John Battelle's Searchblog

JANUARY 3, 2010

2010 will mark the beginning of the end of US dominance of the web. 2010 will see a major privacy brouhaha , not unlike the AOL search debacle but around social and/or advertising related data. 2010 will see the rise of an open gaming platform , much as 2009 was the year of an open phone platform (Android). Google will take most of the brand blame, but also do the most to address the issue in 2010. Related: 2009 Predictions. 2009 How I Did. 2008 Predictions.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

DECEMBER 27, 2010

Related: Predictions 2010. So how did I do for 2010? To the results: Prediction #1: 2010 will mark the beginning of the end of US dominance of the web. I think this clearly happened in 2010. Prediction #3: 2010 will see a major privacy brouhaha, not unlike the AOL search debacle but around social and/or advertising related data. 2010 will be remembered as the year privacy took center stage. Prediction #6: 2010 will see the rise of an open gaming platform.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

DECEMBER 22, 2010

Predictions 2010 I'll be getting to this in a post later this week. The 2010 Web2 Summit Theme: Points of Control Introducing the theme of this year's event. This has become something of a tradition at Searchblog (well, OK, it's the second time in three years), in which I review the year in posts and note those of which I am particularly proud. For me it's a way to remember what I've been on about, and catalog some of my sketches for further work (perhaps as a book, ahem ).

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Daradiction

MARCH 5, 2010

South by Southwest. Austin calls again. Last year was all time. This year should be even better. I’ll be there from March 11-19th, will you? I’m on a panel too talking about the “ RoadTwip &# we took across America last year. Here’s the event info–> [link

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John Battelle's Searchblog

NOVEMBER 17, 2010

One of these days, I'm going to figure out how to publish a real live playlist, one that links to real music, but for whatever reason, I never seem to be able to. If you guys have an easy way to do it, please let me know. I've tried a few services and they fail me, or, perhaps more aptly, I fail at them. Anyway, here's a screengrab of the playlist I used at the Web 2 Summit this year. I always pick music that has inspired me during the preparation for the event, which takes a good ten months.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

MARCH 21, 2010

For 2010, Web 2 will focus on the chess game in which all of these companies are now engaged, a battle to gain the upper hand in crucial "points of control" across the Internet Economy. Each year at the Web 2 Summit , Tim and I try to focus our program on an overarching theme that we believe best sums up the year ahead. This is never easy to do - the event is still eight months away.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

JUNE 8, 2010

Internet Trends 2010 by Morgan Stanley Research View more presentations from CM Summit: Marketing in Real Time The most tweeted Slideshare of the show so far is Mary's presentation. Here it is for your reading pleasure!

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John Battelle's Searchblog

DECEMBER 17, 2010

In the current issue of the New Yorker, columnist James Surowiecki, who I generally admire, gets it exactly wrong when it comes to Groupon. He writes: " But it seems unlikely that it’s going to become a revolutionary company, along the lines of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google.Groupon, by contrast, is a much more old-school business. It doesn’t have any obvious technological advantage. Its users don’t really do anything other than hit the “buy” button.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

DECEMBER 11, 2010

This past week I spent a fair amount of time in New York, meeting with smart folks who collectively have been responsible for funding and/or starting companies as varied as DoubleClick, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, Federated Media (my team), and scores of others. I also met with some very smart execs at American Express, a company that has a history of innovation, in particular as it relates to working with startups in the Internet space.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Are we are evolving our contract with society through our increasing interactions with digital platforms, and in particular, through what we've come to call the web? I believe the answer is yes. I'm fascinated with how our society's new norms and mores are developing - as well as the architectural patterns which emerge as we build what, at first blush, feels like a rather chaotic jumble of companies, platforms, services, devices and behaviors.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

OCTOBER 12, 2010

Today I was in a meeting with a number of consultants to a very large technology company. Their job: market research, essentially. They called to ask me my thoughts on the media and technology world, in particular as it might play out in the next five or so years. They were responsible for helping the Fortune 50 company navigate an increasingly complicated world.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

One of the many reasons I find Twitter fascinating is that the company seems endlessly at an inflection point. Eighteen months ago I was tracking its inflection point in usage (holy shit, look how it's growing! Then, holy shit, has it stopped ?!), then its inflection in business model (hey, it doesn't have one ! Wait, yes it does, but can it scale ?!),

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John Battelle's Searchblog

MAY 31, 2010

I think my prediction was right in the short term (when the iPad was announced, nearly everyone was disappointed at what it wasn't, see the headlines from January, above), and I was totally wrong in the medium term (the thing has sold two million plus and probably has a shot at being Time magazine's "man of the year" for 2010).

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John Battelle's Searchblog

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

( image ) Today I landed from a trip to the world of the non-tech obsessed (PA and OH) to find my newsfeed was full of speculation that Google MUST buy Twitter , or be damned to obscurity in a race its already losing to Facebook. Not so fast. Here's my simple reasoning for why Google won't buy Twitter: Twitter won't sell.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

DECEMBER 2, 2010

I 'm usually the last guy to know, and the first to admit it, but is RSS really dead? I keep seeing posts claiming Twitter and Facebook have essentially replaced RSS as the way folks filter their news these days, but I for one am still addicted to my RSS client (it's Shrook , for anyone who still cares). Perhaps RSS isn't dead, but instead it's professionalizing. It's the Beta to the VHS of Twitter.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

JULY 19, 2010

The media really, really, really loves to write about Apple and the iPhone these days. It reminds me of Google in 2004, when the media fell in love with the concept of search. Besides the antennae story, which I find hopelessly over reported, the latest iPhone rhapsody has been how many iPhone 4s Apple has sold - apparently, 3 million as of last Friday. Friday was July 16th. The iPhone 4 launched on June 24, so that'd be 23 days to reach the 3 million mark.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

NOVEMBER 19, 2010

This third conversation with Mark Zuckerberg was, to my mind, the best so far, and YouTube seems to agree, as it's got more plays than nearly any other save Eric Schmidt (who was featured by YouTube on the homepage). See if you agree

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John Battelle's Searchblog

JULY 8, 2010

I'm sure you've noticed, but there's a major battle underway for the hearts and minds of what we, in this industry, broadly call "developers." Often the term is used quite strictly, to mean actual coders who build actual software-driven applications, services, or websites. Other times the term is more loosely applied, meaning "companies that build stuff" or "partners of platform X or service Y.".

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John Battelle's Searchblog

DECEMBER 2, 2010

Yesterday's post on Google having an algorithmic "opinion" about which reviews were negative or positive sparked a thoughtful response from Matt Cutts, Google's point person on search quality, and for me raised a larger question about Google's past, present, and future. In his initial comment (which is *his* opinion, not Google's, I am sure), Cutts remarked: ".the the "opinion" in that sentence refers to the fact our web search results are protected speech in the First Amendment sense.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

JUNE 9, 2010

I' ve written extensively about iAds here and here , and one question I raised has to do with Apple's policies with regard to third party data and ad networks, in particular AdMob. As All Things Digital notes today , Apple this week "clarified" its policy with regard to third party networks, and it's hard to read it as anything other than a direct declaration of war with Google. In short, third party ad networks can run in AppWorld, but only if they are "independent".

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Hunton Privacy

MARCH 22, 2010

On March 17, 2010, the French Data Protection Authority (the “CNIL”) published a report concerning on-site inspections and outlined its objectives for the coming year.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

APRIL 17, 2010

Dear Apple: We miss you. Once upon a time, back before you got real popular , you used to take part in the public square. You may have been less forthcoming than most, but at least your employees would speak at industry events, have unscripted conversations with journalists, and engage in the world a bit here and there. But over the past few years, things seem to have changed. You pulled out of MacWorld and began hosting your own strictly scripted events.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

JULY 10, 2010

( image ) I just reviewed this presentation from Paul Adams , research lead for social at Google (embedded below). He works on Buzz and YouTube, and presumably, whatever is next from Google, including the rumored "Google Me.". His presentation is good, and worthy of your time if you are interested in the impact of social media on culture and business. Note, however, that it's clearly biased against Facebook, coming as it does from Google.

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JKevinParker

AUGUST 28, 2012

Check out the SharePoint 2010 CSS Reference Chart from Heather Solomon. It is a great tool for anyone doing branding and user interface design for SharePoint 2010. branding CSS design reference SharePoint SharePoint 2010 UI

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Hunton Privacy

FEBRUARY 23, 2010

After several delays and revisions, the Massachusetts information security regulations, entitled “Standards for the Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonwealth,” will take effect on March 1, 2010. The regulations apply to entities that own or license personal information about Massachusetts residents.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

From the S1: "For the year ended December 31, 2009 and the six months ended June 30, 2010, we reported revenue of $198 million and $114 million, respectively. 114 million in the first half of 2010 is impressive, and that's before Q4, which for most media companies comprises 40% or more of annual revenue. It's been nearly a month since Demand filed its S1 , and I promised you all a longer look after my initial posting.

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Hunton Privacy

APRIL 19, 2010

On April 8, 2010, the Digital Economy Act (the “Act”), containing provisions relating to online copyright infringement, network infrastructure and digital safety, became law in the UK. The final text of the Act , which was published on April 12, 2010, may be accessed on the website of the Office of Public Sector Information.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Wow, I've never seen this before. Check out Google's post , responding to the New York Times story about a bad actor who had figured out a way to make a living leveraging what he saw as holes in Google's approach to ranking. How Google ranks is the subject of increasing scrutiny, including and particularly in Europe.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

JUNE 1, 2010

and I mean that. Watching Jobs work his way through nearly 90 minutes of interview and audience questions , I really felt, for the first time, a sense of how strongly the guy feels for his work and his products. Then again, I found myself angry, several times. Angry when he championed the press as crucial to democracy, and implied the iPad would save our country from "descending into a nation of bloggers" (my view: we started as a nation of bloggers - pamphleteers like Thomas Paine).

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John Battelle's Searchblog

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

ATD is reporting that Google is offering well more than twice what had been previously offered - $6 billion, instead of $2.5 billion. That sounds more like it. As I wrote yesterday, $2.5 billion sounded very low for this particular asset. And this from the guy who thought YouTube was overpriced.). Clearly, that leak to Vator.tv last weekend was timed to push a deal point, I'm guessing. Key to this deal is Marissa Mayer, who recently took over local for Google and was promoted to boot.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

OCTOBER 29, 2010

( image ) Recently I was watching television with my wife, a baseball game if memory serves, when an advertisement caught my eye. It was for a regional restaurant chain (not a national one like Jack in the Box). The ad was pretty standard fare - a call to action (go now!) and a clear value proposition: the amazing amount of tasty-looking food you could have for a bargain price.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

JULY 14, 2010

I've written before about my relationship with Foursquare , and I'm sure I will again. I've tweeted my complaint that the "friend" mechanism is poorly instrumented (in various ways), and I should note that this is certainly not just a Foursquare problem (more on "Friendstrimentation" shortly). But today I wanted to build on my earlier post, " My Location Is a Box of Cereal ," and Think Out Loud a bit about what I'd really like to do on Foursquare: I'd like to check into a state of mind.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Mary has been giving an overview of the capital markets at Web 2 for seven years running, and this one, framed as lessons for CEOs of Internet companies, is a gem

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John Battelle's Searchblog

AUGUST 26, 2010

I was struck by this headline from TechCrunch: Has Google Purged Places Of Yelp? All Signs Point To Yes. The story is rather pedestrian - yet another dispute between a content and community service with the all powerful Google. Sure, it's Yelp, but at the end of the day, it's another company who has run afoul of the distribution giant, and is a bit confused by how things seem to be playing out. It's like Google isn't playing by the rules that, well, that created Google.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

I'm very proud of a new platform launched today by American Express: Currency. Sometimes when a brand embraces the concept of truly being a publisher, they align with strong voices around the web, underwriting existing properties and helping them create new sections or services. But every once in a while, a brand realizes that its marketing goals align with a very real need in the marketplace, one that for whatever reason hasn't been addressed. That's how Currency came to be.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

SEPTEMBER 1, 2010

as far as I can tell, they in fact don't ever meet. You can't leverage your networks on Facebook and Twitter in Ping. It's another closed Apple system, another Apple universe in a gilded gift box. It's not that Apple hates the web, it's just that Apple is better than the web. Apple doesn't need it. It seems Apple has it all figured out. I am sure Ping will get traction because it'll be fun, and if it truly helps folks discover more music, so much the better for all (especially iTunes sales).

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John Battelle's Searchblog

APRIL 22, 2010

Regular readers may recall one this prediction for 2010 : Google will make a corporate decision to become seen as a software brand rather than as "just a search engine." Yesterday a reporter from Cnet called and asked me a few provocative questions. He was writing a piece on Google as a marketer, and wanted my point of view.

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John Battelle's Searchblog

MARCH 5, 2010

Why should Foursquare in 2010 be any different? Way back in November of 2003, when I was a much younger man and the world had yet to fall head over heels in love with Google, I wrote a post called The Database of Intentions. It was an attempt to explain a one-off reference in an earlier post - but not much earlier, as the "DBoI" post, as I call it, was just the sixty-third post of my then-early blogging career. This is the 5,142 nd , by comparison.).

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John Battelle's Searchblog

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

Today's big rumor, so far at least, is that Google may be buying Groupon for a reported $2.5 billion. This sale has been rumored for some time, but the figure - and story - is based on a rather thin piece by VatorNews which broke early this morning. The headline is honest in its lack of, er, definitiveness - Google buys Groupon for $2.5 billion? - but it does claim one "reliable source.". Whether or not this story plays out, my first thought was that the company is worth far more than $2.5

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John Battelle's Searchblog

MAY 13, 2010

From the IAB release on first quarter 2010: Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. billion for the first quarter of 2010, representing a 7.5 You already knew this if you read my Predictions for 2010 , #9 hit $5.9 percent increase over the same period in 2009, according to the numbers released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). This marks the highest first-quarter revenue level ever for the industry.

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