Is Twitter moving on to bigger and better things? Maybe louder, more musical ventures? That's what it sounds like as the seven-year-old San Francisco micro blogging site confirmed Thursday that sometime last year it had acquired We Are Hunted, a music discovery service. 

Welcome to Twitter! “@wearehunted: We want to share some news with you. We Are Hunted has joined Twitter. wearehunted.com”

— Twitter Comms (@twittercomms) April 11, 2013

Social music is a huge space,  with social music apps bringing like-minded listeners together and exposing them to new music. This process is known as music discovery. Spotify is one such discovery service, with a freemium streaming music library valued in the $3 billion range. Rhapsody and Pandora are other major players in streaming music and discovery.

In the pure discovery realm, Shazam has become the go-to app to find out just what song is playing whenever you hear a track for which you just have to know the title. There's countless others, with the mobile market becoming a fast-evolving sector for engagement between musicians, brands and listeners. It's a new way to gain loyalty from fans and online exposure for artists. 

Twitter's purchase, We Are Hunted, tracks popular songs on social media, which means Twitter is likely prepping its own music app. This morning All Things D wrote that Twitter Music could launch as early as today, or by this weekend - timed to match the opening of the Coachella music festival. The new service would recommend users music based on who they follow on Twitter.

Ramping up that likely possibility, a landing page aptly titled Music.Twitter.com has gone live to help facilitate the process and get users to sign in to authorize the new music-trending app.

It's still early morning, but expect Twitter to reveal its sing-songy plan later today, or this weekend at the latest. Now it looks like Twitter is stepping into the same arena. Are your ears burning yet? 

Image courtesy of Twitter.

M$: Short for Microsoft, used to imply Microsoft cares more for money than it does for security, stability, and anything else that could make a good Operating System." - Urban Dictionary, 2004.

"Microsoft sucks." Too many times, the conversation stops there.

Yes, Microsoft gets plenty of criticism, much of it justified, on everything from its nasty attacks on Linux to the failings of its latest operating system. Along the way, Microsoft has helped write its own narrative as a money-grubbing monopolist - old, litigious, out of touch. For Pete's sake, it took years for Bill Gates to recognize the potential of the Internet.

But that's only part of the story. We too often overlook the many things that Microsoft does right: its philosophy of open research; its willingness to adopt and contribute to open source; even its willingness to admit when it's wrong. The case here is not necessarily what Microsoft does best, but what it does well, what it deserves to be recognized for, and what we generally overlook.

1. More Open Than You'd Think

Microsoft, open?! Really?

Of course not, if you're looking strictly at Microsoft's commercial products. There's no way that you'll ever see Windows released as open-source code, nor will true open-source advocates ever put Microsoft in the same camp as say, Red Hat.

But in 2006, Microsoft began changing its tune toward open-source software - forced by IBM and Red Hat, admittedly. The tide turned when Microsoft and Novell signed a cooperative agreement shielding themselves and non-commercial free software developers from being sued; by 2012, Microsoft had entered the list of the top 20 contributors to the Linux kernel. Linux never really cracked the desktop PC, but Microsoft seems content enabling Linux to run on virtual machines, and possibly even developing Office for Linux, too.

Basically, Microsoft has achieved detente with open-source software; acknowledging its role, using it to Microsoft's own advantage, competing with it on its merits and contributing back to the community, where warranted. Argue all you want how Microsoft arrived here - kicking and screaming, perhaps - but Microsoft's attitudes toward open-source software have significantly improved.

2. Open Research, Too

One of the few companies that opens the doors to its labs is Microsoft, with events like TechFest held each year in either its Redmond headquarters or in its Silicon Valley facilities.

Many companies host developer conferences to engage with partners and announce new products. The difference is that Microsoft seems to emphasize research and showing off the fruits of that research to the world at large. There seems to be a sense of pride there that only a few companies (Intel, for one) seem to share.

Finally, there's the discovery aspect. Google Scholar does a fine job of assisting searches for academic papers, but compare Google Scholar and Microsoft's Academic Search. Not only is Microsoft's tool arguably more interesting than what Google offers, it also allows you to search by organization. Compare Microsoft versus Google versus IBM in terms of citations and papers, and decide whether or not you believe Microsoft's numbers, which show Microsoft publishing much more research than Google.

3. Winning The Game (Console)

In little more than a decade, Microsoft has forced Nintendo, one of the pioneers of the modern video game console, into near irrelevancy. It hasn't managed to do the same with Sony, yet, but its Xbox has outsold Sony's PS3 for well over a year (at least in the United States). Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to innovate with its use of the Kinect peripheral, both as a camera and a form of gesture input. 

Both Sony and Microsoft have struggled to bundle their consoles with music, movie and app stores, in much the same way Apple has. But Microsoft has also kept its eyes open. If the reports of the "Stingray" Xbox are true, Microsoft may be smartly attacking on two fronts: developing a low-cost Xbox derivative to take on Roku and Boxee in the video streaming market, while maintaining its dominance in game consoles. 

4. A Sense of Vision... And Touch

In the last decade, Microsoft has either bought or developed products for productivity (Windows, Office), collaboration and connection (Skype, Lync, Windows Phone) and entertainment (Xbox) and embarked on an ambitious bid to tie them all together.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer now describes the company as a services-driven organization, but Microsoft is increasingly committed to pushing the boundaries of hardware, whether that be its gigantic Perceptive Pixel displays, its Kinect depth camera, the Xbox or Windows Phones, and its Surface tablet. Microsoft has built outwards from a formidable presence in Office and Windows, adding powerful communication tools in Lync and Skype, and tying together tablets, phones and console together via the cloud. There's no other company in the industry - no, not Google, not Apple - whose software and hardware ecosystem traverses as broad a spectrum as Microsoft.

Microsoft may have fallen short with Windows 8's touch interface, but Kinect is impressive in its own right, even if it was licensed from a startup, Primesense. (I don't know why Microsoft hasn't made a corresponding investment in speech recognition, which would fit so naturally alongside a touch-based interface.)

Microsoft is now the chief steward of the PC, responsible for pushing its boundaries. Tablets, phones and Chromebooks attract the ink these days, but preserving the future of 350 million PCs is no small task.

5. Microsoft Peripherals: So Good, We Forget About Them

Every day, we sit down at our laptop, PC, or other computing device, put our hands to our keyboard and type away. And, in general, many of the best of those keyboards and mice have said "Microsoft" somewhere on them. 

Set aside arty attempts like the Microsoft Arc Mouse. When you get right down to it, Microsoft's basic Comfort Desktop keyboards and basic mice have been under our fingers for years and years. Microsoft's keyboards are one of the reasons many people can't imagine typing on a tablet's sheet of glass for any length of time. 

  6. Investing In The Future

Few companies have the resources to invest in startups, whether that be a company or a teenager. Microsoft does both: efforts like BizSpark give out Microsoft software and assistance to startups, while efforts like the Kodu Cup help kids learn how to code. The Imagine Cup crosses borders to incentivize student innovators develop their own products and the business models to run them. And while Microsoft helps launch solar-powered broadband in Africa, it must know that it's not going to earn a front-page story.

Much of what Microsoft is simply doing here is a high-profile effort to seed Windows and its other products around the world, employing many of the same practices that other technology companies employ. But is "good" being done here? Certainly.

7. Windows Phone: Committed To Being Different

During the holiday season, comScore reported, Microsoft's Windows Phone actually lost market share. Ugh. It's hard to write positively about Windows Phone when consumers obviously aren't falling in love with it. But Windows Phone provides an attractive, easy-to-use alternative to the iOS/Android duopoly, forgoing dozens of static app icons for dynamic "Live" tiles that transform the phone's home screen into a dynamic mosaic of information. It's, well, iconic.

We all know Windows Phone's weakness: apps. What Microsoft hasn't done is convince application developers to embrace the platform, and that's a big reason consumers have shied away. But the Windows Phone OS itself has a lot to recommend it, and the hardware from Nokia and HTC isn't bad, either.

8. Still Owning The Enterprise

For all of its emphasis on consumer-facing technologies, Microsoft's empire was built on productivity and the enterprise. Microsoft's Server and Tools and the Business Division typically report both the highest profits and revenue of any divisions within the company. Microsoft has forged relationships with thousands of businesses, generating stable, consistent revenue streams especially with the creation of subscription models like Office 365.

While Google Apps continues to cut into the Word/Excel/PowerPoint triumvirate, Microsoft has made an end run around Google's services by making collaborative services like Lync the centerpiece of Office.

Does Microsoft need to own the enterprise via hardware like Surface? In the end, no. If Surface doesn't end up as the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) option for enterprise workers, the rumored Office for Android and iPad will likely serve instead. That's the end goal: capturing attention and generating revenue from enterprises, no matter the medium. As long as that keeps happening, Microsoft can afford to bet on riskier ventures like the Surface and Windows Phone.

9. Microsoft's Mea Culpas

I was honestly impressed by Microsoft's apology that it had fallen short of its commitment to provide "browser choice" to European customers in 2012, as part of a settlement agreement. Microsoft owned up to its mistake, described what had happened and what steps it would take, and again took responsibility for the error when the European Union slapped the company with a $731 million fine.

Google, by contrast, faces fines and a concerted EU investigation after allegedly ignoring requests to rework its privacy policy. Many expected Microsoft to have looked for excuses and appealed the EU's decision. It didn't.

Wouldn't it be nice if Microsoft didn't screw up in the first place? Sure. Microsoft obviously regrets its bawdy song-and-dance routine at a Norway developer conference showed last year, or its "big boobs" gaffe a month later.  But even the world's largest companies make mistakes. A company's character is determined by how it deals with them.

If It Bleeds, It Leads

Failure interests us. Microsoft climbed to the top of the market, creating arguably the world's richest man in the process. Tech journalists remain eager to write the story of Microsoft's fall, me included. Some of Microsoft's tactics are still downright embarrassing: the Scroogled campaign, for example. Windows 8 might well end up as the second coming of Vista. There are still questions whether or not Microsoft can tie its software, services and hardware together into a cohesive whole.

But refusing to acknowledge the other side of Microsoft's story isn't right, either. There's some good work coming out of Microsoft, and ignoring that creates an incomplete, inaccurate picture.

All images courtesy of Microsoft, except Microsoft's Open Source Lab Room by Todd Ogasawara, Microsoft mouse image by Fredric Paul, and roses image courtesy of Shutterstock.

The journalists, analysts and camera crews queued up in a chilly rain at Facebook's Menlo Park, California, headquarters to get the first look at Facebook's new home on Android - the long-rumored Facebook Phone.

The Hype Was Heavy

Would it be new "skin" software designed to put Facebook front and center on any Android device? Or an actual device in of itself - the rumor mill suggested HTC - built from the ground up to feature the social networking giant. Or would it be something completely new and unexpected?

Everyone wanted to know. Heck, the local newsradio station - not known for its tech savvy - gushed breathlessly about the event - right before talking about President Obama's visit to the Bay Area.

But when Mark Zuckerberg walked on stage, it became clear we're talking about both! "Today we're finally going to talk about the Facebook phone," Zuckerberg said. But that phone, the HTC First, is really just a reference model for the best integration of the Facebook Home software that can be downloaded onto any modern Android phone (starting April 12).

What Is Facebook Home?

According to Zuckerberg, Facebook Home consists of a few key capabilities designed to put people, not apps, first. "Today, our phones are designed aroundapps, not people" Zuckerberg said. "And we want to flip that around." He compared the change to adding Newsfeed to Facebook's website, where people started consuming about twice as much content overnight, he said. "We want to bring this experience right to your phone, and deliver it to as many poeple as possible."

There are three key components: Cover Feed, Chat Heads and Notifications.

Cover Feed: Replacing the home and/or lock screen of an Android device, it gives you an immersive experience from the moment you turn on your phone, said Adam Mosseri, Facebook's director of product. Instead of seeing a clock and maybe a snippet of a notification, you see your Facebook Open Graph stories with large images cycling across the screen. News shares, status updates (use the poster's cover photo as the background) are visible right from the get got. You can do a long press to see the whole picture or swipe to get to the next one. You can even add comments right from the home screen, seen below.

Chat Heads: These little round bubbles with the images of your friends shown below are the metaphor for Facebook Home's way of keeping you up to date on what your friends are saying. Incorporating Facebook messaging and texting, you just tap on the Head to join the conversation. (Group conversations smuch all the participant's pictures into the bubble, slightly awkwardly.) The key here is that Chat Heads show up everywhere on the phone, not just in a dedicated app. They're always available - the little Heads show up in the corner of the screen no matter what else you're doing, and follow along when you move to a new app. (You can just flick them away if you want to get rid of them.)

Notifications: If Chat Heads are about connecting to what's important to you, Zuckerberg said, Notifications are there to make sure you don't miss critical information - along with the name and face of the person who's sending you the message. Unfortunately, with the download version at least, Facebook Home will not support notifications of emails, but you can still use the native Android notification bar. It's not as pretty, but it's still effective - something may not matter to high-school kids, but it may to the older professionals who also make up a big part of Facebook's member base.

Finally, Facebook Home adds a new app launcher, for when you still want to use your phone the old-fashioned way. Apps are really important too, so we wanted to make it just as easy to get to your apps. The app launcher is just one swipe away from your home or lock screen.

Many, but not all, of these features can be switched on or off, the company said.

How Big A Deal Is Facebook Home?

While Facebook home is not a complete mobile operating system, it's not some lightweight app, either. "We're not building a phone, and we're not building an operating system, but we're also building something a lot deeper than just an app," Zuckerberg said. "We wanted this to feel like system software, not just an app that your run. We feel like theres a higher bar for that…"

That's critical, because people spend a lot of time on Facebook on their mobile phones. Some 20% of the time people spend on their smartphones is spent with Facebook - 25% if you include Instragram, the company said. And that's three times as much as with any other app.

Still, while Zuckerberg claimed that people look at Facebook 10-12 times a day, they look at the home screen of their phone 100 times a day. Facebook Home brings the social network much closer to the user - and could be expected to seriously up Facebook's engagment time for those who use it.

It also expands on Facebook's Mobile First mantra to what Zuckerberg called "Mobile Best." "We think this is the best version of Facebook there is."

The Facebook Phone

Facebook Home will be available for free download from the Google Play store on April 12, but that's only part of the story. Facebook Home is also the HTC First (seen on the left, below), available the same day for $99.99 exclusively from AT&T - pre-orders start today.

As the first phone with Facebook Home built in, the HTC First offers deeper integration than the downloadable version. The key, Zuckerberg said, is that users don't have to download anything or sign in to anything to get started. In addition, the built-in integration means Facebook Home can (unlike the downloadable version) incorporate notifications from other apps, such as email or Spotify. The email issue, particularly, will be a big deal to some people.

What's Next For Facebook Home?

The April 12 launch date is only the beginning for Facebook Home. Zuckerberg promised that like all Facebook software, it will be updated monthly (not yearly like mobile operating systems). Updates will likely expand Cover Feed to include video, group joins, friending stories and other actions.

Another thing to expect? Ads. While Zuckerberg said there would not be ads in Cover Feed at launch, he didn't dispute a question that they could be added at a later date.

It also makes sense to expect more smartphones with Facebook Home built in. The company made no mention of an exclusive arrangement with HTC or AT&T. The company also promised a tablet version of Facebook home within the next few months. As for a version of Facebook Home for the iPhone and iPad, Zuckerberg was non-committal. That will require working with Apple, he said, in ways that talking to Google wasn't necessary to do the Android version.

And that could actually make some waves in the mobile platform wars. "I actually think this is really good for Android," Zuckerberg said. Even though there are more Android phones out there, he explained, a lot of people do their best work on iphone first. "This could bring more innovation to Android."

Facebook will be working to lead that. "This is a deeply technical problem, and its also a deeply social problem," Zuckerberg said, adding that his company is uniquely positioned to deal with that combination.

Images courtesy of Facebook. Lead image by Fredric Paul.

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.

Happy birthday, Twitter! In just seven years, you've evolved from a fringe service dubbed "twttr" to a mainstream phenomenon with more than 500 million registered users and 340 million daily tweets. 

But the Internet is fickle. Will the microblogging service still be around another seven years from now? To make it to 2020, Twitter is going to have to surmount some mighty big challenges.

Ready, Set... Go

Here they are in a nutshell. Sound off on what you consider Twitter's biggest challenges in our poll to the right or in comments:

1. Facebook: Competition from the Zuckerberg brand is huge. Instagram, now part of Facebook, is another giant rival. Both services have copied — and are continuing to copy — Twitter features like the news feed and hashtags. Twitter only stays one step ahead if it keeps rolling out new innovations that its competitors can't own. It's done well so far, but one big slip-up to cause irreparable damage.
2. Stagnation and spam: Detractors say Twitter has already peaked. These same folks are also quick to point out that many of its "registered users" — and, as a result, many followers of real users — are actually bots. It's hard to determine just how many users are actually active, but bots are already a problem for Twitter's business model, since no advertiser wants to pay to reach fake accounts. More insidious forms of advertiser spam surely lie in Twitter's future.
3. Weak Ad Platform. When it comes to making money online, many businesses prefer to funnel dollars to Facebook's fan pages over Twitter's promoted and sponsored tweets. It can be hard to significantly monetize on Twitter, and advertisers can have a hard time tracking their return on investment there. Twitter is great for engaging, solving customer service issues and even funneling traffic to a website. But direct selling often turns users off. And the advertising model has yet to be cracked here.

Photo via Shutterstock

Social networks like Facebook and Google+ are suddenly more image-happy than ever. And that's awesome, in theory. But images ≠ photos. And that's an important distinction. 

(See also Facebook Updates News Feed With Dedicated Feeds, Bigger Photos and Google+ Update Adds Crazy Big Cover Photos + Other Stuff.)

According to Facebook, today the News Feed is comprised of about 50% "visual content." What began as a spartan little text entry box is now a full-fledged multimedia monster, for better or worse. But the advent of Facebook's new "bright beautiful stories" may just mean more visual detritus to brush away from the content we really want to see, assuming it's out there at all.

Goodbye Clutter?

Trying to get a screen capture of the new News Feed Photos page earlier today, I had to refresh about ten times before anything worthy of being highlighted bubbled up. But even then, the rest of the stuff on the page was such an eyesore, I just went with the Facebook PR team's stock shot. My Photos tab (and the News Feed at large) remains a confusing mixture of Someecards and random images that people scoop up from around the Web and don't attribute. I've probably been guilty of this too, but whatever - I'm the one writing this story. 

In the News Feed example images, everything looks so good. I mean, if all of my friends only posted high-res photographs of their amazing blue-skied skiing adventures, I wouldn't be complaining. Maybe I need to friend more of Facebook's staff - they can clearly afford vacations chock full of photo opps. (Maybe they'll bring me along? I'm a pretty good time. Just sayin'.)

(See also An Early Sneak Peek At Facebook's New News Feed [Gallery].)

The Memes Come Marching In

The invasion of the meme might be partly to blame. I remember when memes hit Tumblr and then took off. I'd been blogging there since 2009. Back then I'd post original photos and original writing and the people I followed did the same. Then suddenly, one day it just flipped - Tumblr became a place for recycling jokes and reposting lolcats. I lost interest in it immediately and haven't really blogged there since. Now that Facebook is dominated by image updates, the News Feed is a morass of recycled content - and again, I'm losing interest.

Instagram's Unspoken Rule

Facebook may own Instagram, but the social photo sharing network has its own set of rules - many of them unspoken, selfies aside. Instagram made generating original content fun again. Sure, we're just taking little snapshots and posting them in quasi-realtime, but that's a hell of a lot more interesting than a retweet or a video gone viral. If anyone on my Instagram posts a screencap or a picture lifted from a different source, I unfollow them. Instagram is training people to populate and curate their own little photo portals - and it encourages even first-time photographers to  develop a unique aesthetic. It's no surprise that the most interesting images in my News Feed are all imported from Instagram. Instagram is a viewfinder, not a recycling bin.

(See also #Me: Instagram Narcissism And The Scourge Of The Selfie.)

Call me old fashioned. I like actual photos. I like text. I will not for the life of me watch a viral video unless I'm absolutely convinced it will be earth-shatteringly funny - and if I have to sit through an auto-play ad first, forget it. I'd take user-generated content on a sparse web 2.0-style personal blog over multimedia Web-recycling any day. Remember when people used to blog? Now most of us just move other people's content from one place to another and point at it. 

Content Other Other People Create

Chris Cox, Facebook's VP of Product, summed it up this at Facebook's big announcement Thursday morning: "Fundamentally we're a container for content other people create." But most Facebook users don't create content, they just borrow it from someone else who probably borrowed it from someone else after it made the rounds on Tumblr a few months ago. None of this is Facebook's fault. I've been test-driving the redesign and it looks and works great. It's a web culture issue - one accentuated by the new News Feed's "bright, beautiful stories".

Maybe I'm just cynical. Or maybe there really is nothing new under the sun. But if you ask me, social sites need more content creators - and fewer diligent meme mules ferrying viral junk from point A to point B with their heads down. 

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Facebook and Someecards.

Guest author Rob Tarkoff is the president and CEO of Lithium Technologies.

It's 2013. Social media is no longer new. It's a mature medium, one that has been woven into the fabric of consumer life online. So why are brands still determined to act like naive tourists, blundering around a foreign land and upsetting the natives? It's time to take back control.

Brands have been lectured for the last few years on the need to let go of the vice-like grip on their brand, to hand over control to their customers in social media. And it's true that social media has ushered in a new age of transparency, where customers want a far greater stake in any brand they interact with.

But this doesn't mean you can shrug your shoulders and simply launch your brand unguided onto a social network. In fact, it's your responsibility to guide your customers' social experience. And that means welcoming them back to your home online.

Almost all of the most embarrassing recent social media blunders took place on Facebook and Twitter; which offer brands little control over their campaigns or messaging.

Forget Likes, Fans & Followers

It's frankly shameful so many brands are still asking social media to deliver likes, fans, followers, views and channel performance indicators, not business results.

Forward-thinking brands ask social media to deliver things that make business sense. Things like higher customer satisfaction, greater loyalty, reduced support costs and increased revenue.

Social media can be a game-changer, but only when we get serious about the social customer experiences. It's really not that difficult.

First, we must face the facts about social networks like Facebook - they just don't constitute a viable social media strategy. They're almost certainly not where you want to make your home. Only .5% of fans ever mention the brands they like on Facebook and just 2% of fans return to Facebook brand pages a second time.

If you really want to engage with your customers on social channels, you need to engage on your own social hubs: customer forums, blogs and communities.

When cosmetics retailer Sephora realized it had little ability to truly engage its nearly 1 million Facebook fans, for example, the company built its own social hub, Beauty Talk. Sephora now has the ability to engage and enlist their social customers to participate - and Beauty Talk members spend 10x more than the average customer.

Driving this kind of outcome is simply not possible on Facebook.

Social Media Is Not A Silo

Today, only a shocking 11% of companies say their social strategy is guided by insights from other business groups. This means 89% of social strategy happens in a silo. To drive social customer experience to the strategic level, it's essential to get others involved - across marketing, support and sales.

Next, stop playing. Experimentation is great. Endless experimentation is not. Make social engagement a core part of how you interact with your customers. Some 63% of consumers now search for help from other customers online. For example, Hewlett Packard has saved $50 million since launching its social support solution.

Measure What's Important

Now, start measuring the actual impact of your social media strategy. Ban the pointless hunt for buzz, likes, comments, high fives - what do they really mean for your business?

Instead, move to the same metrics you apply to any other area of your business, like reduced costs, greater satisfaction and increased revenue.

Once you have these foundations in place, it's time to scale. A single Twitter campaign can create an ocean of comments. How do you deal with that flood? By enabling your social customers to help each other. Skype community members help more than 3 million customers per month and resolve 70% of cases on first contact. Hewlett Packard's social customers handle 20% of the company's global support. 

With nearly 1.5 billion people using online social networks today, social media can no longer remain an afterthought - a sandbox for dabbling. Brands need to treat their social media investment as a core part of their long-term business transformation, not as a specific activity that you want to check off the list. Anything less just isn't serious.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Ten days before Hollywood hands out its Oscar statuettes, a pair of studies - one by Microsoft's in-house "Nate Silver," and another measuring social influence - have already picked the winners.

Microsoft Research's David Rothschild, who, like Silver, used early polls to correctly predict the outcome of the presidential elections in all but Florida, has used the predictive nature of the early awards shows to place his bets on who will be winning the various Academy Awards. Meanwhile, an English analyst firm, Brandwatch, has attempted to slice social media data in a couple of new ways (by both critical reaction and popular acclaim) to anticipate the winners.

And who are those winners? The envelopes, please...

• Best Picture: Argo
• Best Director: Steven Spielberg (Rothschild, Brandwatch popular) / David O. Russell (Brandwatch critics)
• Best Actor: Daniel-Day Lewis
• Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (Rothschild, Brandwatch popular) / Jessica Chastain (Brandwatch critics)
• Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones (Rothschild) / Christoph Waltz (Brandwatch popular) / Robert de Niro (Brandwatch critics)
• Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway
• Best Animated Film: Brave
• Best Original Song: Adele's "Skyfall"

The remaining categories, including best makeup, screenplay, documentary shorts, and others, can be found on the respective sites: Predictwise for Rothschild's predictions, and the Brandwatch Oscars site.

Why Will They Win?

In November, Rothschild used the same methodologies employed by quant hero Nate Silver to determine the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election: examining polling information collected before the election to determine the outcome. In February 2012, Rothschild wrote that Obama would win, well before election season got underway. As it turned out, of course, he was right.

(See also Why Nate Silver Won, And Why It Matters and Nate Silver's Model A Stunning Portrait Of Logic Over Punditry)

 “I approach forecasting the Oscars the same way I approach forecasting anything, including politics,” Rothschild said in a blog post. “I look for the most efficient data, and I create statistically significant models without any regard for the outcomes in any particular year. All models are tested and calibrated on historical data, with great pains taken to ensure that the model is robust to 'out-of-sample' outcomes, not just what has happened in the past. The models predict the future, not just the past.

“Thus, the science is identical, but there are differences in which data prove most useful,” Rothschild wrote.

The predictive models that Rothschild could tap into are the ones that most people are now using to handicap Oscar races: previous awards shows like the BAFTA awards, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards, and the Golden Globes. Some data he tossed out: For elections, fundamental data such as past election results and economic indicators can be used as predictive tools. But in movies, box-office figures and even ratings are not statistically effective, he said.

"I focus even more heavily on prediction markets, which are very robust, but I also include some user-generated data that helps me learn more about correlations within movies and between categories, such as, ‘How many categories will Lincoln win?" Rothschild added.

Finally, he updates his results in real time. Naturally, there's a way to tap into these results yourself: the Oscars Ballot Predictor app for Microsoft Excel, one of the few apps to provide real-time data for Microsoft's Office suite. The app allows users to vote, and includes the real-time, up-to-date Oscar predictions.

What could be Rothschild's next step? "Sports is something we're looking at," a Microsoft spokeswoman said via email.

Whose Opinion Matters: Critics, Or Audiences?

Brandwatch has taken a more "traditional" approach: pull together mentions of each actor, director, movie, or other category across a broad swath of social media to look for positive, relevant references that can indicate a good chance of winning.

Brandwatch taps into the Twitter firehose, and to date relevant Oscar mentions have totaled 304,550 mentions, with about 1,400 to 1,600 per day being added at the end of January. Naturally, that number will go up. Twitter makes up about 40% of the data that Brandwatch samples, according to a FAQ provided to ReadWrite.

One surprise, it found, was that Lincoln was the early odds-on favorite to win Best Picture. But sentiment flipped after Argo started winning the title at the Producers Guild of America, British Academy Film Awards, LA Film Critics Association, the Golden Globes and others.

What Brandwatch tries to do - differently, it says, from other studies - is pull together the volume of positive predictions. There are two variables: the number of mentions, as well as the sentiment behind them. This tries to ensure that a large number of comments on Helen Hunt's red-carpet dresses, for example, won't be factored in any more than a smaller number of positive comments for rival Jessica Chastain's performance.

However, the study also breaks down the projected winners by two categories: Critics, both "professionals" at major papers, plus semi-pro bloggers at enthusiast sites, and the general public. The skews show both sides of the acting industry, who aren't paid critics but know their business presumably more than the average joe.

Brandwatch was hired to perform the study by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), most known for its aggressive stance on copyright and attacks on file-sharing networks. 

But Brandwatch suggests another use for the data: "The findings hold wider implications for the film industries. If winners diverge from viewer favorites, this could indicate a greater need to relate to target audiences. Further qualitative analysis can uncover why film titles are recommended online: vital information for gaining endorsement and boosting box office takings. Key actors and directors can be correlated with film titles: To what extent does an established cast boost online reputation (and by extension sales)?"

It's not quite clear why Brandwatch's critic/public split is a better gauge than Rothschild's single number. But if you're running a betting pool, the smart money is on Argo, Daniel Day-Lewis and Anne Hathaway going home with Oscar on their arm.

Image source: flickr/ebbandflowphotography.

Today on Reddit, private commercial spaceflight company SpaceX set its software engineers loose in an AMA. On the site, AMA stands for "Ask Me Anything", and an AMA thread (found on /r/IAmA/) is a no-holds barred session of questions and answers in real-time via Reddit's nested comment system.

In the past, even President Obama stopped by an AMA for a little while to chat about the White House homebrew recipe.

At SpaceX, the engineers design code for rockets and spacecraft and the code that goes into the manufacturing process. They basically make this happen:

Want to be a professional rocket-launcher with equity in one of the hottest companies in the hottest emerging industries around? In the AMA, members of the SpaceX team explain how they scored one of the sweetest programming gigs ever, describe what it's like to work with Elon Musk and take a quick jab at North Korea, (naturally).

1. What Happens When Things Go Wrong... In Space

2. On How Big The Code Base Is

3. No Really, Pyongyang - Is That You?

4. Linux Powers SpaceX

5. On The Scope Of SpaceX's Computing Power

6. Want To Be An Astronaut? Learn C++ Instead

7. What's Next For That Whole Space Exploration Thing

8. When Can We Go To The Red Planet, Already?

Image courtesy of NASA

It looks like we're not the only ones unplugging from Facebook. According to new data published on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, 61% of current Facebook users have taken a break from the infamously addictive social network. The telephone survey culled its data from a sample of 1,006 adults in the U.S in December 2012.

Some more interesting tidbits about these Facebook comings and goings:

• 67% of online Americans are Facebook users
• 8% of online adults who do not currently use Facebook are interested in becoming Facebook users in the future.
• 20% of the online adults who don't currently use Facebook say that they used to use the site.
• 8% of the 61% of users admitted to taking a break from Facebook due to to concerns that they were spending too much time on the site.
• 21% of those users said that their break from Facebook was the result of being busy and not having time to spend on the site.
• 28% of Facebook users say the site has become less important to them than it was a year ago. 
• Only 3% of Facebook users say they plan to spend more time on Facebook in the coming year.
• 27% of Facebook users say they plan to spend less time on the social network in the next year. (Good luck with that!)
• Some 38% of Facebook users ages 18-29 expect to spend less time using the site in 2013.
• 92% of people who use social networking sites maintain a Facebook profile.

Pew also includes a funny little selection of comments in which people explain their Facebook breaks. Justifications include everything from “Too much drama" to “I gave it up for Lent.” Fair enough. 

The big finding here is that almost two-thirds of Facebook users have taken a break from the site. Facebook owns an insane amount of engagement, especially on mobile devices. But the majority of its users have been compelled to step back, voluntarily taking a break from the social network for a period of at least several weeks. Is the social network suffering from dangerous levels of user fatigue? 

But of course, while only 3% of users plan to spend more time on Facebook in 2013 than in 2012, the majority of Facebook users will likely maintain or increase the time they spend on the site as the company figures out new ways to become even stickier with its huge user base.

Have you considered taking a Facebook break? Have you pulled it off?

We're in the process. One day at a time, right?

Image by ReadWrite

Well, that's it folks. It's all over. Instagram has come to the web - and not just via static web profiles like the company introduced last year.

No, Instagram is on the web now. It's a full blown web-based social network with a companion app. Forgive me while I totally freak out for a minute over here.

This is what I've been afraid of. 

For Instagram, The Rules Were Different

Instagram is special. It's why we Instagram acolytes almost start a holy war every time Facebook so much as looks at its billion-dollar acquisition. But what makes Instagram so different? The app has a lot going for it, sure. The interface is lovely, with both social networking and social discovery built right in. But that's not it.

The thing that makes Instagram special is that - until today - it was a social network with no web presence. There's an inestimable charm to how Instagram feels walled-off in its mobile-only realm.  You just don't interact with Instagram on desktop. The rules are different. It's like when the power goes out and you have to play board games. And it's really, really fun. 

Mobile-Only: The Final Frontier Of Play

Look at how (and why) we love to hate Facebook. As a social network, Facebook is woven into the fabric of our workday lives - namely we use it on on our desktop computers when we're supposed to be doing something else entirely. That fact makes a site like Facebook feel less like play and more like a professional tic. A social network with a ubiquitous presence across platforms becomes something we shove into every micromoment of the workday - and most of those happen while we're zoning out sitting at a desk.

Instagram wasn't like that - it was serendipitous and social and creative in turns. But that may have all just changed. Now, in every inbox lull and pre-meeting chunk of lagtime, we'll open a new tab and feel the tug - why not just check Instagram? 

The Unbearable Lightness Of Instagram

There's a heaviness to all of this attentional straying. It's the dopamine surge that lures us back to places like the Facebook News Feed, even though we know that little pleasure spike in our brain is as empty as it is ephemeral. Then we're back to the unshakeable guilt of what we were abandoned when we wandered off the trail. 

Mobile is monomaniacal — even with Android's multitasking and iOS's relatively nascent notification center and fast app switching, we pick a portal and enter into it. But on a computer, we partition our screen off into hostile factions warring for our attention - and we never seem to be on the winning side. But on mobile, choosing to open Instagram is just that: a choice and not a tic. 

Instagram is meant to be us at play, capturing the world and parceling it back out to our friends who are out there doing just the same. For Instagram, mobile is more than just a platform. It's a mindset.

Sure, Instagram's web feed will boost engagement and provide new opportunities for monetization and so on. But it could prove to be a major paradigm shift for the kind of unconditional positive regard that the company has enjoyed to date. 

We'll soon be wallowing in our newly compounded web ennui, scrolling back through our web feeds to remember what the good ol' days were like, way back when Instagram was still fun. 

Remember?

Twitter is buying Bluefin Labs, a cool startup in Cambridge, Mass., and this is signifcant for a couple of reasons. First, it's important simply because Bluefin is a really cool company, one that I first discovered last summer and wrote about on my personal blog, in a post titled, "Bluefin Labs mixes science and media, and what they're doing will blow your mind." It's social analytics for TV, a way to see what people are saying on Facebook and Twitter about the shows and commercials they're seeing on TV. It grew out of a project at MIT involving machine intelligence and language acquisition, and its name comes from a sushi place on Mass. Ave. that its founders frequented. As of last summer they had only 45 employees but had already signed up 40 TV networks as customers, as well as big brands like PepsiCo, Mars, Estee Lauder and Kraft. Not bad for a bunch of geeks from MIT.

But what's even more cool, at least to me, is the notion that Twitter is maybe figuring out how to make money with its network. So far in the age of social everybody has just thought of social feeds as miniature versions of TV, and so they've stuck with the same business model - blasting ads at people. Problem is this doesn't work very well in social, because it feels intrusive. It's even worse on mobile where the screens are tiny.

But as I pointed out in this piece written just after CES, maybe marketers are looking at these devices and feeds the wrong way. Maybe the best way to use smartphones and social feeds is not as a platform for delivering ads but rather as a way to gather data. Marketers and advertisers are hampered by a bias developed over 60 years; they've been trained to see every screen as a tiny new TV. 

Bluefin tips that upside down. Bluefin is all about listening, not broadcasting. It's about gathering data, studying behavior and then selling that data - to TV programmers, networks, producers, brands, advertisers, political campaigns. 

This, finally, may be the real value of Twitter, and the way to make money with it. If so it would be better for us (no ads interrupting our experience) and better for advertisers too. 

All of us who use Twitter need this thing to make money. It's in our interest for that to happen. Bluefin may be the key. 

Facebook is a mobile company, but stop asking Mark Zuckerberg about the phone thing already.

On its fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, the Facebook CEO and founder may have said the word "mobile" 1.59 billion times, but that legendary Facebook phone is just a fairy tale. "People keep on asking if we're going to build a phone," said Zuckerberg. "We're not going to build a phone."

Mobile Is Just Starting To Make Money

And why would it ever need to? Between Instagram and its own apps, Facebook already owns over 25% of the time that users in the U.S. spend on mobile devices. It overtook Google Maps last October as the most popular smartphone app in the U.S. According to Facebook's Q4 earnings numbers, mobile ads on those apps are starting to pay off. 

Facebook Is Already On Your Phone

Facebook is already a massive mobile platform - it doesn't need its own device or operating system to drive its mobile revenue efforts. Its ultra-sticky mobile apps are already in your hands on just about every mobile device possible, Trojan horse style. 

Besides, adding hardware to the mix would be beyond messy. For a cautionary tale, just look at Google's Nexus 4 woes - and that's coming from a company with a much deeper understanding of mobile than Facebook. 

Finally, Facebook says it's plenty happy with its ongoing relationships with Android and iOS. Zuckerberg noted that the mobile team has enjoyed the deep integration that's possible in Android's far more open ecosystem, but that he's been very pleased with the direct rapport between his company and Apple too. As of iOS 6, Facebook has achieved extremely deep iOS integration - for an Apple outsider, anyhow.

Why would Facebook build a phone when it's already infiltrated the lion's share of mobile devices?

It wouldn't - so stop asking. The HTC Status is as close as we're ever gonna get to a Facebook phone... and we all know how that went. 

Facebook is doing a bit of empire building - and that ain't cheap. In the fourth quarter of 2012, Facebook profits fell sharply even as revenue continued to grow.

In the fourth quarter, Facebook reported $1.59 billion in revenue, up 40% from the previous year and topping Wall Street estimates that revenue would rise to $1.52 billion, a 34% increase. But in spite of that growth, Facebook's profits shrank by 79% as the company significantly increased its spending.

Delivering on the promise of agressively monetizing its mobile efforts, 23% of total ad revenue came from Facebook's mobile apps in the fourth quarter. The company rounded out the year with $1.33 billion coming from ads.

"2012 was a big year for us," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO on Wednesday's earnings call with analysts and journalists. "There are now more people using Facebook on mobile every day than on desktop"

Growth In Spending To Continue

Zuckerberg noted that Facebook will continue to hire aggressively and build out its products, projecting its expenses to increase by 50% as it invests in a variety of near-term projects: 

Highlights Of Facebook's Q4 2012 Results

• At the end of 2012, Facebook grew to 1.06 billion monthly active users (MAUs)
• On average, Facebook had 618 million daily active users in December 2012
• Fourth quarter costs and expenses were $1.06 billion, an increase of 82% from the fourth quarter of 2011. 
• 680 million people accessed Facebook from mobile devices in December 2012
• On New Year's Day, 600 million people uploaded photos to Facebook
• Facebook ended 2012 with 4,600 employees
• Revenue from user-promoted posts and Gifts is "very small" and isn't expected to grow dramatically
• In December 2012, 59% of users logged into Facebook on an average day 

Apparently investors aren't sure know what to make of Facebook's long-game strategy as it plays catch-up in mobile. In after hours trading, Facebook shares fell around 2.9%. 

Does Facebook Have It Figured Out?

But is Facebook's "trust us" approach really going to end well? Well, given that Facebook went into 2012 essentially inept at mobile, it does seem like things are finally coming together. As smartphone and tablets continue to eclipse the social network's desktop presence, it is slightly ahead of the game - even if it began behind.

Facebook wasted a lot of time building its mobile apps in HTML. It dragged its feet launching an iPad app (no, really... why did that take so long?). But since the company has respectably grown its mobile ad revenue in Q4, Facebook is proving that it knows how to make money where it counts. But it needs to move fast in monetizing that massive mobile captive audience .

Moving Fast On Mobile And Admitting Mistakes

The company was realistic about how its more gimmicky revenue streams like user promoted posts and Gifts weren't drumming up much cash, so it does sound like Zuck's head is on straight. Still, how long will Facebook need to empire build - and pour money into product development and talent - before investors start seeing returns?

The fact that the company is fracturing its own product with some odd spin-off clones remains a bit disconcerting. But Facebook's commitment to building out Nearby, its location check-in feature, could prove huge for mobile revenue, even if it's in the midst of an identity crisis.

Since Facebook basically told us to wait and see, the first quarter of 2013 will be the real crucible here. But Facebook's stock has recovered a good chunk of its value from the rock-bottom levels of mid-2012. Zuckerberg is learning from the company's missteps, like saying the biggest mistake was "betting on HTML5" in his first post-IPO public appearance. By the end of 2012, Facebook was iterating fast. 

Considering that Zuckerberg and co. delivered on their Q3 promises and refocused around what counts, Facebook's vision of a sustainable, mobile-driven revenue model sounds like it just might bear fruit.

Image by Taylor Hatmaker

Paid social network App.net is about to become the iCloud of the Web. And with the freemium economics of a cloud storage service, it could end up making the Twitter-like part of App.net free for anyone.

App.net Monday released its application programming interface (API) for Files, so apps built on the service can now read and write files like photos, videos, documents or whatever else to every user account. App.net users now have 10GB of all-purpose storage attached to their account. This opens up the service to virtually any kind of application, all backed by the cloud.

"I think it's a big deal for the future of the platform," says App.net founder Dalton Caldwell. It makes possible new applications that are much less Twitter-like. For example, App.net could now host full-fledged blogs with hosting for images, audio, video, and everything. Caldwell says it's "about as powerful as the Facebook API in terms of the kinds of stuff you can build."

App.net's browser-based demo clients — Alpha for the public timeline and Omega for private messaging — will now get photo sharing using the Files API, storing the photos in user accounts.

Free Accounts Coming Soon?

Though this hasn't happened yet, the announcement of the Files API makes possible a future App.net story that would be the most interesting so far. By providing the 10GB of cloud storage to paid accounts, App.net makes a new tier of pricing possible that could allow social-only accounts to be free. In that scenario, App.net would be just like Twitter, only with a thriving ecosystem of client apps, the possibility of upgrading to a powerful, cloud-backed service, and no ads whatsoever.

You can already try the service for free by invitation. Cloud-backed file storage might make it economical to use App.net for free indefinitely.

Is App.net A Good Deal?

App.net's 10GB per account is more space than Microsoft's SkyDrive, Apple's iCloud, Google Drive, and Dropbox provide with their lowest tiers of service, and App.net costs $36 per year for users (or $5 per month on a monthly basis).

The fairest comparison is to Dropbox's Pro tier, since Dropbox, like App.net, has a powerful API for applications on all major platforms. For $9.99 per month, Dropbox users get 100GB of storage, which they can access through applications or as a file system on their devices. For half the price, App.net users get only 10GB, but the use case is very different. App.net users get a name on a real-time social network as nimble as Twitter but with an ever-changing growing of applications providing new ways to interact with it. And those apps can now handle big files as well as 256-character messages.

From the user's perspective, the most apt comparison is actually iCloud. Rather than browsing through folders in the desktop metaphor like one does on Dropbox, App.net's file storage will just be a handy but invisible back end that syncs the files and data from various applications. But instead of the closed Apple ecosystem, App.net's cloud back-end is open to the entire Web. In fact, it's actually more flexible than iCloud, since you can easily move your files between applications.

"It's a different metaphor," explains Caldwell. "It's your bucket of content, and you can give access to different applications for it." If you try a photo-sharing app for a while and decide to switch to a new one, you just switch apps. Your photos are attached to your App.net account, and they're portable. If you've recently tried to switch from Instagram to Flickr, for example, you know it's not as easy as a similar move will be within App.net.

A New Web With The Right Incentives

When App.net first appeared, it was seen as a paid Twitter clone. That was an enticing concept only to hyper-geeks. But the Files API makes clear just how different — perhaps better — the Web could be if it spread.

App.net has a login button for Web applications just like Google, Facebook and Twitter do. Any website or application could let users log in with their App.net accounts, even if they were just free, social-only accounts. But App.net doesn't use those logins for ad tracking. It doesn't have ads. It just gives connected applications access to the user's data, which the user can revoke at any time.

That means App.net users can bring a huge amount of their files and data with them to try out new Web services. And it's not hard to imagine that App.net could make its authenticated payment services available to applications as well, just like Apple's iTunes accounts.

Imagine everything that works about Apple's closed ecosystem, but made available on any platform, including the open Web. Imagine the basic level of participation being free forever. That's why I'm excited about App.net.

Disclosure: I used to work with Yahoo in my two years as an editor for the website Tecca. While I was never on Yahoo's payroll, our companies had a close content partnership and some leadership overlap. (It's complicated.)

Yahoo is a strange, many-headed beast. Not often commended for its corporate vision, cohesive net of products... or anything else, really, maybe it's time to give the Web's most excited (!) megalith a break. 

When the company ousted compromised CEO Scott Thompson and poached Google's Marissa Mayer last year, the Web was heartened - maybe Yahoo gets it, after all these years!

By 2012, it seems, the Web's wary denizens were busy mistrusting Google and Facebook. Yahoo, still a giant by any other gauge, was starting to look like an underdog.

As the legend goes, Yahoo was founded in the 1994, a relative dark age of the Web. The company was originally a hierarchical Web directory, not even a search engine, though it quickly added that and other functions to become a full-featured Web portal

But over time, scrappier, savvier upstarts like Google and Facebook became the new online titans. By that time, Yahoo, having already enjoyed its era at the top, could only lumber on toward a social/mobile future it didn't seem to quite understand.

Add a remarkable run of executive-level churn and an ensuing identity crisis to the mix, and you've got a snapshot of the challenge Marissa Mayer signed up to tackle. But less than a year after her sparkling indoctrination into the folds of the world's biggest corporation with a punctuation mark, Yahoo looks more alive than it has since... well, let's just say it's been a while.

Here are 6 reasons we think that Yahoo could finally be poised for a comeback. 

1. Mayer Understands What's Broken

Mayer gets Yahoo's history - and, as she tells Bloomberg Television, she understands the long game.

"You know the first wave really was Yahoo itself, you know the directory, there are these pages out there, how do you organize them? And then the Web got so large that the directory model broke down and gave to search. And then the next wave that came was social, and now I think we're on the mobile wave. And so if you think about that, that's all happened in about 15 years. We've gone through four major technology shifts in terms of who the main players really are. And so I think there is always opportunity for new disruption." 

2. Yahoo's Product Draft Is Well Underway

Yahoo just bought Snip.it, a Pinterest-esque Web clipper. Last year it launched Axis, an experimental mobile browser that most people actually liked. And it revamped Yahoo Mail, with apps to boot. 

Just like Mayer planned, Yahoo is on the prowl to bolster its product roster with companies that fit into Yahoo's (newly) mobile vision. Look for Yahoo to make more small, interesting acquisitions this year as it continues to quietly build itself back up.

3. Mobile And Social: The Missing Puzzle Pieces

Mobile and social are music to the ears of anyone waiting for Yahoo's second coming. Mayer put it this way:

"I definitely think with the Web becoming so vast - there is a much content and social context and now with mobile, there is so much location and activity context. How do you pull all that together? ...It brings Yahoo back to its roots. It used to be that that's what Yahoo was. It took the Internet and ordered it up.

Now it's so vast that you can't just categorize it anymore. But could we provide a feed information that is ordered, a Web ordered for you, and is also available on your mobile phone."

4. The Flickr Case Study

When the great Instagram Terms of Service freak out went down late in 2012, Yahoo got lucky. Flickr, still one of its best-loved products, had just released an app update to rave reviews. Defectors wary of Facebook's hand in the future of their filtered photos were poised to leap into Yahoo's arms. Suddenly Yahoo had a golden opportunity to prove that it could be agile, mobile and social at once.

Call it good timing, but Yahoo didn't altogether fumble the aftermath, even running a promo for Flickr Pro accounts. Building back a beloved, long-neglected product is a welcome sign that the big Y! is getting back int he game.

5. Yahoo Throws Its Doors Wide Open

Facebook and Twitter are throwing punches. Samsung and Apple's holy war over patents will go down in history. Everyone wants to take down Google, with good reason. But Yahoo? Yahoo just wants to make friends.

"Our focus, in addition to technology, but also on media, it means there is an opportunity for strong partnerships. That is what we will be focused on. We work with Apple and Google in terms of the operating system. In terms of social network, we have a strong partnership with Facebook. We're able to work with some of these players that have a lot of strength in order to bolster our user experience that we offer on the Yahoo site."

6. In Yahoo We Trust (For Some Reason)

The most underrated thing that bodes well for Yahoo is that we're rooting for it. Tired of Apple, Google and Facebook duking it out, many people want to see Yahoo make a comeback. It's an era of deep distrust of big companies commanding big data for big money, but Yahoo has been down for so long there's an undercurrent of Web users who inexplicably want to see it get back up. 

There are plenty of other things to consider. Yahoo pulled in more than $7 billion from selling off a chunk of its stake in Chinese online marketplace Alibaba, and its stock enjoyed a nice run up toward the end of 2012. 

But Yahoo still faces many challenges - it's long term success is far from assured. We'll have more information when Yahoo announces its fourth quarter earnings on January 28. You can find Bloomberg's full interview with Mayer embedded below.

Image via Flickr user Adam Tinworth, interview via Bloomberg Television

If you're not hearing a lot about social enterprise these days, it may be because no one can figure out what the hell social enterprise is.

On paper, the concept sounds reasonable, even important: take popular social media tools (microblogs, wikis, blogs, etc.) and use them for internal collaboration, project management and overall feel-good business practices.

Social Entreprise vs. Business As Usual

But in practice, a lot of companies have found that actually using this stuff is not a magic wand to bring forth happiness and productivity to their organization. The reason? Social media tools in the enterprise often work counter to the internal communications practices that have long been ingrained in companies.

For instance, in theory it might seem like a good idea to coordinate creative activities on social platforms. But in reality, there's always going to be the managerial hold-out who won't accept a project as actually moving forward unless there's a meeting or memos - the very things social enterprise practices are trying to eliminate. And there could be a legitimate need for this, too: If not done properly, social enterprise software can fail at making sure someone deals with all the boring minutia, like documentation for regulatory purposes, which could be a huge no-no.

Then there's the issue of figuring when and for what social enterprise should be used? In too many cases, employees may get confused over when and how they're supposed to turn to the social media platform in their day-to-day jobs. And if only some workers engage with the platform, its utility is greatly reduced. 

You Can't Force Workers To Be Social

Too often, enterprises overlook the importance of organic adoption of social media. You can't just flick a switch and turn on a social network - and an email from the CEO won't work either. Instructions to go social from the IT department are even more likely to ignored. 

The appeal of these platforms lies in the very fact that they grow and evolve network connections at their own pace - as users find them helpful and engaging. Social media tools do make it easier to establish those connections, but it's not something you can force.

That's why, when I read news like Salesforce may be moving away from its social enterprise channel and focusing more on cloud computing, I'm not surprised.

ZDNet writer Dan Dignan points out other reasons that help explain why social enterprise seems to be failing. My personal favorite? That social enterprise is like a cleverly disguised version of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). And that dog just won't hunt. "ERP software changed companies fundamentally, but also led to spectacular IT disasters largely due to people, process and culture. Social with business process integration won't work."

So does that mean the entire concept of social enterprise is doomed?

Not necessarily. The gigant-o, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink enterprise social platforms imposed from the top are indeed in trouble. But targeted tools that companies and their employees pick and choose to bring social techniques to specific projects and use cases may still find success. But that's still a much-reduced vision of the social enterprise's original promise 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Far from the Walk of Fame or the fabled sign, this is not Hollywood. Too far southeast from the beaches filled with silicon tech and silicone bodies, we're miles away from the beaten path. In a converted helicopter hangar once owned by Howard Hughes, step into the home of YouTube's new creative space. Could this be the new home of L.A. tech, nestled in sleepy Playa Vista? If you're into online video, and lucky enough to get access to the Google-owned facility, the answer may surprise you. 

With fresh, wide-eyed faces, collaborative accommodations, and name tags galore, the YouTube space feels more like a college campus than a production facility. But that's the point. Welcome to Day One of the inaugural incubator class. Welcome YouTubers. (Up till now, the space was used only for occasionally workshops, with the likes of Rainn Wilson and Amy Poehler.)

Through The Looking Glass

It's got a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory feel that you can't shake. The 41,000-square-foot facility smells, looks and feels like money - it's backed by Google, after all, and subtle reminders and signage are everywhere. There's a 6,000-foot catwalk circling the building, a fireman's pole for quick access to the ground floor, and 2 million feet of fibre-optic cable running under the floor. 

Above the check-in desk hang 48 video screens stacked on top of each other to form a jumbotron, playing a continuous feed of video. There are arcade games in one corner of the cavernous atrium, piles of food sitting in an adjoining open kitchen. The oldest visible person can't have been born before 1980. Most look like they were hatched in the '90s. 

Everyone wears name tags, even staffers, who seem just as awed by the fancy digs as the stream of young creators who check-in and get their name badges like worker bees or students on the first day of school. Because that's what today is: Day one of the space's first incubator class.

Some 25 teams of YouTube "partners" are the first test batch of what can be legitimately dubbed the newest accelerator in town. Except this one doesn't give you any money, or claim ownership of your final product. Instead, it offers the tools to make more professional productions, and strategy to build and grow audiences-- while linking with creators on a profit share. When it comes to money, it's becomes hard to pin down just how much they share as YouTube is reticent to make numbers public.  According to online searches, partners make in the neighborhood of $2 to $5 per thousand views on their videos and about $0.01 per thousand channel views. But when asked to confirm these numbers, Google spokespeople responded that they don't make public financial details with partners. "The ad rates (are) different for many reasons, so that's not accurate. YouTube doesn't share those various rates (again that depend on many factors) publicly. The rev share is always 'majority goes to the partner' and that much is consistent and public."

Most people won't make enough to quit their day job, and critics have said that this model is exploitive. For most people, that's probably true. But not this group. These are very much the outliers, handpicked by YouTube based on audience size and diversity. 

The space's first resident, Freddie Wong, boasts more than 4.3 million subscribers and 785 million video views on his channel. There's big money on the table for Wong. And he's taking it.

YouTube is letting Freddie build a new soundstage for season two of his scripted series, Video Game High School. And it didn't even have to spend a penny. Neither did Wong. He raised the money through a Kickstarter project and private investments.

Specs

There's a a 1,500 square foot sound stage geared towards live music, a 47-seat screening room, three freshly painted green-screen rooms, an editing bay, live feed control rooms, a Next Lab to help audience development, and a "back lot" filled with rentable cameras and equipment. And there's a palpable do-it-yourself, entrepreneurial feel that pervades the entire building.

"My mom should be able to walk in here and make a YouTube video," explained Kathleen Grace, the space's manager of production and programming. 

The hours are 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week (on Sunday, they rest). 

Partner Talk With Freddie Wong

Freddie Wong slides down the fireman's pole and walks over. He sits at a long table opposite from me, adjusts his glasses, musses his long hair and apologizes for intermittent coughs. He's getting over a cold. 

Wong says online video is at a turning point. He says it's moving from short and viral to more long form, higher-production-value content. At the same time, keeping creative control and direct access to fans is pushing the medium farther and farther away from the traditional video distribution system.

The involvement of Wong with YouTube, and his distaste for the studio system, is evidence of that. "As a creator, to be able to take [content] direct to our audience is something you've never had before," Wong says.

How to bring media direct to the consumer with a fiscal model that works for both sides, is the big unanswered question. Wong admits the money side is still a work in progress, but when asked if he would take a rich deal with a big-name production company or television studio, he shakes his head emphatically. "What's actually being offered?" he questioned.

Wong says it's not all about the money, and creative control is a major factor. That's why he wants to stay in this space, with YouTube. He's predicting major gains for his upcoming new season, and his partnership with the online video giant. 

"We're kind of like the guinea pigs," he says smiling, about his four-man team. "If you can handle us, you can handle anyone."

Photos By Adam Popescu.

As the annual Consumer Electronics Show grows away from its humble roots as, you know, a consumer electronics show, its focus increasingly turns to things altogether unrelated to technology - like celebrities!

Last year I recall spending three hours chasing down Justin Bieber with my telephoto lens - he made a brief, grumpy appearance promoting some entirely forgettable robotics company that I have since entirely forgotten. This year, the celeb safari is back on.  Here's who is showing up to CES this year and why you should - or shouldn't - care.

Get your bingo cards ready. No really... why not make a bingo card? Fill one up, find me and I'll buy you a shot. (Just don't blame me for knowing more about smartphones than pop culture - this is who I think these people are, anyway.)   

Felicia Day

This year's "CES Celebrity Ambassador," you might know Felicia day from the World of Warcraft spoof web series The Guild, or just from being generally cool and having preternaturally perfect skin. She tends to appear at every geek-adjacent event known to man, and we imagine that she'll spend most of the week in a cocktail lounge in an ivory tower somewhere in the South Hall. She's the CES celeb bingo equivalent of a doubleword score.

Maroon 5

Qualcomm Incoporated Preshow Keynote / 6:30-7:30pm, Monday, January 7, The Venetian, Palazzo Ballroom

This is a band, I think. I'm honesty not totally sure. It sounds like a racecar. Or a craft beer.

will.i.am

The Next Generation of Innovators Keynote / 11am-12pm, Tuesday, January 8, LVH Theater

This dude is from The Black Eyed Peas and has the cojones to downstyle his name like an Apple product. He's A+ in my book.

Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson

SMS Audio (LVCC, South Hall 1, #20206) / 3pm, Wednesday, January 9

Isn't this guy blatantly sexist and homophobic? Surprise! He's at CES 2013 representing SMS Audio, a brand that I will now ardently choose to not give a shit about. 

Travis Barker

Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. (LVCC, North Hall Booth #1101) / 12-1pm and 1:30-2:30pm, Tuesday, January 8

The Blink 182 dude? Really? Don't make me make the "what's my age again" joke.

Dana Cohen

Haier America (LVCC, Central Hall, #10939)

I have zero idea who this woman is, but apparently she was dubbed the “Scallop Queen” on season 10 of Hell’s Kitchen, which is the best title I've ever heard of. All hail the bivalve queen!

I Fight Dragons

Bém Wireless / 7pm, Wednesday, January 9, Luxor, Flight Lounge

This is probably an indie band. Okay, yeah, I looked it up and it is definitely an indie band. I hated them at first based on their name alone, but apparently they are into the chiptune retro video game sound thing, so now I'm totally into it.

Lil Twist

Nikura (LVCC, South Hall 4, #37134) / 1pm, Thursday, January 10

A young rapper of sorts, I imagine. And apparently Justin Bieber's BFF.

LL Cool J

CNET (LVCC, South Hall 3, CNET Booth) / 4:30pm, Tuesday, January 8

This guy is kind of actually famous! All these years and he never changed his name to something more pretentious or with fewer vowels - props to you, Mr. J.

Rohan Marley

House of Marley (LVCC, Central Hall, #10544) / 11am-3pm, Tuesday, January 8 - Thursday, January 9

Bob Marley's son is here every year with his crazy bamboo headphones and a big smile on his face. He's a super nice guy and he'll take a picture with you and you can almost pretend you met the "real" Marley instead of Lauryn Hill's ex boyfriend.

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi

Zeikos/iHip (LVCC, South Hall 1, #21142) / 1-3pm, Wednesday, January 9

Yep, Snooki.

Tim Tebow

SOUL Electronics (Venetian Tower, #31-234) / 9am, Thursday, January 10

Isn't this that sanctimonious football player guy who never actually gets to play? We geeks come to these events to get away from you people. Whatever.

Chris “Ludacris” Bridges

SOUL Electronics / 10pm, Thursday, January 10, TAO Nightclub

Rapper turned actor Ludacris seems like a nice dude. I count this as a real celeb.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Digital Health Summitt (LVCC, North Hall, Room N250) / 9-10:15am, Wednesday, January 9

CNN's overexposed rockstar doctor guy. If he had accepted the job as Surgeon General, that would be one thing.

Dr. Oz

Digital Health Summitt (LVCC, North Hall, Room N250) / 10-10:50am, Thursday, January 10

Maybe Dr. Oz can tell you what that weird growth is on your foot. If not, try Sanjay Gupta.

Carrot Top

Gibson Guitar Corp. (LVCC, CES Central Plaza, CP-30)

We all know that the obnoxious comedian Carrot Top is just hanging out here in Vegas anyway. I don't know what he brings to Gibson's brand, but now that CES celebs are like trading cards, you might as well collect 'em all.

Danny DeVito

Panasonic (LVCC, Central Hall, Booth #9406) / 2:30pm, Wednesday, January 9

Okay, Danny DeVito is actually kind of awesome. If he's anything like his character on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, I'd like to commit a misdemeanor or drink stale beer with him. 

Ryan Vogelsong

JVC Americas Corp. (LVCC, North Hall, Booth #1810) / 11am and 2pm, Wednesday, January 9

A pitcher for the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants. Who let all these athletes in here?!

Brian Singer

Private Event, Parnassus Group / 5:30-7:30pm, Thursday, January 10, Cili's at Bali Hai

Singer directed the first two X-Men movies, which were awesome. But I'm still mad that he bailed on the trilogy to make a Superman movie. If you see him, ask him about that.

Want to track down even more weirdo celebs? Check out the full list.

Interwebs drama of the day: Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Mark Zuckerberg, threw a fit when someone tweeted a copy of a Zuckerberg family photo (see above) that Randi herself had posted to Facebook, the confusing-to-use social Web site created by her strange, reclusive brother. Randi was furious because she wanted the photo to be seen only by her friends, but someone who is friends with Randi's sister saw the photo on Facebook, assumed it was public, and spread it on Twitter.

Randi complained that this was "way uncool." The friend apologized for her mistake. Lots of people had a laugh about how this just shows again how stupid and confusing Facebook's privacy settings are, as in, "Hey, even the Zuckerbergs can't figure this stuff out!"

Out Of Proportion?

But then Randi took everything to a whole new level of mental when she summed the whole thing up with a tweet: "Digital etiquette: always ask permission before posting a friend's photo publicly. It's not about privacy settings, it's about human decency." 

Yes, she said that: human decency. Because this dumb issue about her dumb photograph is that important.

It's so important, in fact, that now Randi Zuckerberg, a not-universally-acclaimed aspiring chanteuse who rocks Silicon Valley with an awesome band called Feedbomb, as well as producer of a terrible reality series about Silicon Valley (See Bravo's Silicon Valley: The Painful Truth Behind A Caricature Of Excess), as well as sister of the guy who created that beacon of morality known as Facebook, would like to use this as a teaching moment in which she can instruct the world about basic human decency.

Let's acknowledge that Randi Zuckerberg is not Mark Zuckerberg. But let's also acknowledge that she has benefited tremendously from her brother's creation.

And what is that creation?

• A company that has made billions by gathering people's personal information and using it to sell ads;
• A company whose original privacy statement was a simple sentence but now is longer than the U.S. Constitution and requires a law degree to understand;
• A company that has continually pushed people to "share" more of their private information in order to use Facebook;
• A company that just four days ago was criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for yet another creepy experiment that would let people pay money to send mail to your inbox, which is just the latest in a long line of criticisms brought by the EFF;
• A company that once claimed it wasn't tracking users when they were logged off, only to turn around and admit that it was, just before someone reported that Facebook in fact had applied for and received a patent on technology that would do exactly that;
• A company that once got caught trying to run a clumsy covert smear campaign against Google;
• A company that once settled claims brought by the FTC that charged Facebook had deceived consumers and violated federal law;
• A company that ran a scuzzy IPO marred by allegations of self-dealing, one in which insiders got info about weak revenues and backed away from the deal even as Facebook was touting the stock to suckers, raising both the price of the shares and the number of shares for sale;
• A company that has since been the subject of an investigation by the state of Massachusetts. which led to fines levied against its bankers and fears that authorities "will throw the book at Facebook" in 2013 and that "the real liability to Facebook and Morgan Stanley is yet to come";
• A company whose Instagram subsidiary recently caused outrage by changing its terms of service but then walked those changes back.

Yes, Randi Zuckerberg, speak to us about human decency.

Because a photo that you posted on Facebook got shared on the Internet.

How awful this must have been for you! How... invasive. What a violation. How terrible that someone might take something that belongs to you and use it in ways that you had not anticipated, and for which you had not given explicit permission!

What kind of world are we living in when just because you post something on a website someone else can just take your stuff and do things with it?

Oh wait.