The Wall Street Journal reports that Google will tomorrow announce more “social” features to Gmail, such as status updates and sharing content. Considering that Gmail is a primary, free email service, this is a really great innovation for consumers. It also threatens dominant, dedicated social networks like Facebook and Twitter unless they too can be integrated into the Gmail social streams. Hopefully they will be.

What about mobile? Currently, Gmail can be accessed by every major mobile platform through IMAP setting, but I think that a social Gmail would require an entirely new application to utilize more rich functionality. This provides Google an opportunity to differentiate Android with a best-in-class social Gmail experience and extend its presence on other phones like Blackberry and iPhone with must-have social Gmail applications — like it has with Google Maps.

At risk will be those computer and mobile applications like TweetDeck and Tweetie that already aggregate social feeds like a social Gmail would, but don’t provide that core email service to complement. Also at risk are mobile check-in applications like Foursquare, which would have a hard time competing with a social Gmail mobile application that has the same GPS functionality and services (maybe without the gaming/novelty component).

Speaking of services, this is where a social Gmail mobile application could really excel. With its recent acquisition of AdMob, Google is ramping up the mobile advertisement services. By drawing from a pool of data drawn from a connected social network, email and search, the ad services could be incredibly targeted and sink the competition.

Social Gmail may be an evolutionary step for the email platform, but it could be revolutionary for Google’s mobile strategy.

Let me preface this post by reminding folks that IANAL (I am not a lawyer).

Example of White House Flickr Photo

The U.S. government policy on photographs and copyright is pretty straightfoward: photos produced by federal employees as part of their job responsibilities are “not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no U.S. copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works, distribution, performance, or display of the work.”

Why, then, is the Obama White House asserting that no one but “news organizations” can use its Flickr photos? Why is it asserting that manipulation is prohibited? Why is it asserting that photos may not be used in “commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House”?

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I came across Robert Darnton’s beautifully articulated essay collection, The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future (2009), while looking for a book to review for class. Darnton’s book intrigued me from the first glance. Aside from the effective title, its warmly designed, aptly metaphorical cover drew me in, inviting me to flip through its pages. This is an experience that is unlikely to be matched by a digitized copy downloaded via the Internet, to be read on an electronic device.

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After turning off all site comments on Tuesday, AOL-owned Engadget today flipped the comment switch back on, ending a two-day hiatus resulting from its editors seeing too many comments that were “mean, ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening in some situations.”

Engadget columnist Michael Gartenberg expressed his discontent with the comments that followed his recent iPad editorial in a Tweet: “Amused. Bash me on @Engadget column. Suggest my parents were not married prior to birth, suggest I be fruitful & multiply. enclose your CV.”

With traditional news outlets declining and enthusiast blogs like Engadget on the rise, the implications of closing comments reflect how the stampede of online discourse can sometimes be too much for even mature, full-time blogs to endure. According to Alexa, Engadget today ranks 195 in the nation and 384 in the world for Internet traffic. It recently launched mobile applications for iPhone and Blackberry. It produces its own weekly podcasts and monthly TV shows (Edited per Zack’s comment). This is a full-time media company in all respects and an influential one at that – The AFP wrote a story on Engadget’s comment disabling.

Engadget editor Joshua Topolsky explains why things got out of hand in a Tweet: “I don’t think it’s about the class of the readership, it’s about scale.”

Scale is certainly an issue, but it shouldn’t excuse community behavior. Especially for a technology site like Engadget, you’d think that its die-hard community would be populated by primarily educated (either by trade or academically) and at least civil readers. Surely most are, but what caused Engadget to call “time-out” demonstrates how online media-enabled free speech can unveil the worst in us. Read more…

For years, I only knew of George Lucas’ 1977 cinematic sci-fi breakthrough as “Star Wars.”  Then I found out that it was part of a trilogy. But wait, Lucas had a plan all along; this tale of an oppressed rag-tag alliance looking to overturn a hierarchical, monopolistic political system (aka “The Empire”) was always meant to be “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.”

Of course, in a multi-part saga, if the good guys get their way initially, the Empire is always going to have to Strike Back to make it a good story. When I read Groundswell co-author Josh Bernoff’s The Splinternet Means the End of the Web’s Golden Age, that’s what immediately came to mind.

We’ve been declaring an end to media monopolies for a while now, thanks to networked communities who no longer require institutional intermediaries to share, collaborate or take collective action.  This ability to produce and consume media for almost free threatened the very economic model that media moguls had taken to the bank for over a century. As I made my own transition from corporate media journalist to independent content creator, I took advantage of new, inexpensive tools that we saw as the great democratizer of production.

Apple was part of this rebellion, helping us to crash through the barriers to entry with the digital weaponry of firewire, USB, Final Cut Pro, iDVD — this filmmaker’s “secret plans to the Death Star,” so to speak.  As digital content proliferated, The Empire writhed in agony, from The New York Times to Conde Nast to NBC, desperately in search of new business models.  Now, with renewed focus on pay walls and walled gardens, Bernoff sees Apple’s new iPad as the turning point as we leave the Web’s hopeful first age of universality and openness:

…[M]ore and more of the interesting stuff on the Web is hidden behind a login and password. Take Facebook for example. Not only do its applications not work anywhere else, Google can’t see most of it. And News Corp. and the New York Times are talking about putting more and more content behind a login…Each new device has its own ad networks, format, and technology. Each new social site has its login and many hide content from search engines. Read more…

In December 2007, Jim Manis founded the Bellevue-based Mobile Giving Foundation to establish an infrastructure for mobile charitable giving. After the earthquake in Haiti, the Mobile Giving Foundation worked to support more than 20 nonprofit organizations and helped set up high-profile campaigns for Wyclef Jean’s Yéle Foundation and the Clinton Foundation Haiti Relief Fund.

Why do you think the appeal to donate to Haiti by texting has been so successful?

It was a powerful message replicated across all communication platforms for the benefit of major charities. Texting provides an immediate way for a person to respond. It’s a powerful medium to take action.

Its success builds on a few factors. Mobile giving reaches an addressable audience of 260 million cell phone users. As a country, we send billions of text messages a year. The technology has become ubiquitous. Because of the work we’ve been doing, the infrastructure and technology were in place when the earthquake struck Haiti, and agreements were pre-negotiated with the carriers. And the billing aspect is appealing because it doesn’t require the use of a credit card.

Hasn’t this technology been around for a while? What has changed since the tsunami in 2004?

When the Asian tsunami hit, two things were relatively new: Read more…

At this point most people are pretty tired of hearing about the iPad.  Those that love it keep raving about it, and those that are dissapointed just want people to stop talking about it.  However, I think it’s good to explore exactly why the iPad won’t revolutionize the computer market – and never really had a chance to (even if it had all of features most people expected).

The iPad won’t revolutionize the market simply because it doesn’t solve a problem or fulfill a need that wasn’t being fulfilled before.  Apple has certainly released revolutionary products in the past.  The iPod brought the ability to listen to digital files on the go.  iTunes allowed people to download music legally and safely.  The iPhone created a market for mobile applications that wasn’t there before.  These products all created a market because they were actually useful.  The iPad, however cool it may be, simply doesn’t do anything new.  Anything I can do on an iPad I can do with one of my other computers.

If you are interested in video or music, Archos, a little known brand in the United States, has been making similar media devices for years.  If you want the iPad for the e-reader aspect, the Kindle is much cheaper (costs half the price, you don’t have to pay extra for 3G, and books are cheaper as well).  If you want mobile apps, the iPhone and iPod touch provide what you need.  All the iPad does is combine a few features from scattered devices.  It doesn’t actually do anything new.

Price is huge factor here as well.  $500 for the base model is a lot of money for what you are getting.  People have become so used to Apple products being expensive that they think this price point is cheap.  It’s not.  iPods and iTunes media sell at accessible price points, which is another reason they were able to create a new market.  This product isn’t accessible to the general public at this price point, especially because it doesn’t actually provide you with a function that your other devices can’t do.

The reality is we don’t need a new way to consume media right now.  I’m happy with my iPhone, laptop, and 46″ HDTV.  Carrying around yet another device isn’t appealing to me – especially since it doesn’t replace my iPhone.  If the iPad had a camera, GPS, supported Flash, and cost $100 less, I might say it is worth purchasing (but still wouldn’t call it revolutionary).  As it is, it’s a neat gadget for rich people.  Nothing more.

Down in Half Moon Bay, Robert Scoble started a discussion on Sunday about the value of “creation” versus “curation” — a discussion centered around Wednesday’s media event at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino. Should he attend the Steve Jobs press event and “create” original copy, an eye-witness report? Or should he sit in Half Moon Bay and “curate” news and commentary for his readers? Which path would add the most value?

Curation is a buzz word in journalism and social media circles. I don’t think that curating digital content — news and information — is the same as curating an exhibit of Degas. On the web, we don’t want to see the entirety of each artifact: each article, Tweet, video and op-ed that, in this case, Robert might use to provide us with his unique point of view on Apple’s newest gadget. Instead, we want Robert to pull the best bits (no pun intended) and synthesize them into a coherent narrative.

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