Years ago I worked with the team at Tacoda on the technology for audience based targeting. Some of my work there wound up in a patent that was sold along with Tacoda to AOL. I don’t know if this patent is part of the patents recently sold by AOL to Microsoft but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were. I also worked closely with Joshua on a number of patents filed for by del.icio.us and sold along with the company to Yahoo. Yahoo of course has recently started a massive patent lawsuit against Face...

Years ago I worked with the team at Tacoda on the technology for audience based targeting. Some of my work there wound up in a patent that was sold along with Tacoda to AOL. I don’t know if this patent is part of the patents recently sold by AOL to Microsoft but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were. I also worked closely with Joshua on a number of patents filed for by del.icio.us and sold along with the company to Yahoo. Yahoo of course has recently started a massive patent lawsuit against Face...

Yesterday, Techmeme was ablaze with posts about sharing on Facebook’s Open Graph. A CNet post by Molly Wood with the title “How Facebook is ruining sharing” appears to have kicked it all off. In it she argues that the automated (“frictionless”) sharing via Open Graph apps results in a lot more noise rather than signal. Marshall Kirkpartrick at RWW holds the same view in a piece titled “Why Facebook’s Seamless Sharing is Wrong”. Robert Scoble – not that surprisingly – is more optimistic about ...

Yesterday, Techmeme was ablaze with posts about sharing on Facebook’s Open Graph. A CNet post by Molly Wood with the title “How Facebook is ruining sharing” appears to have kicked it all off. In it she argues that the automated (“frictionless”) sharing via Open Graph apps results in a lot more noise rather than signal. Marshall Kirkpartrick at RWW holds the same view in a piece titled “Why Facebook’s Seamless Sharing is Wrong”. Robert Scoble – not that surprisingly – is more optimistic about ...

The rumor is that Facebook will on Monday unveil a fairly full fledged webmail solution. At the same time Google is working hard on some kind of new social network. Microsoft too is trying to have email, search, social, etc. all under one roof. The rationale here seems to be one of wanting to own as much of a user’s experience as possible. It is supported by an economic logic in which companies are making lots of money in one area and using that to subsidize other parts of functionality. Once...

The rumor is that Facebook will on Monday unveil a fairly full fledged webmail solution. At the same time Google is working hard on some kind of new social network. Microsoft too is trying to have email, search, social, etc. all under one roof. The rationale here seems to be one of wanting to own as much of a user’s experience as possible. It is supported by an economic logic in which companies are making lots of money in one area and using that to subsidize other parts of functionality. Once...

So the results are in on the first week of NFL predictions on Preditter: 10 correct calls, 5 incorrect and 1 inconclusive (tweets were 50:50). Not much to write home about, but kind of fun. Especially since Preditter now shows who was right and who was wrong. For instance, for one that Preditter got wrong see Jets vs Ravens. For a correct one check out Saints vs Vikings. There are also the beginnings of user pages. For instance, my page is at http://preditter.com/users/albertwenger (these don...

So the results are in on the first week of NFL predictions on Preditter: 10 correct calls, 5 incorrect and 1 inconclusive (tweets were 50:50). Not much to write home about, but kind of fun. Especially since Preditter now shows who was right and who was wrong. For instance, for one that Preditter got wrong see Jets vs Ravens. For a correct one check out Saints vs Vikings. There are also the beginnings of user pages. For instance, my page is at http://preditter.com/users/albertwenger (these don...

Each has more than 100 Million credit cards on file to enable 1-click purchases of content, apps, and virtual goods. When I compare doing anything involving payment on other platforms the experience is cumbersome to the point of being useless. My 10-year old son had no trouble hijacking my Kindle, finding the store and getting a book for himself. And that’s on the Kindle! On his iPod touch he blew through the app budget we had set for the month within the first two days of having it. It will ...

Each has more than 100 Million credit cards on file to enable 1-click purchases of content, apps, and virtual goods. When I compare doing anything involving payment on other platforms the experience is cumbersome to the point of being useless. My 10-year old son had no trouble hijacking my Kindle, finding the store and getting a book for himself. And that’s on the Kindle! On his iPod touch he blew through the app budget we had set for the month within the first two days of having it. It will ...

In writing and talking about WolframAlpha yesterday, it occurred to me how much I like being able to get stuff done without clicking around. That’s especially important when clicking around is slow (because of latency and processor speed) and clumsy (because of tiny screen), such as is the case on phones. In other words, I want to go back to the beginning with a command line. The Unix command line is of course all powerful for those who really know how to use it, but requires a lot of learnin...

In writing and talking about WolframAlpha yesterday, it occurred to me how much I like being able to get stuff done without clicking around. That’s especially important when clicking around is slow (because of latency and processor speed) and clumsy (because of tiny screen), such as is the case on phones. In other words, I want to go back to the beginning with a command line. The Unix command line is of course all powerful for those who really know how to use it, but requires a lot of learnin...

Managed to get into Google+ last night and here are some very early impressions. First, there is a lot to learn and explore. They clearly built a ton of different things and it will take folks, myself included, a while to figure it all out. It does feel a bit like they wanted to take on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook in one fell swoop, which is a tall order. Second, it does still feel a bit rushed because stuff doesn’t hang together all that well yet. For instance, navigating from circles to th...

Managed to get into Google+ last night and here are some very early impressions. First, there is a lot to learn and explore. They clearly built a ton of different things and it will take folks, myself included, a while to figure it all out. It does feel a bit like they wanted to take on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook in one fell swoop, which is a tall order. Second, it does still feel a bit rushed because stuff doesn’t hang together all that well yet. For instance, navigating from circles to th...

I have had a number of conversations with entrepreneurs recently where it became clear that their own personal dislike for email/twitter/Facebook/mobile notifications stood in the way of growth. It would be nice to think that you could build a service that is so awesome that everyone who discovers it will (a) instantly get all their friends to use it and (b) keep coming back all the time. But that rarely happens. Instead, there is a lot more evidence to suggest that it is much harder to err o...

I have had a number of conversations with entrepreneurs recently where it became clear that their own personal dislike for email/twitter/Facebook/mobile notifications stood in the way of growth. It would be nice to think that you could build a service that is so awesome that everyone who discovers it will (a) instantly get all their friends to use it and (b) keep coming back all the time. But that rarely happens. Instead, there is a lot more evidence to suggest that it is much harder to err o...

I am excited on many levels to see Google release Google+. First, it was about time that Facebook faced some head on competition. If nothing else it will make Facebook better. Competition is a healthy thing. Second, I like the idea of trying a different cut on how to organize people and relationships. We have had friends and followers, groups and lists, and now we have circles (incidentally, Etsy has had circles for a while). There are two important issues that I am really curious about when ...

I am excited on many levels to see Google release Google+. First, it was about time that Facebook faced some head on competition. If nothing else it will make Facebook better. Competition is a healthy thing. Second, I like the idea of trying a different cut on how to organize people and relationships. We have had friends and followers, groups and lists, and now we have circles (incidentally, Etsy has had circles for a while). There are two important issues that I am really curious about when ...

The latest salvo in the fight for owning users’ identities revolves around URLs. Google just earlier this week promoted profile search and with it URLs of the form http://www.google.com/profiles/awenger (when I signed up for gmail a long time ago I thought shorter would be better – now wish I had chosen albertwenger, as I have on most other services). Facebook is clearly getting ready to launch their version more broadly and is apparently asking users whether they would pay to have a specific...

The latest salvo in the fight for owning users’ identities revolves around URLs. Google just earlier this week promoted profile search and with it URLs of the form http://www.google.com/profiles/awenger (when I signed up for gmail a long time ago I thought shorter would be better – now wish I had chosen albertwenger, as I have on most other services). Facebook is clearly getting ready to launch their version more broadly and is apparently asking users whether they would pay to have a specific...