Can established software giants — Microsoft, Apple, even Google — get “the social web”? From Microsoft, we have the ignored “social” tab on the Zune; from Google, the death of Wave (less than a year) and lackluster response to Buzz.

Apple joined the foray yesterday. I asked on Twitter if we really need a new social network, a niche one for music:

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Smartphone apps are hot-hot-hot! Check out this treasure trove on the iPhone, Blackberry and Android (all from Slideshare.net). Inspired by Sam (Communication Desideratum, @comdj)

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I was a little exorcised last night when I read about Google and Verizon possibly two-timing the FCC on net neutrality. In the middle of industry/FCC discussion (at least nine meetings in seven weeks), Google and Verizon reportedly reached a deal to privilege YouTube bits.

My gut response was along the lines of “so this is what ‘do no evil’ means?”

I wrote about this at TheModerateVoice and syndicated the essay on Newsvine. The TMV post was featured in TheHill’s morning reads. (Blatant self-promotion.) Woot! Read more…

Will Richmond (FierceMobile) tackles AntennaGate today. I didn’t see his referenced Steve Jobs quote when I went looking for facts-and-data on Friday, but I think it sums up the state of much of what passes for “news” on the web today:

Sometimes I feel that in search of eyeballs for these web sites, people don’t care about what they leave in their wake.

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The advice is so old that it is trite: to conduct an effective crisis communications campaign, communicators have to be present and conversant in the channels/communities/media where they need to talk to people before disaster hits.

And a second piece of advice is also so tired that it seems trite: secure your company’s brand name whenever there’s a new technology. With web sites, I was advising folks in the mid-90s to secure the .com, .org and .net associated with their names … as well as logical “spoof” names. And that was when it cost bucks to secure names!

But it seems no one at BP had taken either adage to heart before last month’s explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

@BPGlobalPR, A Spoof Twitter Account

In researching Business Week’s top 100 brands, I learned last year that BP had lost @bp, legitimately, to Brian Pendelton. The company has owned @BP_America since 12 August 2008, but didn’t really use the account until this month. This week someone began making hay with @BPGlobalPR (established 19 May 2010). In fact, although the account is less than a week old, it has three times as many followers as @BP_America.

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Yesterday it felt to me like rabbits were at work and their progeny was Facebook privacy apps. Four crossed my screen within a space of hours: Privacy Check, ProfileWatch.org, ReclaimPrivacy.org and SaveFace. The first three are useful in helping identify the types of Facebook information that have made it to the public web, but they aren’t helpful in the shades-of-gray publicness that comes from tweaking “friends of friends” and “friends and networks” settings. The fourth is a giant reset button. Here’s what I found out about each.

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This morning, @biz (Biz Stone) and @ev (Evan Williams) kicked off Twitter’s first official developer conference, Chirp, with some facts and data and a stunning announcement related to the Library of Congress.

First, the numbers. There are 105.8 million registered users but 180 million monthly unique visitors to the website. The deduction: non-registered users read tweets. And we know that registered users read tweets primarily from other devices. Williams noted that Twitter is currently handling 3 billion requests a day; this API-driven traffic is equivalent to Yahoo, he said, noting that no other major service is this distributed.

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I own Apple stock, but I’m not lining up at my local Apple store this weekend or waiting with bated breath for the UPS or FedX guy to show up at my door. Why not? Read more…