Remember the mishap around Buzz? It’s been a few months since then. You’d think someone will learn something after all that buzz. As I was saying, this can be an interesting case study. According to Marissa’a post, the answer to the above question is “…art, the art of a homepage”. Noble idea to support the artists and their work, wrong strategy. And wrong execution. White page got “binged“.

The blog post reads “Due to a bug, the explanatory link did not appear for most users.” You’d think Google spent quite a bit of effort and money on this experiment. And all went wrong because of one single link ? Google cannot get one single link right on the homepage?

One thing is certain: Google is far from getting social. Even more, it makes you wonder what’s next? Your Gmail or your whole search history go public? Too bad.

Here’s my version of the homepage art. Back to my real case study.

What an amazing way to start a new day! I have summarized a few soundbites worth sharing:

• There are two types of economies: a regular one and a digital one.
• Facebook accounts for 5 per cent of all Internet traffic.
• Everything that was offline, will be online.
• Everything will be localized to you.
• Search is be personal. The focus is you. See my previous post - right on!
• If everything is in the cloud, Chrome OS should be fast. Not more going down for coffee until the computer reboots.
• Innovation is dirt cheap!
• The only bottleneck is …imagination!

A mind-blowing reality: Google has the power to change the world through innovation. That’s the power to Think Infinite.

The first two coordinates of this circle are me and …myself! It may be the BETA feature.

In the long run, yes, it might steal some of Twitter’s chirp, however I see Buzz more of a Gmail add-on. And Gmail does not own the webmail space.

And chances are you’ll be busy emailing your friends on Facebook soon.

So think about this: if Buzz does not make it above a certain noise level, Google’s social credibility is gone. And that might just kill Wave too.

Brilliant strategy, Goog!
Happy tweeting my friends!

I have summarized a few sound bites from this session that went on for almost two hours.

George Colony, Forrester Research, on customers interactions:

• 1% of consumers consult a corporate blog
• 8% of consumers follow or fan companies

How will “social” change leadership? It creates an obligation to listen. You should be good, because in the future everyone will know about you.

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn, on social networking themes:

• How do you get robust connections between people?
• How do you get transparency of information?
• How to think about web 2.0? What happens when every person has an online identity and is a participant?

Owen Van Natta, MySpace:

• Distribution of content is happening much more through people, as opposed to a limited number of portals

Gina Bianchini, Ning:

• In 2009 people spent three times the amount of time on social sites than they had in the prior year

Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics:

• Young people are giving away their personal information too much
• Thousands of people will not get their dream job this year because their employer did the reference check on Facebook

Evan Williams, Twitter: Twitter is looking to do three things:

• filtering and discovering engine
• generating of content and having influence over others
• building relationships of all types

Tim Berners-Lee:

• We need to study web as a scientific discipline, we need people to study social networks
• It is fascinating how a meme spreads across Twitter.

…it is, indeed. Here’s the full session on YouTube:

Let me tell ya – working together with talented folks like Daniele Rossi, John Leschinski and Tommy Vallier has been an exciting, “open-source” experience!

Go check out the PodCamp Toronto 2010 site! Subscribe to our feed or grab the podcast.

I am looking forward to seeing you there on February 20 and 21. It will be fun! If you are new to PodCamp Toronto, here is the elevator pitch:

PodCamp Toronto 2010 is a FREE “unconference” bringing together professionals and hobbyists from Toronto and the surrounding area to explore the cutting edge of new and social media. If you are an online content creator – hobbist and professionals – who are building communities online in a variety of ways, then PodCamp Toronto 2010 is for you. Share ideas, discuss theories and learn lessons from an audience of experts. Network, network, network. All are welcome. Join us!

The official hash tag is #pcto2010

Funny story: JobConnect is a government funded program offered by St. Stephen Community House. I have met some of the folks over at SSCH on my third day after moving to Canada, many years ago. Lots of good memories. Phillip my friend, where are you now?

Possible advice: pay attention to domain names, it’s not a joke. If you really need such a shortcut URL, it’s not too late to own one. Be creative. Here’s my own example which, of course, I love it: urllr.com/goog

In order for me to measure the latter, I did a bit of ego searching.

Disclosure: I have used a freshly installed browser to conduct this search and take the screen capture – Opera for Mac, no cookies, no previous similar searches, no account history, nothing that could have altered the search results page (SERP).

According to the White Pages (I have no reasons to show up there), I am one of the few “Baldeans” in North America, and certainly there are many more in the world. So yes, I’m pretty happy with the current SERP, so far: my main site, my blog, my LinkedIn profile, my Facebook page, my tweets and some of my pictures.

How do you want to be found? How do you measure your personal branding? What do you want people to think of ya?

Here is something to think about: Goldman Sachs made the headlines quite often over the last few months. Have you ever wondered why Goldman Sachs does not have a list of job openings on their careers web site? Because they know talent does not hang out every day on their corporate web site.

Now, why do you think they have recently acquired a stake in LinkedIn? Aha. That’s why. They know they need to be present in this place, listening and watching for skilled prospects. And Goldman Sachs is not the only company.

When did you last update your profile?

What really struck me was more than a dozen of good profiles with absolutely no contact information: no email, no website, no portfolio, nothing. I was looking for a web savvy person, not a doctor.

How can that be? Why bother creating a detailed online resume if you provide no means of contact what so ever?

If you have created your profile just because you have received ten invites from your colleagues and people you know or if you are just trying to “score” connections, set some time aside and update your profile. Be real and transparent, you have nothing to hide or to loose.

As a side note, other questions came to mind: how can you improve your keyword search results, so that your personal profile shows up on top of the list? What does “keyword relevance” actually mean for LinkedIn?

Later that day, I find out the “book” is available over in iTunes, as an audio book. Narrated by Seth Godin himself. For less than $1. Genius! And a Kindle version is in the works with Amazon, too.

So, I paid $23 for the book – paper and audio. Now I want to consume it as soon as possible. Where do I start?

The little one was napping in the his stroller for about an hour now, in the park, while I found myself noting my head several times *listening* to Godin reading the book for me!

I got home and could not wait to pick up the “book” and continue “reading” it, starting directly on page 52.

Knowing my limited time, I hope to be able to finish reading or listening to it over the next couple of days. I can do that while I’m driving or sitting on the train.

Seth, thanks for making me feel part of your “tribe”, I consider myself being lucky. On the same note, I have met *in person* at least three of the sneezers (have you read Purple Cow?) that got their picture printed on the back cover. After all, I have learned about this amazing book through a podcast I’m subscribed to. That’s another “tribe”.

Watch the whole video: