" - spreading promoted tweets even as the larger Twitter conversation is trending. The promoted tweet shows up any time someone tweets with a relevant hashtag.

To make that work, of course, you've got to be monitoring all the time. "You can't be relevant if you're not listening," explained Facebook's Fergus Gluster (yes, that's his real name).

Jonathan Nelson, CEO of ad agency Omnicom Digital, said that these innovations are a key step toward closing the loop linking real-time advertising to real-time buying. The key, he said, is delviering "the right message for the right person at the right time."

Ironically, in a small panel discussion for journalists, Nelson noted that the "suppression of advertising" when it's not appropriate is "more than half the battle."

That's a key part of reducing the creep factor. 

Finally, just so you know, I'm not alone in worrying about these issues. Another panelist, Altimeter Group's Susan Etlinger, admitted that "as a consumer, I don't particularly want to be targeted." The key, Etlinger said, is to build a relationship over time and "be relevant when the consumer needs us, not when we need them." 

That's a step in the right direction. But if companies they really care about not being creepy, they'll learn to respond quickly and effectively when asked, and otherwise stay out of my face.

Photos - except for the toothbrush - by Fredric Paul for ReadWrite

With a whirlwind of announcements at its Google I/O developers conference this week, Google's vast suite of social products is finally starting to look like it was created by a single company and not cobbled together via a series of haphazard acquisitions. Here are the highlights of what's changed:

Hangouts: Google Messaging, Unmessy At Last

According to a statement from Nikhyl Singhal, Google's head honcho of real-time communications, Google Voice will be folded into Hangouts too (Yay!), though there's no word on when.

Google+ Gets A Lot Of Love

Messaging may have been the messiest area of Google's social services, but Google+ is the big umbrella that covers them all. Amidst the company's epic 3-hour-plus Google I/O keynote yesterday, Google+ guru Vic Gundotra announced approximately one million updates to Google+, the social network that the company launched two years ago. Okay, he pegged the number at 41… but that's almost a million.

The updates are extensive. As a regular Google+ user, it's actually difficult to get a sense for what changed, since the redesign looks and feels right in stride with Google's recent overall changes in user interfaces that runs from Google+ to Google Glass to Google Now and Android. So here's a list of some of the most notable of the 41 updates:

• A multi-column layout. This can be toggled off, if you're still into the Blogger single-column-era.
• Photos and videos get even bigger. Google is really into making media massive - and we would be too if the average person knew how to share properly high-res photos.
• New animations. Things are flipping and sliding all over the place in there.
• A third dimension. You can scroll up and down through your social stream, but Google wants you to be able to scroll in too. Now you can take a deeper dive on a given Google+ post -or is it a Card? I think we're suppose to call everything Cards now -- via related hashtags, which will lead you to more content of interest. It will also take you further down the Google+ rabbit hole, of course.
• Lots of treats for photographers. Google+ has a thriving community of awesome photogs, and Google is keen to do right by them. Photos in Google+ now have all sorts of cool bells and whistles. A few I'm particularly stoked about include "auto highlight," which de-emphasizes duplicate and blurry pics, automatically picking the best shot out of a batch. I've yet to test this extensively, but since I have a habit of bracketing (taking multiple shots at different exposures) - even on my phone - choosing the best photo of a set can be a major timesuck. This feature could help there. Another feature, "Auto Awesome," can stitch together shots in a series to make a playful Photobooth-esque picture or even a Vine-like animated gif.

For a full breakdown of Google's social updates, hit the company's official blog post or just cruise around in Google+ for a while. The  the social network has been the butt of many a joke over the last few years, and we're happy to see Google take the time to spruce things up a little.

 

Photos by Nick Statt for ReadWrite. 

Guest author Derek Brown is a technology executive and analyst who blogs at One Blind Squirrel.

Pinterest is a three-year-old start-up with what is rumored to be no revenue to date. Zero. In fact, by all accounts, it hasn’t even attempted to generate revenue yet. In three years! Hard to fathom in this day and age, isn’t it?

And, yet, some of the sharpest minds in the venture capital community are so confident in Pinterest’s team and business that they recently invested in the company at an eye-popping valuation of $2.5 billion. Yes, billion!

If you were involved in the Internet economy of the late-1990s, as was I, you may be rolling your eyes right about now and muttering to yourself about Pets.com, Kozmo, Webvan, theGlobe.com, govWorks, Boo.com, eToys and all the other so-called-companies that were, for one brief moment in time, valued as if they had discovered the cure to cancer, only to be out of business a few short quarters later. Ahh... the memories.

Assuming that Pinterest’s investors share many of the same recent memories (or, more aptly, nightmares), what could be so compelling about the company and opportunity that would justify their support of such a lofty valuation this time around?

Passion At Scale

In short, I believe it is the economics of passion at scale.

Pinterest, in its own words, is “a tool for collecting and organizing things you love).” (Italics mine.) By pinning images from around the Web to their own board(s) or browsing others’ pinboards for images (which can then be “liked” or “re-pinned” to their own board(s)), users are able to create, manage, share and discover highly personalized image collections that define their passions.

Vintage fashion. Wind surfing. Gourmet cooking. Disneyana. Digital photography. Wedding gowns. Home decor. Camping. Italian design. Rolex watches. Travel planning. Architecture. Mid-century furniture. Urban farming. Knitting. Cross-Fit... The list of people’s passions is literally endless; and, Pinterest helps its users collect, organize and maintain all of them. On their own (or, with the help of the broader community). In granular, image- and/or SKU-specific detail.

Self-identified passionistas on a product-by-product basis — are you kidding? I’m not sure a marketer or merchant could dream of more fertile ground among a set of unknown people, short of seeing a prospective customer standing directly in front of items on a shelf, with cash already in hand. And, I’m not even convinced that would be more compelling on a long-term basis.

What could possibly be better? How about having that level of insight into the interests and intents and aspirations of not hundreds of thousands, but tens of millions, of people per month! According to press reports, Pinterest is already doing just that, hosting roughly 30 million unique monthly visitors who are generating more than 2.5 billion page views, the majority of which are likely coming through little more than domestic word-of-mouth promotion.

Fast forward three years and I think it’s entirely reasonable to assume that Pinterest is successful at growing its user base and traffic flows by 5 times, fueled by existing users continuing to build out their identities, waves of more mainstream domestic users finally catching on and contributions from millions of new pinners (their word, not mine) in overseas markets. That’s a lot of passion under one roof!

Passion Pays

On the business side of the house, passion pays. Extremely well.

Advertising, alone, could generate several hundred million dollars of revenue per year. Let’s say, hypothetically, that Pinterest follows in the footsteps of virtually every sizable media company on the planet, by introducing advertisements of some sort across its pages in the next few years. With marketers across every vertical likely salivating at the prospect of reaching into the company’s massive, impassioned and finely segmentable audience, it seems more than plausible that advertising rates across the company’s site could be at least 50% higher (if not considerably more) than the current industry average. Accordingly, with 12.5 billion page views per month (three years from now) and a site-wide CPM of, say, $4, Pinterest would generate advertising revenue of roughly $50 million per month, or about $600 million per year.

And yet, despite this sum, Pinterests more intriguing revenue opportunity at Pinterest lay in its role as a direct facilitator of online commerce.

Passions, as we all know, cost money — lots of it, over extended periods of time; and, it is money that we are, on some level, actually excited to spend. So, whether it’s a weekend warrior who pins a Burton snowboard, or a hobbyist portrait photographer pinning a Zeiss lens, or a budding interior decorator who pins the perfect accent table on Fab, Pinterest has the potential to become an economic kingmaker when these enthusiasts transition into consumers looking to purchase the goods/services that bring their passions to life.

Projecting Pinterest's Numbers

To appreciate the financial implications of Pinterest’s role in the transaction cycle, think of the service as a massive affiliate that gets paid for delivering customers to online merchants. If just ~3% of its 150 million+ users (three years from now) decide to indulge in their passions by clicking from a "want-to-have" product image on one of their own Pinterest boards to a relevant online merchant, the company could claim a direct role in driving 4.5 million transactions per month. Assuming an average transaction size of $200 (remember, people are buying their passions, not everyday staples), Pinterest’s users would account for ~$900 million worth of monthly purchases. Were the company to receive a 7% affiliate “take”/lead fee/commission on these sales, it would generate transactional revenue of about $60 million per month, or $720 million per year.

As if annual revenue of $1.3 billion (from just two sources) weren’t enough, the company’s margin profile has the potential to be the envy of most. Based on my 15+ years of experience evaluating a wide variety of online marketplace business models, it wouldn’t surprise me if Pinterest were able to sustain gross margins of 90% or more and adjusted EBITDA margins comfortably in excess of 25% (even while continuing to invest heavily in future growth). At these levels, the company would generate adjusted EBITDA of approximately $325 million per year.

Worth It? Or Not?

So... were Pinterest’s investors ultimately wise to value the company at $2.5 billion? No comment.

Will the company generate any annual revenue, let alone $1.3 billion, and adjusted EBITDA of $325 million in a few short years? I don't know.

Will Pinterest eventually be worth $5 million or $50 billion? I can’t wait to find out.

Those purposeful vagaries aside, though, I clearly see the underpinnings of a company with tremendous potential and, if I squint just enough, a business that could be the driver of billions of dollars of passion-fueled online commerce each year — and that’s a position that few companies ever even have the chance to dream about.

Fullscreen, a media company founded in 2011 and built entirely on YouTube, announced Friday afternoon the first Google Glass YouTube app, letting users seamlessly upload video directly to the service. The app is called BEAM and it also gives users the option to share the URL via Twitter with the automatic #throughglass hashtag. 

Prior to Fullscreen's app, Glass users were restricted to sharing video through their Google+ accounts. Check out Fullscreen's video below:

And here is the company's step-by-step breakdown of how to broaden Glass' video-sharing reach:

Facebook enabled a privacy feature Thursday called Trusted Contacts that allows you to select three to five confidants from your friend list to receive the virtual key to your account. If your Facebook is compromised by hackers or you forget your password, these people can supply the codes to get you back in. 

The feature was first announced as 'Trusted Friends' in October of 2011. "However, we were only testing for the first part of last year [2012], and the feature actually wasn't available for much of 2012," Frederic Wolens of Facebook Policy Communications told ReadWrite in an email. "The bulk of our work was making this more proactive (allowing you to select your friends ahead of time) than reactive (selecting your friends after you couldn't get into your account)," he added. 

The Joy Of Facebook Hacking

While there may be some benefits to this feature, Facebook already has two-step authentication, making Trusted Contacts unnecessary in the likely event you can access your email and just use the normal password recovery option. More to the point, Trusted Contacts also pose a big risk. How much can you really trust those Trusted Contacts not to abuse their power?

Remember, it takes only three of the Trusted Contacts' codes to get into your account. That's good, right?

Right.

Unless the friends you choose have an affinity for the art of the Facebook hack. In my college years, when shared computers were often accessible in dorm rooms and campus hangout spots, Facebook hacking wasn't just a prank, it was an art. The rules were simple: If anyone left their account open on any computer that wasn't their own that person's Facebook account was fair game. (Sometimes, even that simple rule was bent by the less honorable.)

What typically ensued was a chaotic, hilarious and often line-crossing exercise in testing the limits of friendship. The hack quickly transcended crude status updates and moved into true social media sabotage. Facebook hackers would change birthdays, send unwanted friend requests and write embarrassing notes on walls.  

For me, the whole ordeal culminated in a prank where I created a fake profile of my victim, replicated his post history for a week in secret, and then began friending everyone we knew. I mimicked his behavior so well no one figured out it was me for a good day or two. It remains one of my proudest Facebook hacks - and the epitome of my juvenile social media behavior. 

Breaking In

First off, let's run through how a trio of your Trusted Contacts could access your account without you knowing about it. 

After opening Facebook in a different browser or private browsing mode, a Trusted Friend would  click "Forgot your password?" From there, they would identify the victim by name in the Find Your Account field, saying that they no longer have access to the email accounts listed. That lets you put in any email address - and the process moves on without requiring further authentication.

By entering in only one of the Trusted Contacts' names — in the event that you're the one doing the hacking, it can be your own name — you can access the code portion of the page. With three codes collected by visiting Facebook.com/recover and claiming the person has reached you by phone, you're immediately brought to a new password screen where the Trusted Friend can reset the password and gain access to the account. 

Sounds like it would be a lot of work, and it certainly is when I tried it myself on my own account, but you are essentially handing over the ability for three people, or just one who convinces two others to give them the codes, to change your password without any new authentication required on your end. Granted, you can revoke access to a Trusted Contact, but only from your account.  

Who Can You Trust?

Obviously, the best precaution is to pick people you're confident won't prank you. But there are also a certain types of Facebook user who should never get this kind of access. 

For one, don't trust anyone who infrequently uses Facebook or who likes to condemn the social network and those who indulge too much in it. The first sign of a weakness for Facebook hacking is disregard for the damage a "Liking" spree can do, or downplaying the importance of Facebook birthdays. These people find it hilarious when dozens of people begin mistakenly wishing you a Happy Birthday. 

Conversely, people who use Facebook too much may be just itching to pull off the perfect Facebook prank - and they'll know the the best, most believable ways to impersonate you.

One smart approach might be to pick two people that dislike each other, making it unlikely that they'll work together to mess with you. 

The simplest solution: Don't use Trusted Contacts. The feature adds a layer of defense against strangers attacking your account, which could be reasonable considering this year's surge incidents of malicious hacking. But it also seems like a sly attempt to push the boundaries of Facebook's importance in our lives. 

But by "trusting" your friends enough to give them a key to your digital life, you may be taking an even bigger risk of being pranked, if not actually hacked.

If you've got a lot of selfies, your tapping finger is in for a major workout. Today, Instagram pushed version 3.5 of its app to the iOS App Store and Google Play — and it's a big one for brands and users alike. 

Instagram 3.5 adds the ability to tag other Instagrammers in the photos you take. Unlike Facebook, where photo tagging has been routine for years, Instagram devotees have relied on a bare-bones system of @tags in the comments section below photos to give other users the heads-up that a given image is relevant to them.

I asked an Instagram rep if the new tagging feature is a play for making more money off mobile use — a revenue stream Facebook has square in its crosshairs. The company denies it: "At this time Instagram isn’t focused on monetization. [Instagram] rolled out this new feature because it was a missing piece to let people tell their stories... and to make it easier to add people and things to photos."

According to Instagram's business blog:

Photos of You also gives people a new way to explore photos of your business or brand. People can now add their favorite band to their concert photos from last night, the clothing brand they’re currently wearing or the coffee roaster who brews their morning cup of coffee. As a business or brand, Photos of You gives you a new way to curate and share the photos that best showcase your brand your brand[sic] as documented by your biggest fans.

Instagram's Biggest Update In, Well, As Long As We Can Remember 

Instagram hasn't made many major overhauls to its winning formula since launching in October 2010. Over the course of the last year, the app has trickled in a few new photo filters, a map view and a web interface, but not too much has changed — even after the great Instagram ToS debacle of last December.

Considering the level of loyalty that the company enjoys — particularly when compared to peers like its oft-disdained parent company — not tinkering with its recipe is smart. But, happily, so is this update.

Since version 3.5 was a simultaneous launch across platforms, Android and iPhone users eager to get their tag on can download the new app now. Update 3.5 also boasts improvements to image quality for photos uploaded on Android 4.0 and above (a relief for any Instagrammers who wonder why those Android photos never look quite right). 

Once you've got it downloaded, a pop-up will point to the new section, which lives on the far-right profile button (click the little image that looks like a driver's license).

In the profile view, you'll be greeted with a very Facebook-like silhouette of a person, again on the far right. This "photos of you" section compiles exactly that, though it will remain private until May 16 to give you time to pick your best selfie angles and curate accordingly. 

Why Brands Should Be Taking Notes

While other recent feature tweaks haven't shaken things up too much for Instagram, version 3.5 has all the trappings of a game-changer. Users will be pleased to have photos taken of them heaped into one neat little memory pile, while brands should be thrilled with their higher visibility on the young advertising platform. With photo tagging enabled, Instagram's platform should provide some unique perspectives on brand reach and the demographics of who is engaging and why. 

Plenty of brands have launched heavy-handed hashtag campaigns in an effort to figure out what makes Instagram users — ahem, potential customers — tick. Now, with the tagging feature, Instagram users will have a natural incentive to tag not just the "who", but the "what" and "where," too. Which should, in turn, spur more businesses to rev up their Instagramming.

But just remember, brands: Keep it real. An awkward hashtag is a fate worse than a grainy, Hefe-filtered selfie.

Editor's Note: This is part 1 of a 3-part series covering Len Kendall’s abstinence from the “Like” button throughout April.

Amidst the Boston Marathon tragedy, Facebook on Monday was a fascinating environment to observe. There was so much to NOT "like" that day—gruesome pictures shortly followed by inspirational images and quotes. Either way, merely hitting a button seemed inadequate to me. 

Good thing I'd already decided I wasn't going to "like" anything this month.

I ended up just donating money to the Red Cross Blood Collection service and then staying fairly silent.

The tragedy merely confirmed my decision to change a behavior that I, like many, have adopted into my daily activities. I'm not going to “like” anything on the internet. Anywhere. Not on Facebook, and not on websites featuring a similar “like” button.

Let me back up.

Not so long ago, there was a much wider gap between the various methods for acknowledging online content. At one end, you had the option of reading something and then doing absolutely nothing. On the other, you had things like leaving a comment, emailing the post to a friend, or writing a blog post in response to another you read elsewhere.

But in early 2009, an extremely low-impact feature came to exist: the "like." It was a brilliant addition, and it quickly has become a staple of daily Internet activity across the world, websites, and devices. It wasn't the first or last of its kind, but the "like" did ultimately become something that now gets billions of clicks. Facebook alone generates somewhere around 3 billion "likes" a day.

This weekend I stopped to evaluate my own usage of this button and came to the following unscientific but plausible conclusions:

• Only 5% of the time when I “like” something on the Web am I doing so to share it explicitly with my network. I do believe, though, that clicking “like” within Facebook helps drive what content becomes popular for my friends and myself. Sometimes it’s a big life moment like a wedding, other times it’s an Amazon review for a Banana Slicer.
• Hitting the “like” button on Facebook itself has stopped me from writing comments (and articulating actual thoughts) in response to items others are posting. I feel like I've already done enough by clicking a button.
• I’ve hit the "like" button thousands of times out of obligation, for worry that I might hurt someone's feelings or make them feel ignored.

So reviewing all the points above, I wondered about the following question: Who exactly is benefitting the most from me hitting this button? That’s the question I'm trying to solve for with this experiment.

In the meantime, here are a few observations from my first 72 hours of not hitting the “like” button—an action that I have taken everyday for probably the last two years.

1) I already slipped up once and had to go "unlike" something I "liked." It bothered me how mechanical the act of reading Facebook posts and "liking" had become.

2) I started leaving 10x more comments on posts, and have spent more time articulating my responses to longer discussion threads.

3) While my time spent on Facebook has continued to decrease, taking away the act of “liking” has further reduced my time on the social network and increased it on Twitter, Reddit, and get this…email.

4) I’ve continued to check Facebook immediately when a notification flag has popped up to see who has liked my posts. I suspect this won’t change throughout the experiment.

I may be overanalyzing here, but my hope is that it will spur others to reflect on their own low-impact, low-investment habits online. I’ll be providing a report in the next week or so with further observations. For now, I encourage you to either join me in this experiment, leave a comment below, or ... do absolutely nothing.

Just don't click that button.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

Two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon have killed 2 and injured more than 100, with reports constantly changing as new updates flood in.

As is now par for the course, news of the disaster broke first on Twitter, and the microblogging service remains an unparalleled source of breaking news and first-hand accounts — not to mention media criticism of news outlets that jumped ahead of the facts in their reporting.

The presumed attack has since been documented in thousands upon thousands of user generated images and videos  spread across the Web through social media channels. (Among other things, this Vine video appears to show one of the first explosions.) Spencer Ackerman over at Wired.com called it a "live-tweeted disaster."

Boston-area and federal authorities have also embraced Twitter to get out public-safety messages — for instance, asking people to stay away from the affected area and not to congregate in large groups. Police have also requested video from spectators: 

BostonPolice looking for video of the finish line #tweetfromthebeat via @cherylfiandaca

— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) April 15, 2013

(Atlantic Wire's Alexis Madrigal looks into how investigators might analyze contributed video.)

The Boston Globe received a video of the finish line during the initial explosion, embedded below. This video doesn't contain any graphic images of injured individuals, but it does feature the explosions, the onset of immediate panic in the crowd and police and marathon volunteers rushing to assist victims.

Google has also just launched a person-finder web tool to help those trying to reach friends and family members.

Of course, any disaster aftermath has to feature its share of incomplete, misleading or just plain wrong reports. (It may take days to figure out which category some news reports fall into.) For instance, at 4:55pm, the Associated Press reported that officials had shut down cell service in Boston to prevent any further explosions:

Cellphone service shut down in Boston to prevent remote detonations of explosives, official says: apne.ws/ZwBMKb -CC

— The Associated Press (@AP) April 15, 2013

Only, that is, to walk back the story about 45 minutes later:

Phone companies say cell service still operating in Boston after explosions: apne.ws/ZwFgMx -CC

— The Associated Press (@AP) April 15, 2013

Similarly, early reports that a third bombing took place at the JFK Memorial Library are apparently false. The library's official Twitter feed reports that the incident was a fire that started in the mechanical room, and that all staff and visitors are accounted for and safe.

Investigators are investigating. Any tie to Boston Marathon explosions is pure speculation. More information as we receive it.

— JFK Library (@JFKLibrary) April 15, 2013

If you haven't filed your taxes yet, you might want to triple-check your math before you do. That's because the IRS employs a more watchful eye than ever, thanks to Big Data analysis and digital information-gathering tactics. 

With the ongoing budget crisis, pressure for the IRS to recover lost revenue has never been higher. Conveniently enough, the agency has made massive investments in its computing power and tools for crunching big data, allowing for more automation and rapid analysis. That means a greater capacity for robo-audits and less room for honest mistakes.

It's not just the tools that have improved. The data itself is richer and more varied than ever, drawing increasingly from whatever details about our digital lives the IRS can get its hands on, including information that isn't publicly accessible. We don't know the full extent of the IRS's data-mining capabilities, but recent reporting has revealed new details. 

1. Analyzing Your Social Media Updates 

The social Web has been a boon for IRS investigators, who can use updates from Facebook, Twitter and other services to bolster its cases against alleged tax cheats. Information about work history, one's physical whereabouts and even purchases can be gleaned from social networks. Some of it, like tweets and certain details from Facebook, are public. But should the IRS want to take a closer look, it supposedly has the means to do so, with or without a warrant. 

According to recent reports, the IRS cross-references data from social networks with Social Security numbers and then works in a host of other private data to look for suspicious patterns. 

2. Monitoring Digital Payments and Credit Card Activity 

The rise of commerce and digital payments have also given the IRS new sets of data to mine and analyze. The agency has long looked at taxpayers' activity on ecommerce sites like Ebay, but are now going deeper and getting a look at credit card transactions and other online payments. 

The agency looks for potential auditing targets "by matching tax filings to social media or electronic payments," according to MSN Money. The exact mechanism of this monitoring isn't known, but MSN Money indicates that it includes examining credit card transactions "for the first time ever." 

It's not clear how detailed or widespread this monitoring is, and the IRS isn't likely to spill the beans (lest they tip off tax cheats), but suffice it to say that if the agency feels it has cause to take a peek at your online payment data, it won't have a problem doing so. 

3. Peeking At Your Email Usage 

Exactly when and how the IRS looks at email usage isn't entirely clear. The MSN Money report says the agency's big data analysis tools are used in part for "tracking individual Internet addresses and emailing patterns." That's pretty vague. In theory, the IRS could glean some details about email usage simply by looking at browsing activity, whether that insight comes from an ISP or email service provider. 

Does that mean that the IRS has blanket access to everybody's Gmail account for the purpose of feeding its data-crunching behemoth? That seems pretty unlikely. Instead, what it likely does is request access to individual accounts for people who are already suspected of wrongdoing. The American Civil Liberties Union recently uncovered documents that suggest the IRS doesn't feel a warrant is necessary to get such access. Good to know!

Foursquare has checked in as the mayor of Debt Town today after announcing $41 million in loans from new and current investors. Which really puts the pressure on the company to generate real revenue as it shifts its focus away from simple social check-ins and tries to recoup lost ground in the battle over local search.

No investors plunked down cash for new Foursquare shares. Instead, new investor Silver Lake Waterman led the financing with what other reports are calling a multiyear loan, while existing Foursquare investors — Andreessen Horowitz, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures — offered loans that will convert to equity if Foursquare's valuation rises.

In other words, Foursquare just put itself into the hole in a high-risk gamble. The Silver Lake loan will most likely force the startup to make regular interest and principal payments lest it risk default — creating a steady cash drain that most startups try hard to avoid. We've reached out to Foursquare for more information on that investment, and I'll update when and if I hear back.

The convertible debt, meanwhile, represents a hedge of sorts for the company's existing investors. They get to sidestep the question of Foursquare's actual valuation — which obviously suggests it's not doing that great — and, should things go south, may stand a better chance of recouping some of their investment than if they held nothing but equity.

A Foursquare In Flatland

This means Foursquare, which has increasingly found itself in trouble with the entry of Google+ and Facebook into local search, is under a lot more pressure to demonstrate that it can make money. Investors like Union Square's Albert Wenger claim they see opportunities for Foursquare to take off, with the explosion of smartphones and abatement of couponing services like Groupon.

Wenger highlights what Foursquare really wants you to do with its app: Don't just check in, but identify retailers and businesses more actively so that your data in turn can drive better local searches. It's a tough nut to crack, particularly since Android users are more easily tied to Google to do the same thing, and many smartphone users of any platform are apt to use Facebook.

This may be the key problem for Foursquare: it's too specialized. Users may be more likely to share information on Facebook, for example, because they're already using it to socialize. I don't use either service regularly, but if I did, I'd rather share a review with my more well-developed network of Facebook friends.

Foursquare is going to have to turn itself around and get more money coming in the door. If it can't do get positive cash flow through its services, it may have to resort to other methods, such as raise equity privately or publicly to pay off debt holders.

There's also the option my former colleague Jon Mitchell has put forth: Fourquare could sell itself to Apple. Or any bigger company, for that matter. Given Apple's need for better local data, Mitchell's argument makes a whole heck of a lot of sense.

However it does it, Foursquare now has to make money fast to work off this new debt in a very competitive market. If it doesn't get traction soon, Foursquare won't be mayor of anything.

Image courtesy of Juan Camilo Bernal/Shutterstock.

I know Roger Ebert like most of you. I know him from his many film review shows, from his numerous and well-written movie reviews syndicated in hundreds of newspapers, and his many appearances on late-night talk shows. It was through Twitter, however, where I felt most close to him.

Now that Ebert has died, should I unfollow him? Should you? Is there a protocol for this?

Roger Ebert wrote over 30,000 tweets and had over 800,000 followers. I was one of them. I'm not sure what to do now. I'm also not sure if Twitter knows what to do in this situation.

True, one of its press representatives did respond to my queries with a link that explains how relatives or estate representatives can request deactivation — i.e., deletion — of an account following its owner's death. Twitter will not, however, grant anyone access to the account of someone who's passed away.

Still, what becomes of Ebert's tweets now that he's dead? What of the fact that at least one person, Jim Emerson, editor of Ebert's blog site, has access to the account — and has tweeted on it twice since Ebert's death? (Albeit apparently at Ebert's request.) Should Ebert's wife, or Emerson, or anyone else keep tweeting on Ebert's "verified" account? Wouldn't that be weird? 

A Powerful Voice On Twitter

Ebert's tweets touched on movies, obviously, but also politics, the environment, music, gun control, climate change and much more. He came to Twitter reluctantly before happily embracing the new medium. In a 2010 column for the Chicago Sun-Times, Ebert wrote:

I vowed I would never become a Twit. Now I have Tweeted nearly 10,000 Tweets. I said Twitter represented the end of civilization. It now represents a part of the civilization I live in. I said it was impossible to think of great writing in terms of 140 characters. I have been humbled by a mother of three in New Delhi. I said I feared I would become addicted. I was correct.

He quickly became one of the more popular, respected voices on Twitter. In the same essay, Ebert also provided his thoughts on how to tweet effectively:

My rules for Twittering are few: I tweet in basic English. I avoid abbreviations and ChatSpell. I go for complete sentences. I try to make my links worth a click. I am not above snark, no matter what I may have written in the past. I tweet my interests, including science and politics, as well as the movies. I try to keep links to stuff on my own site down to around 5 or 10%. I try to think twice before posting.

He also shared his views on what Twitter meant to him:

When you think about it, Twitter is something like a casual conversation among friends over dinner: Jokes, gossip, idle chatter, despair, philosophy, snark, outrage, news bulletins, mourning the dead, passing the time, remembering favorite lines, revealing yourself.

Ebert revealed himself in life, on Twitter. Will those tweets soon go away? Given Ebert's popularity on Twitter and his general celebrity, will Twitter see fit to honor him somehow?

I have long been a fan of Ebert's work. I loved Siskel & Ebert, even when he and Gene Siskel were reviewing awful movies. I know Ebert wrote the screenplay for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which I've watched. I know he wrote many books, launched a popular movie festival and had a highly trafficked blogsite. I know he worked with Microsoft on Cinemania, an interactive movie guide on CD-ROMs.

Nonetheless, I believe I know him best, know him most fully — as a person — from Twitter. Now that he's dead, it seems not merely unseemly to unfollow him. More... unnecessarily sad.

Bury Me With My Tweet On

In 2009, Facebook announced a "memorialize" feature, in large part so that users would not be auto-reminded to "reconnect" with a person on Facebook that had since died.

We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it's important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialized.

(See also: Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook?)

To verify the person's death, Facebook requires friends or family to complete a form that contains a link to the person's obituary or other information confirming the death. Twitter doesn't offer anything similar, although as noted above, the service does allow relatives or estate representatives to request that accounts of the deceased be deleted. 

Perhaps it shouldn't. Perhaps the account should remain available, though in a state of suspended digital animation. If Twitter is a conversation, as Ebert himself suggested, even the person's death can't make past conversations disappear.

Though this still does not answer the question, which may be unanswerable, of whether or not I should unfollow someone that is now dead. Particularly when that someone mattered to me, even if solely via digital channels.

Ebert never hid the fact that late in life, salivary cancer stripped him of his vocal chords, his jaw and his voice, and that he had to rely on a computer to speak and write. Here is his TED talk, "Remaking My Voice," from April 2011.

Roger Ebert never replied to any of my tweets to him, nor ever favorited a tweet of mine. Now he never will. There could come a time when I decide to cull through my Twitter followers and delete Ebert's account. I am glad, however, that Twitter was there to bring Ebert closer to me.

I hope Twitter honors him in some appropriate manner. I also hope that Ebert's many 140-character tweets continue to live  forever. 

Image of Roger Ebert and wife courtesy of Shutterstock

Time and again, Mark Zuckerberg has made it perfectly clear: "We're not going to build a phone." Zuck's most recent pronouncement came at Facebook's 2012 fourth-quarter earnings call.

(See also Facebook's Zuckerberg: We're Not Going To Build A Phone.) 

On Thursday, just two months later, Facebook is widely expected to announce an Android device in partnership with HTC at an event at its Menlo Park headquarters. The phone - yes, the Facebook phone - is expected to run a modified but not fully skinned version of Android, retooled to revolve around the little blue "f" that has come so far. At least that what the leaks seem to reveal.  If we're getting into semantics, you could say Facebook isn't building the Facebook phone - HTC is. 

So, How Did We Get Here?

Want to review the many times Zuck has denied rumors of an official Facebook phone? Here's a refresher:

November 3, 2010:

• "First of all, we're not a hardware company. Second of all, our goal is not to sell anything physical; our goal is to make it so that everything can be social."
• "It would be pretty silly for us to go after a strategy that focused on selling a small number of phones. We don't sell hardware. That's just not what we do." 

September 11th, 2012:

• “That’s always been the wrong strategy for us,” he explained. “It’s a juicy thing to say we’re building a phone, which is why people want to write about it. But it’s so clearly the wrong strategy for us.”

January 30, 2013:

• "People keep on asking if we're going to build a phone," said Zuckerberg. "We're not going to build a phone."

In retrospect, it seems the denials around "building" a phone seems to have left the door open for hardware partners. It's not like we thought Hacker Way was going to turn into Foxconn or anything, but assuming Thursday's event turns out as expected, that Zuck sure is one literal fellow.

But What About The Other Four Facebook Phones?

The real funny thing? If Facebook launches a phone, it won't be the first Facebook phone at all - it'll be the fifth. 

Facebook Phones 1 and 2: Back in Februrary 2011 at Mobile World Congress, HTC unveiled a pair of phones with a curious twist: a physical button dedicated to launching the Android Facebook app. The HTC Status (a.k.a. the ChaCha) and the HTC Salsa were mid-range devices with largely unimpressive specs.

Facebook Phones 3 and 4: That April, a company called INQ announced the INQ Cloud Touch and the INQ Cloud Q - two semi-smartphones that would run a version of Android 2.2 interwoven with Facebook's Social Graph API. The Cloud Touch made it to shelves in the UK; INQ abandoned plans to manufacture the Cloud Q early in 2012.

Of all of the "Facebook phones" to date, the HTC Status enjoyed the most success, but that's not saying much. I reviewed it at the time - It was well built, with a funny little curve to the casing, social widgets everywhere and a tiny blue Facebook button on the bottom right. There was something likable about the Status - it was a playful little device, thoughtfully designed - but who was it for?

The Status went on sale - and then went on sale again - and ultimately just sort of faded away. Now you can get one for a penny on Amazon.

A New Mobile Era For Facebook?

But times have changed and the stakes have gotten a lot higher. After some major mobile fumbles (its slowness to the iPad, building in HTML5, etc.), Facebook now calls itself a mobile company, and really wants to mean it. 

In September of 2011, Facebook's Android app had 66 million monthly active users. By November 2012, that number had tripled. Facebook consumers one quarter of the total time people spend on mobile apps. In the fourth quarter of 2012, 23% of Facebook's total ad revenue was pumped into its coffers via mobile - up from 0%.

Facebook obviously gets the importance of mobile now. But it's still not clear why a new Facebook phone is a good idea. The company is as cozy as can be on Android and iOS already, and Facebook would be lucky to sell even "a small number" of these new phones, just as Zuck warned back in 2010. Even if the new Facebook software presented unique monetization opportunities, the revenue would barely be a drop in Facebook's ever-growing bucket.

So why bother? I guess we'll find out on Thursday. 

All photos by Taylor Hatmaker.

Step into the Wayback Machine for a moment. How did we ever catch up with old friends, check our location, track professional contacts, publish our thoughts for others to read, and look at cat pictures before the Internet?

Oh, right.

(Click the image for a larger version.)

Cartoon produced by John Atkinson / Wrong Hands

Lede image via Shutterstock

With an update on Thursday, Microsoft's Bing is quickly becoming what could be the Web's best source of aggregated social information. At least, when it wants to be. More on that in a moment.

Microsoft's enhancements greatly improve the middle column of its horizontally-aligned search results, which it calls the "snapshot." In it, Bing now provides more biographical information about celebrities. More important, however, is a detailed social profile: in one tightly-focused column, Bing links the subject's Facebook feed, Twitter page, and LinkedIn profile; lists her title, location, and subjects of influence; her employment history, as stored in a LinkedIn public profile; and related searches.

Scrolling right then brings up the third column, or "sidebar," which contains any social commentary you or your friends have made, including photos and posts.

Microsoft's Quest For Satori

It's far more information than even a user-architected Vizify or About.me profile provides. Microsoft's Bing enhancements fall under what the company is calling satori, or understanding, aiming to provide the best answer when an answer is called for, and the most context when more nuance is required.

"At Bing, we believe that search should be more than a collection of blue links pointing to pages around the web," Richard Qian, a part of the Bing Index team, wrote in a blog post that indirectly slammed Google. "We believe search should also be a reflection of the actual world."

In many cases, that's meant tapping social networks for their perspectives. In 2010, Microsoft announced its initial partnership with Facebook for search, slowly deepening the social content it could tap into over a period of months, while a social SWAT team raised its profile.

Last year, Microsoft began tapping into Klout scores, and in January, Microsoft integrated much more Facebook content into the sidebar at the right of the page. In return, Facebook's new Graph Search defaults to Bing if it can't find a search result.) Now, Microsoft has added LinkedIn to the fold, as well.

Who's A Celebrity, And Who's A Colleague?

One quirk, however, is that for right now Bing treats some individuals differently than others, which may be a bit jarring. For example, a search for "Abraham Lincoln" nets small but high-value collection of biographical content: his date of birth, death, his height, spouse, children, even his first love. As one would expect, there is no mention of any Facebook pages, Twitter feed, or online resume.

If you search for more ordinary joes, you're apt to receive results like those described above: an index picture pulled from the subject's LinkedIn profile, social feeds, et cetera.

It gets a little bit odd, however, when searching for someone like Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who is treated as a celebrity. While it's nice to know Zuck's birthday (May 14) and how tall he is (5 feet, 9 inches) the lack of a link to his Facebook or Twitter page is a bit jarring, especially for a social media CEO. Ditto for Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive. Fortunately, Bing has rectified that error with celebs like Ashton Kutcher, whose Twitter feed and Klout score (a whopping 87)  is prominently displayed.

Microsoft representatives say that the service will improve over time, however.

"With Snapshot we want to provide people rich information at a glance that helps them better understand the world around them so they search less and do more," a spokesman said in an email. "That said, the information will change based on the search term and may not always contain the same content. This is a long journey, and we expect to continue to deliver a number of additional improvements in the weeks and months ahead."

Wolfram Alpha Still The Best Source of Answers

The Bing improvements also include questions and answers, the improved ability to answer a query that seeks a fact, using natural language. Type in "what is the highest mountain in the world?" to Bing, and a tidy little snapshot returns all sorts of information about Mt. Everest. Unfortunately, that excludes the Google Street View of Mt. Everest that Google recently included, but you can't have everything. 

Google may have talked up its natural language search at the recent SXSW show, but Google appears to be running a distant third in the category - possibly behind Bing, with its recent improvements, and most definitely behind Wolfram Alpha, the unquestioned leader in the category.

Type in queries like "who won the World Series in 1989," or "who won best actress in 1965," and both Bing and Google will return lists of links. Only Wolfram will tell you the correct answers: the Oakland Athletics, and Julie Andrews, respectively.

The vast majority of queries aren't made by visiting the home pages of Google or Bing, but by using the search bar or a dedicated toolbar. If you really want a powerful answer engine, you owe it to yourself to visit the Wolfram Alpha download page and install the plugin or extension for all of the major browsers (except IE10). For the moment, Bing appears to be the easiest accessible source of social information, while Wolfram Alpha is the superior solution when you just want the right answer.

Lead image via Shutterstock

HBO's hit show Game of Thrones thrives on social media. But you can't say the same of George R.R. Martin, its original author.

A George R.R. Martin Twitter account, for instance, has almost 50,000 followers -- but no updates at all. (FYI, it's not a Twitter-verified account. If it's a fake, it's a fairly convincing one, in a contrarian sort of way.) Martin's Web site could most charitably be described as having a distinctly late 1990s look, and his "Not a Blog" -- which the author does update fairly regularly -- is hosted on... LiveJournal.

At the San Francisco premiere of Thrones' third season Wednesday night, Martin admitted to writing his novels on a PC that still runs MS-DOS, using WordStar 4.0. "I would still prefer to tie parchments to the legs of ravens," the author joked.

Twitter Is Coming

Things couldn't be more different at the show itself. At the premiere event, series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss said that Twitter allows them to receive real-time feedback of what works and what doesn't. Martin added that he believed worldwide hits like Thrones helping to break down licensing barriers around the world.

"One of the things that's really fun about Twitter in particular is that there's a fan site Winter Is Coming, and they do this sort of real time, as the show airs, what people are saying on Twitter," Benioff said. "And for us, we don't get to watch the shows with an audience. For us, it's a rare thing where we're there with a group of people. Mainly it's people watching TV in their homes. So it's not a communal experience.

"The one thing that's fun about the Twitter feed is that the reactions in real time the shocking moment, whether it's Ned's death, the way Twitter lights up," Benioff added. "So it's fascinating, just fascinating to see. There's the world map of Twitter, where people can see what's trending and it spikes in Turkey. And to know that our show is popular in Turkey, that's fantastic."

In the years before cable television and DVRs, a limited number of broadcast TV channels forced Americans to choose from a small selection of programs at any one time, creating a built-in audience. As cable channels proliferated, American audiences splintered. And while studio execs can test-screen both movies and TV shows, Twitter provides provides genuine fan input that the executives said they take to heart.

"Sometimes we'll watch an episode and have the Twitter feed going, and it's just like being in a theater, in a way," Weiss said. "It sort of brings the communal nature of the experience back after it disappeared for so long."

Martin's Own Song Of Ice...

At age 64, Martin has prompted concerns that he, like fellow epic fantasy writer Robert Jordan, won't live to see his series conclude. The fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, was published in 2011. HBO's third season covers the first half of A Storm of Swords, the third book in the series.

"It's coming," Martin said of the sixth book, The Winds of Winter. "It's not going to be done next week. It's going to be another giant, 1,500 page book. But I'm making progress. I don't feel comfortable predicting when these things are going to be done, because every time I do I turn out to be wrong and then everybody gets upset."

For all of his anachronistic writing style, however, Martin showed a distinct aptitude for understanding his fans' mindset, especially regarding piracy.

... And Fire

Martin said:

We have to contend with our show being the most pirated show in the world, with most of it coming from Australia. They delay it six months there, so people won't wait before they download it. I think we're moving toward a thing where there will be no more delays, to make a show in America where the American director, studio, or producers [won't] sell it to foreign markets, and broadcasters puts it on six months later or whenever they feel like putting it on. That's gone now.

Martin added that he was proud to work with HBO, which commits to an entire season of a new show, in contrast to the fickle whims of network executives. Had The Wire debuted on NBC, he said, it would have been off the air in three episodes. (And that's being charitable.)

His comments prompted a question to Benioff and Weiss -- did they expect to air adaptations of Martin's entire series on HBO? 

"God, I hope so," Benioff responded. When the two went to HBO to pitch the show, it was a rare thing to have creators know exactly where the show was going to begin, move through, and end. (Martin has revealed to the two how he expects Thrones to wrap up.)

"I think it would be something that we would be proud of for our whole lives," Benioff said. "You don't get that many chances for something that special. We're hoping we can make it."

Guest author David Ewart heads up Marketing and Revenue for IT upstart Loggly.

The epic media battle between New York Times reporter John Broder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk began with a negative consumer review, escalated with a strong-armed public rebuttal by a powerful executive and ended with a bunch of shared log files disputing the veracity of Broder’s driving experience. So what’s the big deal? Was this just another he-said-he-said that ended with data coming to the rescue?

Oh no. It’s bigger than that, much bigger.

(See also Would You Buy A Tesla Model S?)

On first blush, the story spoke of the growing importance of data in corporate America. Log files, typically the chatter of IT managers behind the firewall, had suddenly entered the corner office and the public spotlight. It was a powerful tipping point for those of us who deal with data every day, and spoke volumes to the growing potential of log files to help companies solve problems and identify trends. But what’s the real issue… and why is it such a big deal?

Elon Musk, with all his innovative thinking has become a poster-child for the face of market disruption. Yet he forgot the age-old mantra: “The customer is always right.” By publishing “the truth” of the logs for the world to see, he may have succeeding in counteracting the claims of the reviewer, but he disrupted his own sales pipeline.

Being Right - At A High Cost

(See also Tesla And The Fallacy Of Data-Driven Decisions.)

On Bloomberg TV, Musk admitted: "We did actually get a lot of cancellations as a result of The New York Times article. It probably affected us to the tune of tens of millions, to the order of $100 million, so it's not trivial.” The stock, trading at $39 before the review was published is trading at $34 today. Elon lost customer confidence, trust and their cash.

While data is valuable, releasing it with the sole purpose of roasting the consumer - in this case, a test driver who should have succeeded regardless of any possible hidden agenda - isn’t wise. Musk missed the point: The value of vehicle log files is not to fight battles in the press, but a tool to vastly improve the product and deliver a better experience for the next customer.

Imagine the backlash if Weight Watchers CEO David Kirchhoff read a customer’s Facebook post saying that she followed the plan and still gained weight, by publicly posting the user's caloric intake and exercise log, indicating that she did not stick to the plan? The CEO might win that battle, but he would certainly lose the war.

Big Data And The Customer Experience

So, how can Tesla recover from this PR and fiscal train-wreck? Put those log files to work to improve the customer experience. The right way to create a win-win result for Tesla would be for Musk to acknowledge that as the car breaks new ground, Tesla will incorporate customer feedback and data to make a smart product even smarter and easier to use.

He could acknowledge that the car could still improve: That it should have understood that the trip and route chosen (programmed by the user), combined with the dropping temperatures (weather app) and known charging locations (geo-location data) would not end in a successful commute.

He could speak of the product roadmap and enhancements that will collect and interpret this data to alert the driver by dashboard, text, email or other method of impending failure. He could talk about how the Model S can actually get smarter with a software update. Perhaps the car could automatically initiate a battery warmer in cold weather, alert Tesla service crews of the situation – anything but allow the failure.

It’s not about proving that you’re right and the customer screwed up, but by planning for success of everyone, including the outliers.

Musk missed a remarkable opportunity. He forgot that the customer is always right, and that a bad experience is the perfect time to help existing and future customers have a better experience. Somehow, that critical human message got lost in the data.

The latest changes to Google+ might not have a huge impact - but that doesn't mean they aren't huge.

Wednesday, Google revamped its Google+ profile pages, making the social network more image-heavy and sprucing up a few Google+ areas that were collecting virtual cobwebs. The announcement appeared as a blog post by Googler Sara McKinely and was then shared widely by Google+ guru Vic Gundotra. 

Cleaning Up The About Page

The update cleans up users' About pages, where personal, educational and professional info live. Previously the About page was an odd tangle of editable boxes, and it wasn't always clear what information was private or public. Now Google+ has added in a "View profile as" button (à la Facebook), making for handy, quick way to check who can see what on your profile. The page is also much more attractive, with color-coded boxes displaying personal information in cards, as you can see in the image below:

Sweating The Small Stuff

Beyond the literally big stuff, Google has added a shortcut to its Local hub, where reviews of restaurants and venues show up, all linked to a reviewer's respective Google+ account, of course. 

Google+'s thriving photo community will no doubt be excited about today's interface changes. Personally, I'm dreading what happens when graphically challenged Google+ users start uploading their newest baby photos at insufficient resolution. Ick.

The changes to the look of Google+ come a day before Facebook's March 7 press event, where it's speculated that the big blue social network could infuse News Feed with larger images while doing a bit of UI spring cleaning itself.

Images via Google+.

Guest author Will Stevens is an off-site SEO specialist at 123-reg.co.uk, the UK's largest accredited domain name registrar.

Advertising used to be easy – some harassed salesman would ring you up, offer space and, if the potential demographic and price matched your needs, you'd say yes. You'd get a shiny full-page ad, and the guy who sold it to you would be a little closer to his sales target for the quarter, and a little less likely to be fired.

Then the internet arrived and everyone got fired anyway.

OK, so that's overly simplistic, but it broadly describes a period of time when advertising was a fairly straightforward business transaction based on cost and potential outcomes.

Social media has changed that forever.

As Brian Proffitt's coverage of the Technorati 2013 Digital Influence report indicates, part of this complexity manifests itself in the difficulty of tracking down those who can spread a brand's message effectively. But getting to grips with the social media landscape is a just tiny fraction of the problem.

Because even once you've identified the influencers, you still have to get them to play ball, and it's here the real disconnect between brands and influencers becomes apparent.

The First Big Problem: Getting Noticed

Even the most awkward teenager knows that the key to popularity lies with an endorsement from someone who has already achieved that status. It's the getting them to notice you part that's hard. (In fact, this problem is so well documented it forms the plot of an entire subgenre of movies set in American high schools during the 1980s, many of them starring Michael J Fox. Unfortunately, suddenly discovering you're a werewolf who happens to be really good at basketball isn't an option for most brands.)

Why? Because...

The Second Big Problem: Influence Is A Closely Guarded Position

There are several reasons for that, not all of them as altruistic or selfless as those who enjoy a position of influence might have you believe.

Obviously, there are issues related to the quality and trustworthiness of the content influencers point people towards. More importantly, though, a position of influence can be diluted and hence must be protected

If you write a blog about Product *X* and then suddenly one of the leading manufacturers of Product X wants you to promote their efforts you're going to think twice before giving them access to your audience

Even passively encouraging people to seek out fresh sources of the information that interests them, you increase the chances they will become less reliant on you telling them what's going on - and that dilutes your influence

The key factors here are jealousy and fear: Major brands that neglected social networks in the early days now covet the power wielded by those who embraced them early on. And those "early embracers" now worry the brands will slowly erode their hard-won power

Clearly deals are done and influence garnered, but this is far more complicated than just buying an ad. In fact, bruised egos and sulking are far more common outcomes than win-win deals

Why? Because...

The Third Big Problem: Brands Are Brands

Brands have to be tightly defined or else they are nothing. But influencers have similar issues of their own. Put simply, brands want advertising and influencers want content their audience will love. The medium has changed but one party wants the message to stay the same.

Part of the problem is demographics. Social networks such as Twitter continue to espouse the importance of "who" is paying attention, even as anecdotal evidence suggests the Web is makinge a mockery of the idea that only people of certain ages like certain things and behave in certain ways.

The rest of the problem is the belief - held by both brands and influencers - that people care about what they do.

Sure, a few brands do command a cult-like influence over a significant number of customers, but for most brand-customer relationships are entirely utilitarian – customers want a product or a service that works. Period.

The same goes for influencers – it's the quality of the content they provide that keeps people coming back for more, not some slavish devotion to that particular individual.

For example, I love Rand Fishkin's Whiteboard Fridays over at SEOMoz – they're incredibly useful and always engaging. In fact, they're so useful I wouldn't care if Nike slipped Rand $50,000 to wear a branded baseball cap during one of the videos, although I would certainly appreciate it if he was open about the relationship.

If, on the other hand, Rand suddenly decided to dedicate an entire Whiteboard Friday to the awesome new pair of sneakers he just got, not only would I be a little suspicious, I'd also be hugely bored.

A Question Of Balance

It's a question of balance – brands can't expect to have every little thing tweaked to their satisfaction in a non-traditional advertising environment. To build relationships with social influencers, brands need to stop being so precious about their corporate identities. Instead, they should think about what they can do for the audience they want to reach, because that's what the biggest influencers, the ones who have already engaged that particular niche, are focused on.

Influencers, on the other hand, need to take a more positive approach to things – a relationship with a brand doesn't *have* to erode their position among their community.

Journalists dream of having major brands approaching them because they know that relationship can be leveraged to generate amazing content. Influencers can do exactly the same.

It used to be that advertising was a binary relationship with one person selling and the other buying. Now, the waters are considerably muddier. But that's exciting. That means you can do more.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

From natural disasters and national tragedies to elections and award shows, no event goes untweeted these days.

For better or worse, we've come to consider Twitter an accurate reflection of opinion at large, a global zeitgeist bubbling up through real-time micro-musings. But according to a new report from the Pew Research Center, Twitter might be a sample more than 500 million accounts strong - but that doesn't make it reflective of public opinion beyond the Twittersphere.

Tweets Vs. Reality

The most cut-and-dried case that Twitter isn't the a perfect litmus test for popular opinion came during President Obama's reelection last November. While 77% of the tweets issued about the election night outcome were positive, the popular vote (still contested at the time) and post-election polling painted a much more divided - and more accurate - picture.

Interestingly, Twitter can also err on the conservative side. During Obama's 2012 State of the Union speech, Twitter lit up with negative commentary. The speech was much better received by the public at large, where 42% of those polled had a positive reaction to the speech and only 27% reported a negative reaction. Analyses of tweets from the event found the exact opposite trend, with 40% of the conversation capturing a negative reaction - only 21% of tweets analyzed cast the event in a positive light.

A Flawed Sample

When pulling numbers out of Twitter - how many people raved about Jennifer Lawrence's Oscars dress or disagreed with Obama's handling of the budget cuts, for instance - we have to be careful to remember that aggregated Twitter data only measures what people are thinking, saying or doing on Twitter. 

Twitter is a very different beast than Facebook - one that only 13% of adults report having used at all, compared to an earlier Pew study showing that 67% of Americans who use the internet are Facebook users. While those stats aren't directly comparable, Facebook's unrivaled user numbers make it clear that Twitter isn't as broad or deep a sample of the population. 

The key here is that Twitter is a platform for very intentional expressions, and tweets are mapped onto the events its users are already invested. Given the way its users hop on and off of the site, a sample of its users is shifting wildly at any given time. During a major NFL event, Twitter is on fire with football fans, while an iPhone launch captures the sentiment of the early adopter tech set.

Naturally, for those among us who live and breathe tweets, Twitter seems like a realtime cross-section of everyone's thoughts about, well, everything. But as common sense and the Pew report make clear, Twitter is an imperfect zeitgeist at best.

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The Twitter client end times are nigh. Well, to be fair, they've been nigh for a while now - so I guess now the end times are here.

In a blog post today, Twitter announced that it would formally discontinue support for TweetDeck's trio of non-web apps, TweetDeck for iPhone, Android and AIR. The clients will be pulled from their app stores in early May, so you can expect considerable wonkiness thereafter.

Twitter, The Control Freak

The death of the TweetDeck trifecta marks a formal end to the heyday of third-party Twitter clients. Last year, as Twitter began to tighten its guidelines, the company effectively wrestled developers into a choke-hold.

Along the way, many great clients and apps folded, deeming it too risky to pour themselves into projects that could be felled by Twitter at a moment's notice. The three clients that Twitter will no longer support are all powered by its old API v1, which the company already announced plans to retire.

Power Users Left In The Cold 

What are we left with? Well, acccording to its blog, Twitter will rally around the "modern, web-based version of TweetDeck - namely TweetDeck for web and TweetDeck the Chrome app. TweetDeck's native Mac and PC clients will also live on, though Twitter will focus its efforts on the other versions. None of these option are atrocious in their own right, but it's slim pickings for power users these days.

Many self-proclaimed power users remain loyal to the AIR version of TweetDeck, in spite of its quirks. The AIR-powered client retains the flavor of the original app, before Twitter began to splice TweetDeck's DNA into a less feature-rich client meant for more casual users.

Twitter Is A Platform, Not An App

Twitter's plan to evolve beyond a platform and into a suite of apps has been building momentum for years. Twitter acquired TweetDeck back in 2011 and casual Twitter client Tweetie before that, in 2010.

Still, the vestigial remains of half-abandoned clients are just as much of a mess than ever - and the fact that Twitter is keeping the TweetDeck branding isn't helping. At its essence, Twitter is still more of a platform than it is an app. But as its development strangehold tightens, the ample customization of a thriving ecosystem will soon be the stuff of archived tweets.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.