After just over two years of writing this blog, I'm sad to say this is my last post here on the Social Web. I've been 'let go' as they say. Or perhaps more accurately, this blog is no more, making way for others*

It's been an honor to write for ZDNet and, most of all, you my loyal and thoughtful readers.

I'm also thankful for the kind support and interesting conversations that have come from outside of ZDNet within the blogosphere and tech community as a whole. In addition, I want to thank Dan Farber for giving me my ZDNet break in the first place (after a very thorough virtual interview process) and my editor Larry Dignan whose hands-off but equally supportive approach has been most welcome.

And whilst it's goodbye here, it's certainly not goodbye to writing about technology or my interest in the social web.

Right now you can find me writing daily over at last100.com, a blog that covers the Digital Lifestyle (Internet TV, Mobile, Digital Music and more) that I co-founded with ReadWriteWeb's Richard MacManus.

You can also follow me on Twitter.

Or look out for future announcements at my personal (and rarely updated) homepage.

My LinkedIn page is here and I welcome offers of work or any other interesting opportunities.

Take care and thanks again for reading!

- Steve

P.S. On the bright side, at least I don't need to write about Facebook anymore. Until the next gig that is ;-)

P.P.S. If you want to keep up with all things social web here on ZDNet, then I recommend Jennifer Leggio's Feeds blog.

* A blog network is a bit like a record label. A number of acts are signed, some of which go on to be hits, while others fare less well. After a while those acts that don't hit the big time leave the label to make room for new talent and the process starts over. That's the reality of the business end of blogging.

Key features of the new MySpace client include the ability to:

• Send and receive MySpace mail
• Update your Status and Mood
• View and send Bulletins
• Add comments
• Post your photos

The new MySpace for Blackberry app is available at www.blackberry.com/myspace or m.myspace.com via the Blackberry’s web browser. Notably, RIM list 'social networking' as a 'device feature' alongside email, organise, browser, media playback etc., with MySpace listed together with applications for Flickr and of course Facebook.

And in a feature that borrows directly from Facebook, which Microsoft invested in last year, the new Windows Live includes a a “what’s new” feed that aggregate a user's activities on Windows Live and third-party site across the web. Initial partners include Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, Twitter, WordPress and Yelp -- though no sign of Facebook yet, despite that hefty investment.

See also: Yahoo wants to be your social web ‘control panel’ too

“Think of Windows Live as the single place where people using our e-mail, messaging and photo-sharing services can stay connected,” said Chris Jones, corporate vice president of Windows Live Experience Program Management at Microsoft in a prepared statement. “Our customers have friends across the Web. They communicate through many unconnected Web services and want access to it all from a single location — without worrying about how it’s done."

Microsoft is keen to talk up the mobile element of Windows Live too with "optimized experiences on the PC and mobile phone", which of course makes a lot of sense considering the mobile web has to yet to producer a definitive winner and social networking is driving mobile data use.

This new version of Windows Live will begin rolling out in the US over the coming weeks and will be made available globally in 54 countries and in 48 languages by early 2009, according to Microsoft.

"When we recently added the ability to comment on your friends' status updates to the Facebook mobile site, we didn't expect that we would receive nearly a million status comments in the first 24 hours", writes Facebook's Wayne Chang on the company's official blog.

While that particular tidbit is interesting, it should be no surprise that mobile versions of Facebook are proving popular. Not when you take into account that Facebook offers two browser-based mobile versions of the site -- one for low-end feature phones and another for 'smart phones' -- as well as native Facebook clients for Blackberry, Palm and iPhone. Notably, the Palm version runs on the smartphone maker's entry level consumer offering, the popular and affordable Centro. While television ad campaigns that aim to push the Blackberry beyond its business roots and into the hands of consumers pitch Facebook access as a major selling point. Ditto some of the most recent ad campaigns for Apple's iPhone.

See also: BlueWhaleMail: Facebook messages “pushed” to your cellphone

Handset makers clearly see Facebook as a way to sell more phones but what's in it for the carriers? Aside from picking up or retaining subscribers, the telcos hope to get more people using the mobile web in order to sell more data.

“For 85 percent of our customers, we can’t really sell more than voice and text,” INQ Mobile’s CEO, Frank Meehan, told Unstrung. “You need to drive data usage higher right across all the handset segments. You want the majority of customers, not the top-end of the community that rules strategy at the moment."

See also: Snap2Face: Facebook lands on Windows Mobile

It appears that the micro-blogging service Twitter has removed the option to delete a 'tweet' once it's been published, making the service a haven for digital litter -- the trail of information about you or things you've said that perhaps you shouldn't leave lying around the web.

Publish a status update on Twitter slamming your boss - at 2am in the morning after a night out at the pub - only to regret doing so seconds after hitting the 'update' button, then you could be out of luck. As of yesterday (?) the trash can icon that used to reside next to Twitter updates has been removed.

A smart reader over at ReadWriteWeb suggests the likely explanation: Twitter has removed the delete function since it never really worked in the first place yet gave the impression that it did. That's because of the hundreds of services, including third-party clients and search engines, that exist built on top of Twitter's API. These services often cache Twitter's content or simply store it locally - such as the numerous Twitter apps for the iPhone - meaning deleting a 'tweet' from the main Twitter site doesn't necessarily ripple through to other Twitter services. If this is the true reason for deleting the delete option it would suggest that it could be gone forever. That's unless Twitter is able to design into its API a way to force all Twitter services to respect a deletion within a reasonable time period, although I doubt this will be possible.

Update: According to the official Twitter status blog, the delete feature will be back up later today. So it was probably removed temporarily to ease the load on Twitter's servers during election night. It doesn't, however, resolve the issue of third-party caching of Twitter posts, in which Twitter should at least warn users that a delete doesn't automatically take place across all Twitter clients or other services built on top of Twitter's API. (Hat-tip: Dave Zatz)

The first benefactor of the new offering, which leverages 'finger printing' technology from Auditude, is Viacom-owned MTV Networks, a noteworthy partner since Viacom is currently involved in a one billion dollar copyright lawsuit with MySpace Video rival, YouTube.

Under the arrangement, MTV Networks will be able to "pair advertising with clips from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, Punk'd and other shows that MySpace users upload to the social network site, whether they have permission or not", reports the LA Times. YouTube launched a similar system last year that identifies clips so it can give copyright holders a choice between removing the content or letting YouTube place ads against it in exchange for a share of revenue.

Whatever the outcome of the YouTube/Viacom lawsuit, MySpace's new offering is evidence that the world has already moved on. Rather than playing the 'cat and mouse' game of DMCA takedown notices, technology is offering a more efficient way of dealing with pirated content uploaded by users. An efficiency that claims to not only offer automation in identifying content but a way to monetize it too.

"This is a game changer," Jeff Berman, MySpace's president of sales and marketing, told the Times.. "This takes us from a world of 'no' to a world of 'yes,' where the audience gets to curate content, express and share it as they choose, while copyright holders are not only respected, they get to make money."

As co-founder Reid Hoffman explains: "This initial roll out features productivity applications that range from gathering information that professionals around you are generating to enhancing your abilities to collaborate and communicate more effectively. You’ll be able to work much more closely with your contacts on LinkedIn with tools such as file sharing, project management, business trips and many more."

Initial launch partners include Amazon, Box.net, Google, Huddle, Six Apart, SlideShare, Tripit, and WordPress.

Users install apps onto their home page for easy access, and any application activity can be optionally shared on their profile too, as part of the news feed. The latter providing the viral effect needed to encourage developers to write apps for the platform.

The apps currently available full into two camps: those that help to enhance a user's profile - resume 2.0 - and those that provide functionality for better collaboration with members of your network.

In the first camp, for example, there's the 'Reading List' app from Amazon ("Extend your professional profile by sharing the books you’re reading with other LinkedIn members.") or the Presentation apps from both Google and SlideShare, which enable you to embed a powerpoint-style presentation onto your profile. Similarly, apps from Wordpress and SixApart let you display your own blog feed.

On the productivity side, there's 'My Travel' from TripIt ("See where your LinkedIn network is traveling and when you will be in the same city as your colleagues.") or the more obvious file sharing applications from Box.net and Huddle ("... private, secure online workspaces packed with simple yet powerful project, collaboration and sharing tools for working with your connections.")

The best Facebook apps for business and career enhancement

In terms of monetization, TechCrunch reports that "Apps won’t be allowed to use third party ad networks - instead, they’ll have to work with LinkedIn’s ad system." Apps will, however, be able to charge a subscription fee for their services.

Twitter could be a tool for terrorists. From Wired.com: "Could Twitter become terrorists' newest killer app? A draft Army intelligence report, making its way through spy circles, thinks the miniature messaging software could be used as an effective tool for coordinating militant attacks." (Wired)

YouTube hoping to attract advertisers through long form studio content. YouTube has begun running full-length episodes of TV shows, starting with a test of three CBS-owned shows: Star Trek, MacGyver and Beverly Hills, 90210. The move is being seen in part as a response to the success of Hulu, which as proved particularly attractive to advertisers. One analyst tells USA Today: "If you're an advertiser, where will you put your money? In front of content you're not sure about, or behind a series like 30 Rock, a known brand?" (USA Today)

Social networking through your television. Microsoft likes to boast that it has the biggest social network on television via its XBox Live service. Now others are hoping to emulate that success by bringing the 'community features' of the Web into the living room. (WSJ)

MySpace sued. A woman was 'consumed with anger' after MySpace took down her profile on the social networking site and has decided to sue. However, there's more to the story: her profile page was set up specifically to verify official celebrity MySpace pages, who upon verification could display the plaintiff's badge on their page. (Tech Dirt)

It also got me asking which other celebs actively use Twitter, either directly or through their PR agent? Putting that question out as a Tweet (a trick borrowed from the Marshall Kirkpatrick school of blogging), I got the following tip offs:

@lancearmstrong - Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner and "full time cancer fighter" (his words)

@stephenfry - Stephen Fry, Comedian, TV presenter and all round geek. Did you know that Fry is an avid Mac fan and was reportedly the second person in the UK to own an original 1984 Macintosh.

@johncleese - John Cleese, best known for his Monty Python antics :-) "Yes, I am still indeed alive, contrary to rumour, and I am making video podcasts", reads his Twitter bio.

@bobbyllew - Bobby Llewellyn, producer, writer TV presenter, one time actor best known for role of Kryten in BBC comedy sci-fi series Red Dwarf!

Obviously these only scratch the surface. Know of any others? Please leave a comment.

Facebook considering MySpace Music response. The 'social utility' is talking to a number of streaming music services about an outsourcing deal that would more deeply integrate their music experience into Facebook, sources tell the New York Post. (New York Post)

MySpace on target to do $1B in sales this year. Sources tell VentureBeat that the News Corp-owned social networking site is set to defy the wider economy and bring in revenue this year of $1B or "within a hair’s breadth of that number." (VentureBeat)

Google exposing user profile to search engines. Google has been letting people create profiles for a while now , but until recently, public profiles remained hidden from search engines. (ZDNet: Googling Google)

'StockTwits', a Twitter tracker for stocks. Another Twitter mashup, StockTwits asks "What are you trading?" and tracks messages on Twitter that carry mention of a stock by encouraging users to preface a company ticker with a $ sign e.g. $GOOG. (AVC)

Described by Jim Stoneham, the company's Vice President Communities, as a "centralized control panel", the new Yahoo! Profiles will let users manage their "identity, activities, interests, and connections across Yahoo! -- and eventually the entire Web". While a unified user profile and friends list across all of Yahoo's offerings - Flickr, Yahoo Messenger, Mail etc. - seems like a no-brainer, Stoneham's reference to a social 'control panel' for the entire Web is far more ambitious and sounds very similar to the thinking behind recent products from Facebook (Facebook Connect), MySpace (Data Availabiliy), Microsoft (Mesh) and Google (Friend Connect).

See also: Powering Facebook’s proverbial brain: your Identity, Social Graph, and Lifestream data

Content categories include Commodities, Economy, Personal Finance, Stocks, and Tech. Instead of Digging a story submission, users vote by hitting the "Tip It" button. Just like Digg, only those stories that receive enough votes feature on the site's homepage.

However, what makes Tip'd standout from similar Digg clones is the person appointed to help cultivate and manage the community -- Muhamad Saleem. For it's the community in which any social news site lives or dies by. Over the last few years Saleem has lived and breathed social media. He's a top user on Digg itself, as well as being very active on other social media sites such as StumbleUpon and Reddit. He's also a paid user of AOL's own Digg clone Propeller, as well as a prolific blogger in his own right.

It's also hard not to think that in a rather perverse way, the timing of the site's launch couldn't be better as the financial crisis means that all eyes are on the economy. Never before has Main Street paid so much attention to Wall Street.

As well as building the community in terms of raw user numbers - Saleem and co. believe that 3-5,000 sign-ups should be enough for Tip'd to become "self-sustaining" - the site's vertical could pose unique challenges of its own. The temptation for short sellers or pranksters to spam the site in the hope of manipulating the markets will be great. A problem that requires a large or active community that can eventually police themselves.

Of course, the larger the user-base, the greater the rewards for those that successfully game the system. On that note, in the short term at least, Saleem concedes that Tip'd will have to watch submissions closely and reserves the right to delete suspicious looking stories. They don't want to repeat the 'Steve Jobs has serious heart attack' scenario that recently brought CNN's citizen journalist site into ill repute. At the same time they are keen to avoid the "'ban first, ask questions later' attitude that seems to permeate so many other social media sites." [Tip'd FAQs]

Ultimately, however, Tip'd will only succeed if it can persuade publishers of financial news sites and blogs to add the Tip It submission button to their content, something they're far more likely to do once Tip'd grows big enough to send significant amounts of traffic back in return. And that's less likely to happen without the support of publishers -- creating a bit of a catch 22 situation.

The new self-serve system enables anybody - "from local retailers to musicians and politicians" - to create customized Cost-Per-Click (CPC) banner ads that target specific demographics and interest groups using MySpace's HyperTargeting technology. A technology that was previously only available to the company's largest blue-chip brand advertisers.

Placing an ad comprises of "a few easy steps":

1. Sign-up on advertise.myspace.com
2. Create a display ad using the MyAds Builder Tool
3. Select a variable ad spend anywhere from $25 to $10,000
4. HyperTarget to customers (based on self-expressed interests available on MySpace profiles, along with age, sex and geographical location)
5. Measure ad performance with MyAds analytics reporting

The end result, says MySpace, is to democratize online advertising. Or to borrow another phrase from the Web 2.0 bible, the company is attempting to monetize the Long Tail.

If that all sounds very Google-esque to you, you're not alone.

See also: Madison Avenue to Facebook: you’ll never be the next Google

The problem with the comparison, however, is that a user declaring a general interest on their social networking profile in, say, "video games" or "soccer", isn't nearly as monetizable as intent e.g. a search for the latest XBox 360 FIFA 09 title.

Having said that, I've no doubt that MySpace's new MyAds system will help the company shift a significant amount of inventory as the self serve system removes a lot of the friction associated with banner ad campaigns and the CPC model lowers the risks for advertisers. If anything, Long Tail advertisers who currently use Google AdWords will, in the short term at least, experiment with MySpace MyAds and see what they can learn.

Speaking at the Future of Web Apps conference in London earlier today, Digg co-founder Kevin Rose spent considerable time addressing the first issue -- how "to expand beyond the geek set and get some real-world relevance", reports CNet's Caroline McCarthy -- but also revealed that the site is contemplating a new potential revenue stream: "Diggable ads".

Exactly how this new type of advertisement would work isn't clear, but as the name implies they'll likely introduce a degree of interactivity similar in spirit to Facebook's recently introduced "Engagement ads". In Facebook's new ad unit, users can interact by leaving comments, sharing virtual gifts, or becoming a ‘fan’. Any interaction then shows up in a user’s news feed. In Digg's case, it may be that an ad gets promoted to the homepage by receiving enough diggs (votes) from users.

Whatever form a "diggable" ad ends up taking, it's almost inevitable that the site's traditional user-base won't take to them kindly. A constant topic of active Digg users is their disdain for online advertising and this is backed up by reports from publishers who note that site visitors sent from Digg are far more likely to have installed an ad blocker for their browser and are far less likely to click on ads.

All of which would explain why Rose is so keen to find ways of growing Digg's user-base beyond its traditional demographic.

From CNet:

Rose explained, Digg's strategy going forward--one of the reasons why it raised $28.7 million in a Series C round last month--is to make the service more relevant to the average user. Digg has started to experiment with personalization and recommendation, something that Rose frequently discusses in his town hall Webcasts with the company's CEO, Jay Adelson. Introducing a "similar users" feature on the "upcoming" page of Digg increased friend adding fourfold and Digging by 40 percent.

Rose also revealed that Digg has a lot of data that it's yet to expose, data which will help the site target users in order to provide more relevant content, and of course be potentially useful for advertisers too.

Pooling users into "dynamic" groups by interest is paramount, as is customizing the site for people who might not want all those stories about iPhones and Barack Obama. Beyond that, there's more: Digg has used internal algorithms to identify what Rose calls "prescient users," or tastemakers who have a high probability of Digging something early on that will eventually become very popular.

Of course we've known of the existence of an internal algorithm to identify "prescient users" for a long time, although most people just call them "top diggers". They are a group of users, often early adopters of the site, who routinely get stories they've submitted onto Digg's front page. What's new is to hear Rose talk up this group of users as an asset to the site - although it makes a lot of sense in terms of brands wanting to learn how to leverage social media - as, from the outside at least, it seems that in recent times Digg has gone out of its way to penalize their submissions.

The site provides a simple way to publish a resume online along with references, as well as sophisticated tools for networking in order to make new introductions, check out potential new employers, and get spotted by recruiters.

Referring to LinkedIn's job hunting utility, Cellan-Jones once jokingly called it a "Facebook for losers". But in this time of economic uncertainly, LinkedIn, and other sites like it, could turn out to be the real winners.

Boasting 28 million sign-ups, perhaps unsurprisingly, LinkedIn has seen an influx of new members from the financial sector, reports Cellan-Jones.

The numbers joining from investment banking have doubled, and it's pretty clear why. LinkedIn conducted a poll and found out that 42% of its members felt that the current economic climate made their jobs less secure. In other words, they fear the axe is about to fall and they think that being part of a professional network could help them find another job.

Interestingly, an ad campaign currently running on some of London's more prominent underground stations takes a thinly disguised pop at LinkedIn. The slogan reads: "Start Networking - Not Just Linkin'" (see photo top right). It might equally apply to Facebook of course.

However, while a downturn may increase LinkedIn, Xing and similar sites' utitily, leading to more time spent on each site and new members, the online ad market will likely suffer in return, and crucially, new company hires will dwindle. And it's recruiters who are paid members, through which LinkedIn et al. make most of their money.

Photo credit: Nick Burcher

The most notable feature of the new "Obama for America" iPhone application, available as a free download via the iTunes store, is the ability to tap your iPhone's existing address book in order to prioritize your contacts "by key battleground states", presumably so that you'll call them up to persuade them to vote Obama. It's key battlegrounds - states that could go either way - that Obama will need to win if he's to become president.

The application will also keep a score of how well you're doing (the number of calls initiated through the Obama for America app), annonymously of course: "Your privacy is important: no personal data or contacts will be uploaded or stored. Only the total number of calls you make is uploaded anonymously."

Another clever feature - "get involved" - makes use of the iPhone GPS functionality to help potential Obama campaigners find the nearest Obama HQ and upcoming local events. The application also delivers the latest Obama campaign news links, video (YouTube) and photos, along with a guide to Obama's positions on various issues.

(via CNet)

Twitter benefiting from US presidential election debates

Twitter usage and sign-ups received a healthy boost during last Friday's first presidential debate for the 08 campaign. The official Twitter blog reports that, despite Friday traditionally being a slow traffic day:

• Friday updates jumped 18.5% from previous Friday.
• Updates during the debate increased 160% compared to same time last week.
• Signups on Friday were up 23%.
• Signups during the debate were up 135% compared to same time last week.

Although, as Wired notes, the shot in arm for Twitter also co-incided with the company's launch of a dedicated politics tracker - Twitter’s new Election 2008 site - and the blog/mainstream media attention that followed. Of course the fact that this has translated into increased sign-ups and use suggests that chicken or egg, the strategy is paying off.

• Slide to distribute video on Facebook. Slide, maker of popular Facebook apps Top Friends, SuperPoke! and FunWall among others, has signed a deal with major media companies to distribute video content on Facebook, reports Reuters. Distribution partners include CBS Corp's CBS Interactive (owner of this blog), Comcast Corp's E! Entertainment channel, Time Warner Inc's Warner Brothers, along with the News Corp and NBC Universal's jointly-owned video site Hulu. To be rolled out on Thursday, users who install Slide's FunSpace app will be able to share video clips and receive recommendations based on popularity.
• Facebook to overtake MySpace in the US. In less than two months, Facebook traffic could finally overtake MySpace, so says up-time monitoring service Pingdom. Data taken from Google Trends suggests that MySpace's US traffic has remained steady over the last year, while Facebook continues to grow at a pace - hence the predicted catchup. However, if MySpace isn't hemorrhaging users in the US then where is Facebook's growth coming from? Pingdom suggests four possibilities: MySpace users sign up on Facebook but keep using MySpace; Facebook is taking users away from MySpace, but at the same rate that MySpace is recruiting new users; Facebook is getting its users from communities other than MySpace; Facebook is attracting first time social network users.
• Oasis to launch new album on MySpace. British rock band Oasis (remember them?) is premiering its new album, "Dig Out Your Soul," on MySpace starting today. Users will be able to stream the whole album for free, reports the UK's Telegraph newspaper. The album will be released in stores until next week. Of course, Oasis aren't the first band to give fans a way to preview a new album via streaming on a social networking site, with Coldplay, Radiohead and others doing the same. It's a concept that makes a lot of sense, with online streaming fast replacing radio play, and social networks such as MySpace having taken over from MTV a long time ago.

The ads, which begun appearing on the so-called social utility, reflect a change in tactics first introduced in 2006. Rather than targeting top tier Universities only, MI6 is reaching out via a number of public channels in the hope of attracting candidates from a variety of backgrounds. Last year the CIA also began using Facebook to reach out to potential candidates.

"A number of public channels are used to promote job opportunities in the organisation and Facebook is a recent example of this," a UK Foreign Office spokeswoman tells The Guardian.

Three ads are currently running on Facebook, the first of which targets graduates.

"Graduates of all ages can develop long-term careers as operational officers, collecting and analysing global intelligence."

A second ad is aimed at those looking to switch jobs - "Time for a career change? MI6 can use your skills - while the third ad attempts to play up MI6's potential to shape history. "A career in world events? Help influence world events, protect the UK."

Targeting virtual hangouts such as Facebook marks a real departure from MI6's traditional methods of recruitment in which, as The Guardian notes, "recruits joined after getting a tap on the shoulder while studying at a leading university."

Perhaps instead of a tap on the shoulder, potential candidates can now expect to be poked. That's progress I guess :-)

The motivation: Facebook has yet to turn its 100+ million user-base into a fertile ground for advertisers, with co-founder Mark Zuckerberg reportedly estimating revenue in 2008 to be around the $300 million mark

An unnamed New York ad-executive (via Valleywag) offers Facebook some unsolicited advice:

• Stop creating gimmicky features that users don't want. Facebook is busy touting its so-called 'Engagement Advertising', whereby users can interact with ads by leaving comments, sharing virtual gifts, or becoming a 'fan'. Any interaction then shows up in a user's news feed. The unnamed executive's take: 'Instead of creating gimmicky features that users don't want, Facebook needs to come up with ways for advertisers to be seen as providing new functionality... Facebook should encourage users to feel like a site improvement was brought to them by a brand.' For example, Facebook's Video application could have been sponsored by Sony's CyberShot line, suggests the executive. There also exists a disconnect between Facebook's engineers who build new functionality for the site, and the company's ad sales team who work in isolation.
• Hire some Madison Avenue insiders. According to Valleywag's source, 'Madison Avenue avoids spending money on MySpace because no one in New York knows its ad salespeople.' To avoid this problem, Facebook should hire a number of Madison Avenue insiders and put them in positions of influence.
• You'll never be the next Google. Facebook isn't and never will be the 'automated moneymaking machine' that is Google. Running successful ad campaigns on the social utility 'require lots of creativity, planning and customization', something that can't be left to a computer algorithm. The sooner Facebook accepts that it isn't the next Google, 'the sooner it can take advantage of its massive, desirable user base.'

Why Facebook will never be the next Google

As Scott Karp brilliantly explains, Google perfectly aligns "advertiser value" and "user value", in the way its search advertising model operates.

On Google, when you search for something, the adds are a form of search result — i.e. something you asked for, that you opted in to receive.

Ask yourself how many times you've clicked on a 'Sponsored Link' when doing a Google search. I know I have, lots of times.

In comparison, how many times have you clicked on an ad displayed in Facebook.

Never? Me neither.

Why?

On Facebook, the ads, despite all the innovation, still aren’t something users are really asking for.

... you can insert your ad into news about peoples’ friends. You can let people share their shopping habits with their friends. And you can, as a company/brand, be “friends” with your consumers.

Karp says that "if you read between the lines, it’s really the same value proposition as traditional advertising — advertisers forcing themselves on users", thereby creating little or no value for users.

That's a big problem to solve, and one that isn't unique to ads on Facebook.

See also: Gallery: 25+ social networking apps for iPhone and iPod touch

Android takes this vision to the next level. Rather than being a high-end niche device, as the Sidekick was and the iPhone is, Android aims to ensure that 'smart' features (third-party applications) and mobile Internet access (the 'full' web) trickle down to 'the rest of us', speeding up the inevitable blurring of the lines between smartphones and lower end / mass market feature phones. This is the main reason why Android will be open source and therefore free to use by carriers and handset makers alike. With no license fee to pay and mobile chips becoming more powerful and lower in cost, it makes business sense to put a modern, powerful and open mobile operating system onto lower-end phones that previously ran outdated, underpowered and proprietary software.

The sooner this happens, the sooner the social web will truly go mobile: not just phone-friendly versions of major social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, but new mobile-first entrants, social location-based services and more. And of course, as social web services spur the growth and mainstreaming of the mobile web, Google is set to benefit as the mobile ad market explodes.