You see, I actually watched the CNN coverage and it was good. They had the first interview with Jackson family spokesperson Brian Oxman who had just been inside UCLA Medical Center to see the family. He told the CNN reporter which family members were there, that they were crying, and who was still on their way to the hospital. In his emotional state, he railed against the people surrounding MJ during his life, calling them a bunch of enablers that supported Jackson’s prescription drug habit - even comparing Jackson’s issues to those of Anna Nicole Smith. His outrage seemed to confirm what rumor-mongers had been suspecting for years: a drug problem. Who knows what we’ll learn as this story continues to unfold.

CNN then paraded in a bunch of people whose commentary was compelling, including editors for Spin, EW, music historians, record producers, and more. Off the top of my head, I don’t remember exact names, but it sure beat my local news coverage where they were hanging around a record store, that’s for sure.

It also was a lot more interesting that watching a million “RIP MJ” tweets stream by.

Incidentally, one of the guests CNN had drop in was a news producer from TMZ who was explaining how they had reported that MJ had suffered from cardiac arrest and was given CPR on the way to the hospital but was unable to be revived. He said that Michael had no pulse and had died. (The TMZ story is here).  That seemed to conflict with other reports (including CNN’s at the time) that MJ had lapsed into a coma but wasn’t pronounced dead until arriving at the hospital. It may have been an accurate report in the end, but did TMZ really know? Apparently, physicians attempted to resuscitate MJ for an hour at the hospital before officially pronouncing his death. Had the doctors been successful, TMZ would have had some serious retractions to make. A lot of people suspected that TMZ even hedged their bets and reported MJ was dead before actually having any sources to prove it. I wouldn’t doubt this was the case. They had the news and they wanted the pageviews. (Reminds you a lot of the tech world, doesn’t it?)

I’ll give TMZ credit for breaking this story (and for their ongoing footage, to be honest) but when I was ready for some “real” news coverage, I still turned to CNN and occasionally flipped through the other cable news channels, too. There’s something to be said for the old media style, especially when you’re dealing with a situation that deserves a little respect and contemplation.

Now I don’t mind getting my news fast – I often prefer it, actually. And I’ll agree that we need fast. However, sometimes old media is just a better fit. I mean, this wasn’t just another sighting of some celebrity at a club, this was something that mattered…and TMZ’s site felt a little too sleazy for me. Yesterday, I wanted some good ol’ fashioned CNN.

Today, AdMob reaches 19 million unique iPhone and iPod Touch devices worldwide by serving ads both on sites and within applications, reports the company. Although they work with other platforms, they feel the iPhone holds a special importance. "We believe the iPhone is leading the industry forward," says Jason Spero, Vice President and General Manager, North America.

They wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that the iPhone is a revolutionary platform for advertising. We’ve already seen innovations like shakable and location-based ads - things that are just not possible with any other medium. To top it off, a study released only days ago showed that iPhone users were three times as likely to recall mobile ads as users of other platforms. That alone makes the iPhone the platform advertisers want to focus on.

With the new units coming this summer from AdMob, advertisers will be able to do even more with their display ads which will soon become a lot more interactive. For example, the ads will be able to connect consumers with the advertiser’s content on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Flickr, and LinkedIn. Consumers will also be able to interact more directly with the ads themselves by typing in search queries directly into the units.

Additionally, ad viewers will be able to learn more in-depth information about the ads they’re viewing thanks to new multi-panel banners (aka "rich media" ads) and scrolling canvases which will allow ads to really maximize the small space they have available. Although dynamic, scrolling ads sound like they could become an annoyance, as we’ve learned before, if placed correctly and timed appropriately, consumers don’t seem to mind that much.

What’s most interesting about this announcement is how AdMob plans to integrate the search within their ads. With this technology, advertisers will allow consumers to search through their mobile-ready web sites or even connect them to databases of content - like their inventory, for example. Unfortunately, the social and search features will launch the Safari web browser, taking you away from the application you were using. Only the scrolling canvas ad units keep you within the app. (We hope that’s something that will change in the future - we hate being kicked out of our games!)

To help prepare their customers for these new ads as well as the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0, AdMob is releasing a new version of their software development kit (SDK) on Friday.

This is the exactly the kind of stuff that makes us look forward to viewing ads on our phones. Well, almost.

As it turns out, FriendFeed was inviting me to come out to Mountain View where their offices are. They were not, as many other companies were during the Expo, coming to town themselves. And Mountain View was an hour away. By train.

This fact was terribly upsetting to me since I now only had half an hour to get there. Apparently, in order for me to have made it on time, I would have had to left the conference early…and missed some really good sessions!

The first thing I did was call to see if it was possible to arrive late. I was basically told that the event probably wouldn’t go that late and perhaps I shouldn’t waste my time. I expressed how disappointed I was considering that I don’t live in California and this was quite the opportunity – I was sorry to miss it.

I was then told that perhaps I could come the next day for lunch. I said that would be great – I would try to make arrangements and I would let them know either way. I immediately found a friend willing to give me a ride out there the next day, and promptly called them back. I could be there by 1 PM, I said. Great! No wait…was the answer I received. Apparently 1 PM may not work after all, I was told. (I thought that 1 PM would have counted as “lunch time” but I guess not). I was told they would have to check on that and get back in touch.

Ironically, after I hung up the phone, I logged onto FriendFeed and saw the note from Robert Scoble which read that he was on his way to FriendFeed. “Just now?” I thought…that means he must have been late too – unless he was already halfway there when he posted it. But that’s neither here nor there, I guess.

Sadly, what I thought was going to be the highlight of my whole trip was turning out to be the biggest disappointment.

Anyway, FriendFeed didn’t get back in touch until much later and not via phone, but via email. I was invited to come out at 11:30 AM the next day. Well, as you may or may not know, schedules at the Web 2.0 Expo are pretty jam-packed. I would have had to cancel other appointments and miss a good chunk of the conference to attend. I then asked for an opportunity to do a phone briefing instead since I couldn’t make this one and only time they had open.

I was told that I could do a phone briefing on Sunday, but what with me flying cross-country all day Saturday, I didn’t get to respond to that email until Sunday rolled around, so perhaps, again I was too late. For whatever reason, no call was ever arranged, nor was I added to the beta preview, even though subsequent emails flowed on Sunday when another RWW’er was communicating with my FriendFeed contact regarding the story.

Overall, the whole experience was really upsetting, but in the end, I think I’m OK that I missed it. I mean, Robert Scoble was there, so of course he will have video and everyone will be watching him for the news anyway. I had just wanted, as a FriendFeed enthusiast, to have the opportunity to check it out too. I’m not really sure why it had to be so difficult. Or why they would want me to have to miss parts of the conference to see this.

It’s also interesting to compare the difficulty of this experience with the offer I received from Loic Le Meur. We were chatting about Seesmic Desktop (aka Twhirl) and he invited me to come by his offices. I asked him if there was any particular time that would be good and he said, give him a call and he would make the time. I thought that was really generous, but it also provided an interesting contrast between his offer and this FriendFeed event.

In the end, I felt like FriendFeed may have thought they were doing me a favor to have invited me in the first place. When I couldn’t make it, they just couldn’t (or wouldn’t?) accommodate my schedule – or even arrange a phone briefing – so I could preview their latest. And that’s fine, I suppose. That must mean they are really busy, so good for them.

Or maybe I’m just being a prima donna about the whole thing. That’s possible too.

But now it turns out that I won’t be covering their latest. I’ll leave that up to all the other (exclusively-invited) journalists to do. And even if the redesign is the most radical thing ever and completely blows your mind, I have no business writing about it…I’ll be excitedly checking it out right along with all you folks. And that’s OK, I assure you. There are plenty of other places to get the FriendFeed news today…and I’m sure you can count on two fingers the first two places you’ll turn to.

Still, I have to say: I’m disappointed. Really disappointed. Partly in myself for missing the first appointment and partly in FriendFeed for making it so difficult to connect later on.

Alan Cheslow

The FFavatars widget is sort of like the friends block on Facebook, but one that’s filled with your FriendFeed subscribers. Since the FriendFeed API doesn’t directly implement a way to fetch your subscriber list, Alan worked around this issue by fetching your “subscribed to” list then checking to see if each of those friends were also subscribed back to you. The end result is a widget that only shows your mutual FriendFeed friendships.

If you want to try it out on your own web site, just copy and paste this code (below) into your web site:

<div style=”width:300px;border:1px solid #ccc;”><script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://cheslow.com/ffavatars/?nickname=acheslow&size=large&max=12″></script></div>
<p>

All you need to do is replace where it says “nickname” with your own FriendFeed username.

If you want to edit the size of avatars or the number of avatars displayed, you can use this code instead:

<div style=”width:300px;border:1px solid #ccc;”><script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://cheslow.com/ffavatars/?nickname=acheslow&size=large&max=12″></script></div>

To modify the size, the options are:

size=[small|medium|large]

and to modify the max number, the options are:

max=[number]

Note that the widget only shows 15 of your random friends by default if you don’t change it otherwise. You can see the widget in action both on Alan’s site here or on mine here.

Our Personal & Professional Lives Don’t Always Mix

These are two completely different sets of people. The one group wants to hear the latest information about Web 2.0 and new startups and the other group wants to know how Sophie is doing or what my weekend plans are.

Now, I don’t mind if my “tech” friends hear a little personal information about me but I can guarantee you that some of my real life friends do not care one bit about the tech information. In fact, my own husband said he might have to put me on his “show less of this person” list because my (Twitter-synchronized) updates were way too geeky for him. That, my friends, is a big Facebook fail.

I Hate My Options

I’ve been thinking about what options I have for dealing with this issue, but none seem satisfactory. On the one hand, I can return to using Facebook solely for personal connections, clearing out all the people who I don’t really know and only updating my profile with personal information. I hate this idea.

For one thing, although there are plenty of people I’ve “friended” who I’ve never met face-to-face, I feel like we sort of know each other from online posts, Twitter, and, in some cases, phone conversations. These people, in fact, include my work colleagues at ReadWriteWeb, none of whom I’ve ever met in real life. So obviously, I don’t want to unilaterally unfriend people just because we’ve never met in the real world. I want just want to keep some of my work information away from my personal friends and some of my personal information away from my work friends. Other information – like perhaps the fact that I would be heading to a conference – should be OK for everyone to see.

At the time being, though, this isn’t possible. What’s more, I have added Facebook friends who I don’t know, even from other online services. I actually created a list called “Random People/Don’t Know” for this purpose. You may think this is crazy, but often these friend requests have been accompanied by a note reading “love your work on RWW, would like to follow you on Facebook if that’s OK.”

Who am I to say no?

I applied some privacy settings to this list so I don’t get weird phone calls or people showing up at my house (you never know), but I’ve accepted these requests for the most part.

Because Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, blog posts, etc. all pipe into my Facebook News Feed, these “random” people can easily follow my updates across the web, but the problem is – I have to follow theirs too. And, in several cases, I haven’t even met these folks online – not on Twitter, not on FriendFeed, not anywhere.
And please, don’t bother telling me that I can type their names in manually on my “show less of” list because believe me, I know. But that’s a terrible solution. First of all, I shouldn’t have to type in names one-by-one, I should be able to add an entire friend list to the “show less of” customization feature. Or even better, Facebook should allow one-way friendships like Twitter does.

This is Not a “Tech Elite” Problem

Lest you think this problem is only for the tech elite, think again. This problem will affect anyone who wants to use Facebook professionally. Take, for example, a realtor. Let’s say the realtor wants to use Facebook to send out market updates and new home prices to a list of clients and potential home buyers. This would be fine – and not spam – since anyone friending said realtor would likely know what they were getting themselves into, especially if that service was advertised on said realtor’s business card.

But let’s say that the realtor also wanted to reconnect with old high school and college friends. Now those personal connections would have to be subjected to the same sort of professional news that the customers and clients were receiving.

This is a terrible system.

What is Facebook Doing About This?

Yet as Facebook grows to become the number one network in the U.S. - and it already is worldwide -  more people are going to want to use it for professional and business networking purposes. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to do so, but Facebook makes it extremely difficult to separate those two parts of your personality.

Professionals end up spamming their friends and those that follow you professionally have to hear personal information, like your latest bout with the sniffles for example. While your friends might want to stop by with some chicken soup, your clients, customers and colleagues don’t necessarily need that sort of insight into your life.

But what’s Facebook doing about these issues? As far as I can tell, nothing.

The end result is that anyone who wants to use Facebook professionally doesn’t get to use it the way most everyone else does and, frankly, I think that’s a bit unfair. I would love to see a News Feed defaulted to one that just features stories from my close friends, but instead I have to see how 20 people changed their profile picture - and not one of them whom I’ve ever met…online or off.

If I want to see my real life friends, I have first create a list of those folks, then I have to click a button on my News Feed to show me just that list. That’s not a very elegant solution. And forget mobile updates! I have to (again) enter in people one by one on a list, just to get my friends’ updates sent to my phone.

What Would You Do?

A lot of people will say that I should not have friended strangers. But how do I respond to their requests then? Should I tell them they have to go sign up for Twitter if they want to follow me?

I don’t like that idea at all but I’m halfway considering it, if only out of sheer jealously of those who get to really enjoy Facebook the way it is intended. The problem is, though, not everyone wants to use Twitter, and, to be honest, I don’t see why they should have to - especially considering how easy it is for them to get my tweets (status updates) via Facebook.

But my poor, real world friends - they’re the ones I feel sorry for…especially when they comment on my status asking what a tweet is! I’m totally spamming them with tech news and I hate it.

Facebook needs to wake up and realize that if they ever want to really be a network for professionals, they need to address these sorts of issues…like yesterday.

Recently, the internet-savvy Ashton Kutcher introduced wife Demi Moore to Twitter. They then caused a ruckus when they tweeted about their annoying neighbor whose loud banging was disturbing their peace and quiet. Now it looks like Ashton is berating @perezhilton for not leaving his step-kids alone. Wow, this is better than TMZ!

Meanwhile, Demi Moore was busy roping gal pal Soleil Moon Frye (who I know only as “Punky Brewster”) into joining, too. Now she’s addicted.

To welcome the newcomers, Kevin Rose has been giving them shout-outs and Ev has been giving them advice…you know, advice like how to use the “@” sign to reply to people.

Ah, newbies.

What’s great about these particular Twitter accounts is that they appear to be true attempts at joining the community; they’re not PR-approved marketing vehicles tweeting only news about upcoming films or TV shows. And unlike some celebs, it’s the stars themselves who are doing the twittering. Not to mention posting photos like this one from Demi, snapping back at a paparazzi: “Say hello to your mother for me!” Or this one from Soleil of her kids. (Celeb mommy blogger?) 

Who’s next? Ah, it’s Dwight! Err, I mean Rainn Wilson, the actor who plays Dwight. Well, at least his tweet says it’s him. We’ll see.

Still, I never would have imagined: Stars. They’re just like us. 

Of course she likes Windows…she works over there. And I do, but believe me, I don’t get paid to blog on sarahintampa.com. If I did, there would be a lot more content here.

So anyway, for the folks that need a little more convincing, I offer you up some more impartial insights from around the web:

1. Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal: “I do have some first impressions, and they are all pretty positive.” Video:

See also, Even in Test Form, Windows 7 Leaves Vista in the Dust

2. Gizmodo: Why the Windows 7 Taskbar Beats Mac OS X’s Dock

3. Ubuntu’s Shuttleworth praises Windows 7, welcomes fight

4. Information Week: Windows 7 ‘Incredibly Stable,’ Intel Expert Says

5. Plus, as I pointed out on Twitter earlier, even a couple of die-hard Mac fans commented on how they “didn’t dislike” Windows 7:

• Oh My God, I Actually Like Windows 7 (So Far): “… I honestly would not mind using Windows 7 on a daily basis, which is something I haven’t been able to say about a Microsoft OS since when the early days of Windows XP”
• Windows 7 on the HP 2710p:  “… Let me say at the outset that the installation and the amazing experience I have had with Windows 7 had me seriously thinking if I should stay with Mac OS X.”

6. But why should you try Windows 7? Well, sometimes, things are great not because there is one big revolutionary change, but because every little thing has been improved.

7. Oh and because things “just work.” (Hey now, we get to say it too!)

Here’s a great example of things just working, from anand iyer’s blog – his Lenovo T60P running Windows 7 waking up from sleep:

…Yeah, it works that way for me too.

The ReTweet Mapper is a tool created by Dan Zarrella, who calls himself a social and viral marketing scientist. He describes his creation as a system that indexes all the “ReTweets” and maps them to each other in a visual display. Dan says the system is still pretty rough, but he gives us a good idea of what it looks like:

The tweet streams are hierarchical, collapsible structures showing how the tweets and re-tweets are related. In addition to the ReTweet mapping tools, you can also search ReTweets or view the most ReTweeted users.

Given the recent dustup over Twitter and authority, it’s worth taking a look at any system that attempts to find some sort of signal within the noise of Twitter. You may or may not agree that re-tweets are a good indication of importance, but they can certainly show you what’s hot at the moment.

Still, what I personally want is an RSS feed that shows me the top re-tweets occurring on Twitter in real-time. Does anyone have anything like that?

Update: Oh wait, found the tool, where’s the RSS?: http://www.retweetradar.com

This time the email went through, but displayed the following message:

Soon? How soon is soon?!

This, people, is exactly why social networks are not a good replacement for actual email systems.

The truth is…well…neither, actually. I could live with it, I guess. I’m not raving about how great the new look is, though. For one thing, I spend my day in Google Reader – all day long, I’m scrolling through feeds. And while I agree that a stark white background works on a site like Google.com, a full day in the new greader is somewhat painful on the eyes. The new Reader is dang bright.

Thankfully, I was not alone in my opinion. Some enterprising Greasemonkey userscript creator named trashrockx has now saved me from the glare of the new Google Reader and even made some improvements along the way.

With their New Google Reader Tweaks script, which works in either Greasemonkey or Stylish, you can make the new Google Reader easier on your eyes. The script brings back the blue sidebar (yay!) and makes it easier to see which feed items have been read. It does this by lightening up the font on the read items to a pale gray instead of leaving them as they are now – a shade of black. It’s a subtle change, but it really helps. The script also highlights items in a pale yellow when your mouse cursor hovers over them so you can be sure you’re clicking on the right item. Finally, the header at the top has been changed, and while that wasn’t a usability issue for me, I have to admit I like the new one better.

Here’s an example of the script in action (click to see larger):

Before

After

Now that’s a Google Reader I can live with!