Today, Google is announcing a new technology called Google Gears. The technology enables web applications to work both online and offline. One of the first applications of Google Gears that I have seen is its integration with Google Reader. Previously, you could only read your feeds while you were online. For those that are constantly on the go and not necessarily connected to the net, there is now a way for viewing all of your feeds while offline. This is a pretty big blow for all the competing feed readers. The number one complaint that I heard from other avid feed reader users was that they couldn’t view their feeds while on a plane. Well soon enough you will be able to.

Similar features will soon be added to Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Spreadsheets, and Google Docs. All I can say is this is a huge step for web applications. This seems to compete directly with Adobe’s much hyped Apollo that also enables both online and offline functionality. Additionally, Google Gears is open source which means developers are free to build applications of their own at no cost (only time). This is a first step toward seamless integration between the online and offline worlds.

Do you work in the PR industry? No? Do you have your own startup? At some point you are going to have to face the facts and reach out to bloggers if you want to get some press. So how do you get a positive response after reaching out to a blogger? While it is not guaranteed that you will get positive feedback, there are a few steps that you can take to ensure that you get better feedback from the blogger that you interact with. Here are a few key steps:

1. Write your own blog - Bottom line: bloggers stick together. If a blogger knows that you experience the same challenges that they do, they are much more likely to sympathize with you. If you want to have increased odds of receiving positive feedback, share your blog with them. This is the number one way of reaching out to bloggers. For bonus points, link to the blog of the blogger you are targeting.
2. Read the blog of the person you are reaching out to - This is a no brainer. If you really want to communicate effectively with a blogger, you should read their blog and be able to provide feedback. Comments on their blog are an effective method for this. I have had authors reach out to me after I post about their book all because I linked to their personal blog. The key is to truly understand the person you are communicating with.
3. Make personal connections with other bloggers - The number one way of building a connection is through referrals. So get out there in the real world and start making real connections. The best way to go about this is pick an industry and target the second to most popular bloggers in that industry. The most popular bloggers are typically hard to get in touch with, but the bloggers just under them love the attention. Your job is to reach out to these individuals and become good friends with them. This requires sincere interest in these individuals but you will benefit greatly from these relationships.
4. Be honest and genuinely interested - With anybody that you are reaching out to, they can cut through the b.s. The goal is to build a lasting relationship with people. So reach out to them and sympathize with their problems and find ways that you can help them. Helping people is the best way to build contacts. While I wish I could give you the quick and easy route to successful social media PR, there is no quick and easy route. The only true route is through building genuine bonds.
5. Have something to offer - Do you have a tip on a hot story? Maybe you have an article that would fit perfectly in that person’s blog. Whatever it is, you need to provide some sort of value to the person you are reaching out to. So find out what their interests are (this is pretty easy given that their interests are publicly available on their blog) and satisfy their needs. Randomly picking people out of the pack is practically useless. Do research on each blogger you are targeting and provide them with something that will help make their life easier that day.

Follow these steps and you are on the road to success. The art of public relations is building valuable relationships. Truly connect with your fellow bloggers and you will reap the rewards. Conversely, randomly targeting bloggers because they fit within a given niche will be practically useless unless you can relate to them. So start blogging and reading other bloggers’ blogs and you are on the right course. True social media PR is a challenging task, but if you stay determined and focused you can make a huge impact.

According to the Los Angeles Times, CBS is buying Last.fm for $280 million dollars. When I first heard this I was somewhat surprised because I was expecting a record label to snap it up sometime soon. According to a CBS executive, Last.fm is being purchased for its community, not just its well know audio (and now video) scrobbler. I find that a little strange considering the data that they hold would be extremely valuable to any record label. Imagine if you were able to track all of your customers usage habits. That would be valuable to just about any company.

If you are unaware of Last.fm, then you should definitely check it out. Last.fm provides users with a small piece of software that enables their site to track what music and videos you are watching. Ultimately they have some of the most advanced software for tracking attention data. As you listen to more music the software can make suggestions for other songs that you would like based on the vast amount of data that they store. I saw them speak at the Future of Web Apps conference earlier this year and they had some pretty impressive data (download the presentation here). Users of Last.fm listen to over 15 million track a day, spanning 10 million artists, and 70 million tracks. Pretty impressive stats. Congrats to Last.fm!

Yesterday morning i was reading a post about Internet Service Providers (ISPs) potentially putting an end to the boom in online video. Supposedly, there are currently ISPs in the UK that are placing a 1 gigabyte cap on users each month. I definitely would flip out if that was the case give that I download a ton of music and videos each month. I have to wonder if this was some hand-picked $5 per month internet service. If they were going to place such a cap there is no way I would be paying what I currently pay. The post also discusses alternative restrictions such as a reduction in max download speed for users once they cross a specified threshold.

By the afternoon, there was a post circulating the web about having too much bandwidth. According to a Business Week post, consumers will start having much faster download speeds thanks to new technologies such as Verizon’s FIOS service. FIOS will provide users with download speeds of up to 30 megabits per second. That is pretty impressive. Video on the computer will suddenly become mainstream once this new technology becomes widely available.

So which one is it? Is there too much or too little bandwidth available? Most likely, if you are a reader of my blog then you are not one of the few individuals that have a small cap on your monthly bandwidth usage (if you are then post a comment, I would love to hear more). I personally am able to download hundreds of songs and tens of full-length movies on a monthly basis. So why did Last100 post an article suggesting the internet arteries will soon be clogged by the overwhelming demand for internet video? Most likely it was simply aimed at creating a little controversy. Conversely, I’m sure that there are internet users that have a small limit on their monthly internet usage, but my guess is they aren’t heavy internet users anyways.

While Joost may have pulled a fast one on the TV industry, their application is pretty slick. I finally decided to test it out last night and I was impressed. Video streamed pretty much flawlessly with the exception of a few seconds of choppy audio. In comparison to alternative video solutions that I have used, this one started streaming as soon as I selected a channel. Currently there are only 25 channels including MTV, Adult Swim, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, Comedy Central, CNN, and more. Joost plans on using file sharing technology similar to bit torrent in order to allow peers to stream programs to each other. According to other reports that I’ve read, Joost isn’t currently reliant upon their peer technology and is instead streaming for the majority from their own servers.

So how is Joost able to convince the other players involved to stream their content? Currently there are fairly non-invasive commercials. Every 15 to 20 minutes a quick commercial was played and then once in a while a small pop-up ad showed up in the corner. I also was able to turn Joost off from full-screen mode and do other things on my computer while the video played in the corner of the screen. In contrast to other applications that I have previously used and have place a large strain on my computer, Joost did not. If you haven’t had the opportunity to try out Joost you definitely should. If you don’t have an invite yet, post a comment on this post and I will send you one.

Overnight Facebook’s only exit strategy for its current investors has become IPO. Why? They have ultimately created their site as the secure business platform for hundreds if not thousands of businesses that currently exist in an unstable environment as Josh Kopelman highlights. In the next week there will be hundreds of new applications built on the Facebook platform. For Myspace it took months if not years to get to the point they are at now where entire businesses risk their existence on Myspace granting them permission to operate. Now comes along a big thorn in their side. Their potentially biggest competitor has decided to go open source and take their site head on. Why on earth would Facebook want to grant all of the developers in the world 100% access to the ad revenue gained from their products? They have bigger plans and I don’t think Myspace is exactly who they have in sight.

I am willing to bet that within the next month Facebook will easily become the social network of choice to all Myspace users unless Myspace can immediately go open source. Do you think old-timer Rupert Murdoch is going to be up for it? I doubt it, but there is always that chance. Under the assumption that Myspace will fail to immediately adapt, what does the future hold? One route would be Facebook becomes the largest acquisition ever in the internet industry, and as of now Microsoft is the only company that can afford it. If that happens it will happen in the next couple weeks, not months. Alternatively, Facebook is gearing up to become the next dominant player in the search industry. The latter case is what I’m betting on.

Facebook is going to rapidly manifest itself into Google’s biggest competitor. The majority of searches on the web are people related and currently Facebook is handling a large percentage of people related searches. As developers contribute to making Facebook a better site through building applications (similar to the way Google currently builds applications, but through free R&D), Facebook can focus its effort on improving their search features. Look out Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL, Facebook has come to take the web industry head on. When you go to search for people, Facebook will soon be the place you go.

Facebook audio mysteriously disappears - Eric Eldon covers how a new Audio feature that was created has disappeared from the applications list. My thoughts? Facebook will be launching a new music feature and has other partners that are heavily invested in launching the new feature. As of now adding music to your profile doesn’t seem to work properly, and I have a feeling that this app will get removed.

The Flexible Entrepreneurial Mind - Noah Kagan covers the importance of being able to continue learning throughout life. Best part of the article is the first line: “Einstein was a retard as a child.”

Jangl Tailors VOIP for Social Networks - Great Techcrunch article about the new Jangl service. Jangl enables users to anonymously contact each other. All you need to know is their email address. Pretty slick.

Overview of the Identity Landscape - Great article covering identity on the net. The image at the top of the page says it all. Here is online identity summed up. Pretty simple right?

I thought I would include an entertaining Dimitri Martin Video with my links.

Facebook has officially launched a new platform to take on all other social networks. This is beyond the scope of any other social network on the web. They are providing developers unrestricted access to their accessing and updating Facebook data.Some of you might remember that I mentioned something about Facebook music. Well, while it hasn’t been officially announced I have a feeling that it is going to be launched via their new development platform.

MySpace has forced developers to work within their own horribly configured system that accepts non-semantic HTML. Now developers can choose a better social network to develop their applications for clients, Facebook. Unfortunately though developers will still need to develop for Myspace for the time being since there are still users on Myspace that aren’t on Facebook. I have a feeling this will soon change if all goes according to plan for Facebook.

Facebook is aiming to become the social networking platform for everyone. Rather than closing off to the world they are granting access to everyone. Get ready for Facebook music, Facebook calendars, Facebook docs, Facebook email, and anything else that is currently offered on the web. Imagine if Google opened up their development platform so that anyone could develop apps for all users are currently using Gmail. It’s that big.

Update
Apparently many of the applications are already featured. You can view all of them by going to http://apps.facebook.com/apps. There is already a 30 boxes calendar, Scribd app that lets you share documents with your friends, iLike music application, and a Twitter add on!

Yesterday Techcrunch verified a rumor that was started by an ex-Techcrunch writer. Terrific! According to Mike Arrington, “The information we have is that the deal is now under a binding term sheet and will close in 2-3 weeks, and there is nothing that can really derail it at this point.” So now we have to wait 2-3 weeks to determine whether or not this rumor is true and in the meantime the stock market can figure out what they want to do with this info. While $100 million is practically a drop in the bucket for Google it is still significant. Bloggers are now carrying a lot more weight in the media domain and need to be much more careful with verifying sources, as recognized in last week’s Engadget iPhone slip up. While today’s rumor probably won’t have any significant sway on Google’s stock it still helps bring to light the issue of bloggers and their increasing need to maintain journalistic integrity. In this case I’m sure Mike Arrington verified his sources prior to publishing the article given the recency of the Engadget article.

I’m going to keep this post short as I have a feeling there is going to be a fair amount to write about Facebook once they make their press release today.

Social shopping is something that e-commerce companies (Amazon, eBay, etc) have been trying to perfect since the birth of e-commerce. Years ago, a couple of friends and I were sitting around questioning how can social networks (at the time Friendster) monetize their users effectively? As of now large social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Orkut, Hi5, etc) have generated revenue through banner ads. This model is nowhere near the potential they have for generating revenue from their visitors. As of now, Amazon is the best example of effectively monetizing their user base through social interactions. Via user generated content, Amazon has been able to get users to buy more. Providing an open forum to discuss products has proven to be an effective model. So why haven’t the main social networks implemented such features? As Alex Iskold suggests, Facebook is about to.

Imagine getting updates that your friend just finished a great book, or is listening to a great song, or that they just bought the hottest new pair of jeans. A large portion of purchases that people make are based on recommendations. If you had a constant stream of what products your friends, family, and acquaintances were purchasing, presented in an effective manner, chances are at some point you will make a purchase. This is what Facebook is hoping to do and I have a feeling that they may be the first to effectively execute it. I’ve heard of bloggers that make hundreds of thousands of dollars from effectively monetizing their blog with affiliate programs. Imagine what will happen when Facebook becomes an affiliate for large e-tailers. The only thing to note here is that this will need to be launched gradually. Remember the backlash that the Facebook community had when Facebook introduced their news streams? I’m guessing Facebook would suffer a larger backlash once they become commercial.

Regardless, effective social networking monetization is coming. I think Facebook is going to be the first to do it. As of now most social networks have been focused on what free features they can add that will make users spend more time on their site. Now they are going to start figuring out features that will make users buy more on their site.

Let’s go burn $100 million. According to Read Write Web that’s what Ask.com is planning on doing this summer. “Our business plan is to take a chunk of Google’s market share!” While this isn’t a direct quote, be wary of anyone that says anything resembling such a statement. If ask is intending to take any chunk out of Google’s pocket they better provide a service that is exponentially better or not in direct competition of Google. While Ask.com has been able to obtain over 1% of the search market, they have been having serious difficulties trying to expand their market share. If you were a large investor with hundreds of millions of dollars to invest, would you be betting on a Google competitor or would you look for alternative businesses that have less dominant competitors? Pretty simple answer there.

Rather than investing in R&D, Ask.com is practically throwing $100 million out the window at a one time marketing blitz. While such a blitz may temporarily drive a marginal amount of traffic (in relative terms) in their direction, it most likely won’t have much of an impact at all. Additionally, if you are going to invest that much money in driving people to your site, you should make sure that your search results are good. From my experience their results are much worse compared to Google (although all of my tests have been self-interested queries). How about Ask.com buys out Facebook for 8 billion dollars? Wait they don’t have 8 billion dollars. Well, while I don’t have a solution for Ask.com, but Josh Catone has a few suggestions including:

• Creating transparency within a their upcoming publisher network that will compete with Google’s Adsense - This is a great point. Currently Google doesn’t let publishers know how much they are sharing on a per click basis. The only problem with this idea though is Google could simply choose to increase their transparency to knock any potential competitors out of the market.
• Stop click fraud - This is going to be a difficult one. Considering Google’s click fraud costs them over $1 billion a year I’d be willing to bet they are investing a significant amount on stopping it.
• Get top publishers - If you control the top publishers than you will attract top advertisers. Nothing new here. The only problem though is companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have much greater leverage than Ask.com. They will have to offer some serious advantages to make their position convincing to any top publisher.

I hate to be pessimistic, but Ask.com is going to have to come up with a better business plan than the existing one. Trying to compete head on with the industry giants is not a great strategy. Best of luck to Ask, but in my own opinion they are tossing their money down the tube.

As the New York Times highlights, the first dot com boom was marked by countless startups that generated web portals targeted at a niche audiences. The current boom is marked by startups that generate social networks targeted at niche audiences. See a common thread here? Niche audiences + targeted content = Hopes of becoming rich

If you read Techcrunch, then you know the countless number of social network startups that pop up daily and then receive some phenomenal amount of funding in hopes that they will be bought out for an astronomical amount. Over the course of the past week fuel has been poured on the fire of those with similar grandiose aspirations. With Microsoft dropping six billion dollars on aQuantive, Yahoo potentially spending one billion on Bebo, and a number of other acquisitions taking place, entrepreneurs (specifically webpreneurs) have been given glimmers of hope in their own ventures.

So how long can this last? While I’m not sure how long Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo can continue their ongoing buyout frenzy, I’m confident that it can go on for a while given the amount of cash that each of the companies have. Additionally, these three companies are not the only ones making buyouts. For the entrepreneur that has hopes of exiting via an acquisition, there are plenty of companies that are in the market for buying existing startups. As long as you can position yourself properly to be an asset to another company and can hire good financial consultants, you can significantly increase your odds of being bought out. While your odds of being acquired by one of the three internet giants are slim to none, there is still hope of acquisition by “less notable” companies.

Regardless of exit strategy, there is an interesting parallel between early web portals and the current social networks. While it may simply be an evolution, one has to wonder where the next trend is coming from. As social networks rapidly fill the void of unfulfilled niches, simply coming up with a social network is no longer a viable solution. My guess is that new strategies will come from helping people to leverage their existing social networks externally and, as the Wall Street Journal published yesterday in regards to Facebook, potentially internally as well.