I had lunch with Dave Morin of Facebook today (he’s one of the key guys on the application platform) and that led to some brainstorming about what would happen if Facebook were to open up a hotel or casino. Watch my Kyte video for that (embedded on this post).

But, in other news, someone just attacked me for my use of Facebook. Says I treat it as a “one way” medium to push out content to my unsuspecting friends.

Such a claim isn’t worth a link or acknowledgement because it demonstrates a total misunderstanding of how Facebook works.

What do I mean? It’s impossible to treat Facebook as a one-way medium. Here’s why: when I sign into Facebook I don’t see the stuff I’ve published on my home page. No, instead I see a bunch of stuff my friends have published.

Here, try it yourself. Sign into Facebook and visit the “home page” which is where your News Feed is.

Do you see anything you published yourself? I don’t.

I see a link from Teresa Klein. I see Ryan Westrom writing on my wall. I see Eric Auchard backsliding onb his vacation. I see Scott Westerman posting Jeremiah Owyang’s White Paper. I see Jeremy Wagstaff and Walt Mossberg joining a group for the Wall Street Journal Online. Tom Conrad is attending Coda. Chris Messina posted a news story. Dave Davison joined the group Nobody for President. Dave Morin wrote on my wall. Ken Kaplan added “people” to his interests. Jeff Grosse commented on Kevin Dugan’s video. Andrew Bourland sent me a gift. And on and on and on.

I read this feed a lot more than I think about writing on my blog lately.

What’s even more interesting is how Facebook picks stuff from my 4,775 friends to put on my wall.

Dave told me there’s a set of algorithms that keep track of which friends of yours are closer friends to you than others. For instance, if you write on someone’s wall, you’ll get more of their items. I’ll do some other tests to reverse engineer the News Feed’s algorithm a bit.

Anyway, back to the idea of a Facebook Hotel.

Think about how a business would change if it knew every one of its customers had a Facebook account.

I was thinking of a hotel/casino where when I walked in the iPod in the room was playing the music that I had set as my favorite on my Facebook profile. The digital screens in my room had all my photos and some random photos from my friends. My favorite movies and TV shows were on the video device. The bar knew my favorite drink and how I liked it made.

That got me thinking about how I’d change my business after I knew everything about my customers.

Thought of the day.

Oh, one thing? In my Facebook Hotel anyone who just attacks me would be deleted. So, if that’s your idea of fun, hang out somewhere else cause I’m starting to delete comments from people who don’t add any value here. Get your own blog if all you want to do is attack me.

This is not a blog.

Heh. I’m SO enjoying the blog break. I think I’ll keep it going for a few more days cause I’m not ready to come back. More on that when I get back.

Tonight, though, I dropped by BarCamp Block and got some historical video so wanted to point that out. Historical in that I aimed my Mac’s camera at a few of the people who started the BarCamp movement. Tantek Celik, Jeff Lindsay, and Ross Mayfield, among others. If you don’t know about Kyte.tv it lets me turn on my Mac’s camera and record conversations without special equipment and without getting people to be TOO goofy. Although Ross Mayfield, founder of SocialText (where the first BarCamp was held) gets a bit goofy for my Mac. Yes, this was AFTER the BarCamp party where free drinks were liberally handed out.

If you are missing the BarCampBlock that’s going on now you really are missing something special. I didn’t attend Saturday’s sessions because Maryam and I were at a birthing class having our own educational experience. When I arrived tons of people told me I had missed the best BarCamp ever. That’s saying something because there’s been more than 200 BarCamps all over the world and it all started here. Read Brian Solis’ account to see just how special it is. He writes “The second anniversary of Barcamp was nothing short of extraordinary.”

Speaking of BarCamp, thank you to HP. HP really tried to come through and open up the garage but they have agreements with the neighbors that they can’t break. I know that my blog earlier last week was sent all over the company. That said, watch my Kyte channel tomorrow for more news about the HP garage. I’m quite honored by what they did — they got 12 of my Facebook friends into see the garage, which, of course, we’ll film and share with you.

Oh, and don’t miss the video we put up last week on ScobleShow.

Scott Klemmer, assistant professor in the computer science department at Stanford. Could you get into Stanford and have a chat with a professor who works across the hall from where Google was started. 48 minutes with tons of info on the latest computer science research.

Marc Canter, founder of Macromedia. Among other things. An hour with Marc. Marc links to the things we talk about which are as varied as Jewish food to digital lifestyle aggregation. Don’t miss this one.

New companies: Palore and Magnify and more over on ScobleShow.com too.

Anyway, keep watching my Kyte.tv channel cause I’m having a lot of fun putting stuff up there.

More on BarCamp on Google Blog Search — there are several BarCamps going on right now around the world.

Anyway, see you in a few more days.

Oh, and tomorrow come and join us in Alameda for a Photowalking. Thomas Hawk has more details on that.

Dare Obasanjo says all he sees on his Facebook news feed is my stuff.

I’m sorry.

I get even with Dare, though. I added his blog post to my news feed so the rest of my 4,600 friends will see Dare’s post. :-)

UPDATE: I’m sitting next to Ryan Stewart (Adobe evangelist) at the Ignite Seattle event. He just signed into Facebook and only two of my items are on his Facebook news feed. So, maybe Dare needs better friends. Heheh.

UPDATE2: I changed many of my Facebook settings to only show most of my items to my friends. That should make it less “noisy” for other people.

You’ve heard the stories about how Microsoft and Bill Gates got the operating system business with IBM and how Gary Kildall and Digital Research lost the deal.

But I’ve always wondered about why Gary was out flying that day.

So when I got a chance to sit down with Gary Kildall’s best friend and FLYING PARTNER that day I jumped at the chance. That’s Tom Rolander who held a key role inside Digital Research (the folks who made CPM which, back before the IBM PC, was one of the most popular personal computer OS of the day — my dad had a CPM card for our Apple IIs so we could run software designed for it).

This is still the biggest business story in the tech industry. It is one that business school students will study for a long time.

It’s a story of arrogance. Legal misjudgments. Misjudging the players. And an abiding deep friendship that comes through.

If there’s a piece of video that will probably outlast me this is it.

Actually there’s four pieces. The first hour you meet Tom and hear the story of when IBM came to visit. That’s the interview that was put up today.

The second piece takes us to a restaurant where Tom tells lots of fun early industry stories.

The third piece takes us on a tour of Pacific Grove which is where Digital Research was located. We take you to the house where IBM visited Digital Research.

The fourth piece is where Tom introduces you to his new company, Crossloop, which is developing software to enable you to help others with their computer problems.

One interesting thing you’ll learn?

Bill Gates and Microsoft didn’t want the operating system business and sent IBM down to Digital Research.

Oh, and thank you to Tom and Mrinal Desai of Crossloop. He wrote me a few weeks ago on Facebook and said that his new boss was the one flying with Gary Kildall that fateful day.

Have you ever blown a multi-hundred-billion-dollar business deal? Me neither.

But now you can say you’ve met one of the guys who can say that.

Another thing you’ll learn? Why we all owe a debt of gratitude to Gary Kildall for the modern operating system architecture.

There’s a lot more, but it’s better just to watch the videos. Hope you find this as interesting as I do.

Oh, and if someone can post these to Gary Kildall’s wikipedia page, I’d be most grateful.

The beginning of the video brings introductions — I started filming the minute we got out of my car (you meet Buzz Bruggeman, CEO of ActiveWords, and Patrick Scoble, my son, and Mrinal). I think this is interesting stuff so we don’t edit it. The meat of the story starts up at about 16 minutes into the video, but I think you’ll find the rest of the conversation interesting. It’s one of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever been a part of.

About a month ago I found Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, and added him as a friend on my Facebook network. But he did something that is termed “FaceSlamming.” He didn’t add me as a friend to his Facebook network. How do you FaceSlam someone else?

Let’s look. Right now I have six friend requests. It asks me to “confirm” or “ignore” a friend request. If I ignore a friend request, I’ve “FaceSlammed” them. They won’t get a notice, but they’ll see that they aren’t getting added to my Facebook group and they won’t be able to see my videos or other content I’m putting into Facebook. Basically they wouldn’t get access to my walled garden.

Other people who’ve FaceSlammed me? Nick Denton of Gawker media. Heheh. The gestures one can throw at someone just by clicking “Ignore.” :-)

Anyway, how do you pick out the real Bill Gates on Facebook? (There are quite a few to choose from).

Well, I talk about that on a video on my Facebook Profile this morning. To get access to it you’ll need to Confirm our friendship. :-)

Well, I’ve been taking a lot of shots in the past few weeks for always covering the latest shiny social object. You know, first it was Twitter. Then Jaiku. Then Facebook. Pownce. On and on.

The critics say that either I’m late to the game, like with Facebook, or that I’m just too scattered and not looking for real value. Or that I don’t stay on one thing long enough to learn it well and add real value to my writings.

Fair enough. Although one thing I’d like to clear up. When I yammer on endlessly about Facebook that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped using any of the others. Twitter, for instance, is just a constant part of my life now.

Anyway, last night I was at the Facebook party aka “Lunch 2.0.” I met Mark Zuckerberg and his sister, Randi, and a ton of Facebook employees and executives. It is one of those parties that in about five years we’ll all be looking back on as a major inflection point in the valley. I stayed until the very end. In fact, even after the party ended a small group of us hang outside of Facebook’s offices and kept talking about what is going to happen in social networking.

One of the guys was John McCrea, vice president of marketing for Plaxo.

He told me that on Monday Plaxo i sgoing to turn on a new version. Ahh, a new “shiny social object.”

But then he explained why we should care: Plaxo is going to open up a new social network that’s both open as well as controllable. Translation: Plaxo is making a play for Facebook.

First, let’s go back to Facebook. Why does everyone say it’s a “walled garden?” Because you can’t get to data stored on Facebook unless you’re a Facebook member. Two days ago I did a video for Chris Pirillo on Facebook. Chris instantly got excited and wanted to share that with his blog’s readers. But he couldn’t. That video is locked inside Facebook’s walled garden. If you don’t have a key (a Facebook account) you can’t see it.

John told me that on Monday Plaxo will come out with a social network that gets rid of the walled garden.

Why did I say a couple of weeks ago that Facebook is a “data roach motel?” Because I can put all sorts of information about myself into Facebook (I could, for instance, tell you that I like “Daft Punk.” But, do I own that data? Can I get it out of Facebook? No).

John told me that on Monday Plaxo will come out with a social network that lets me own my own data and take it out of Plaxo and put it on other social networks.

Finally, I’ve been getting a few complaints about what I’ve been doing with Facebook. By turning Facebook into a professional networking tool I’m causing problems for people who saw it as a social tool to keep in touch with their college friends. See, Facebook for the first three years of its existence was mostly a tool for college kids to pass photos and other funny things around. Now, if you have photos of your frat party at college do you really want your new boss and coworkers to see those? Probably not.

But Facebook isn’t controllable. You can’t really have two groups of friends. One group that sees your drunken college frat photos and another group that sees you making presentations to your board of directors.

John told me that on Monday Plaxo will come out with a social network that lets me control which groups of friends (or family) that can see certain items.

OK, sounds like Plaxo is going to kill Facebook and bring down Facebook’s value by a few billion dollars. The bubble 2.0 will end. Zuckerberg will drag his tail away from the valley defeated. Etc etc etc. Right?

It’s not going to happen. Here’s why. It’s too late and the walled garden will keep people locked in.

Huh?

Sorry, Facebook already has momentum and a coolness about it that Plaxo doesn’t exude. I don’t really know how to explain the coolness without sounding really idiotic and goofy. That’s part of the 20-something vibe that Facebook has going for it right now. Oh, here’s a photo of me looking at the artwork in the Facebook offices. That might explain a little bit about it. There’s lots of other photos from the event last night here.

But it’s there and can’t be ignored. If John could explain to me how he’s going to get the world’s college students to look away from Facebook and toward something else maybe I’d go along with this “more open and controllable” Plaxo. My head is telling me that Plaxo is the way to go but my emotion tells me that Facebook is more fun.

The other thing is that BECAUSE of Facebook’s “closed” nature I’m not likely to leave it anytime soon. Why? Because if Facebook has 10% more content than the other networks do (which it will have because of the momentum that Facebook has today) that the more “open” networks will always seem lame in comparison.

But, on Monday I’ll try out the new Plaxo. I’m into “shiny social objects” and will report to you the pros and the cons. The problem, though, is that even if I get really excited about it my email is demonstrating that many of the world won’t be listening and won’t care.

What do you think?

After I get up this morning I’ll film a video explaining more of my thoughts and I’ll put that on my Kyte channel. For now Nokia’s CTO left me a little message there. I’ll do more stuff from the Always On conference today.

OK, the TechCrunch interns tell us about their top 10 favorite Facebook applications. Now, since the interns are 20-somethings I expected that I’d have a different take on what we needed and so I talked through it on my Kyte.tv channel.

Here’s the TechCrunch Intern’s apps:

1. iLike (music app).
2. Graffiti (way to draw little lame cartoons on your Facebook profile).
3. Where I’ve Been (a way to brag to your friends that you’ve been to more countries than they have).
4. Zoho Online Office (a way to share Zoho’s apps with your friends).
5. Fantasy Stock Exchange (fun game, I wonder which stocks they are picking).
6. Flickr Photos.
7. Honesty Box. (A way to send anonymous messages. I already have comments on my blog for that reason.)
8. Box.net files. Useful way to share files.
9. Superpoke. A serious 40 something wouldn’t be caught dead pinching, hugging, tickling his friends.
10. Friend match. 40 somethings don’t need more friends.
11. Bonus: TechCrunch.

My favorite Facebook apps:

1. Google Reader Shared Items. This is way more useful for those who read a lot of feeds. Plus it shows you who has the most popular blog posts in the past few hours.
2. Twitter/Pownce/Jaiku apps. Pick the one you’re on. That lets your Facebook readers keep up with you, no matter where you post.
3. The video application. Lets you send video messages to all your friends from your computer’s webcam.
4. Kyte.tv. You see it here on this post (if you’re reading on my blog — lots of feed readers strip it out). But you also see the same thing on Facebook. You can chat with people live there on that app too.
5. BlogTips. If you’re looking to blog better, use this app.
6. Upcoming Calendar app. Come on, don’t 20-somethings have to keep track of all the events that are coming their way?
7. Blog Friends. Don’t the interns have any friends with blogs? This is how you track them.
8. Wordpress. If you blog on Wordpress or Wordpress.com, this is the app for you. Shows your posts AND your comments. I thought every 20-something had a Wordpress blog?
9. Ustream.tv. This isn’t important to everyone (who here other than Chris Pirillo has a streaming video show). But I included it here cause I have to wonder about a 20 something who isn’t into streaming video. Don’t you guys watch Justin.tv?
10. SkypeMe. Lets you use Skype to call me.
11. FaceReviews. It’s a Website that reviews Facebook applications.
12. iLike. Hey, at least we matched up on that one and the Zoho one (although I don’t have any Zoho stuff I want to share publicly yet).

What do you think? Which Facebook apps are you using, if you’re on Facebook?

I don’t add any of the silly ones, so don’t tell me about the Ninja app or anything like that.

Richard MacManus asks “which tech conferences should I attend?”

I almost answered giving my opinion. But there’s a FAR BETTER way for him to figure that out than ask me what I think. It’s called “Upcoming.org.”

I’ve added hundreds of friends that I know into it. These are folks who are hard core into the same tech geeky events (like Gnomedex) that I’m into. Thanks to Upcoming.org they bring me the best events and I can look and see which ones of them are going.

Look at my page of events on Upcoming.org. I’ve picked the best events from my friends and added them to my own profile there. If I can’t make an event, but think it’s a good one for you to consider I say “I’m watching.” You can see which events I’m attending as well.

What you can’t see is that when you have a ton of friends that you’ve hand picked, like I have, whenever you sign into Upcoming.org it’ll show you new events that your friends have added that you should consider. Then you can see what those events are, and who is attending them. If you see an event like Gnomedex, which has 93 people who’ve registered on Upcoming for it then you know it’s a hot event. Especially if you know the attendees. Raines Cohen, for instance, is the guy who started the Berkeley Mac User Group. He’s going. Jeremy Wright, CEO of B5 Media is going. Scott Beale, founder of Laughing Squid is going. And so on and so forth.

Oh, and if you watch my profile over on Facebook it’ll tell you automatically when I’ve added a new event to my list on Upcoming.

So Jason “no comments” Calacanis answers me, and others, back about his increasing dislike of Facebook and other social networks.

First of all, for the record, Jason is right. Facebook sucks. Twitter sucks. Pownce sucks. Jaiku sucks. Kyte sucks. Etc and etc.

Why? Because they take time.

But then managing my Outlook contact list took time. Managing my business card collection took time. My mom took time to keep a filing cabinet and an address book and a rolodex.

Facebook is the modern day rolodex. It is the replacement for the business card.

First of all, let me attack a claim Jason made that simply is wrong: that it takes 30 minutes a day to add hundreds of new friends into Facebook or other social networks (on big days I’ve actually had hundreds of people wanting into my social network, so I timed it: I can add hundreds in less than five minutes).

Here’s how.

Let’s go to Facebook and look. Gary Chan just asked to be added to my network. I click confirm. Then “skip this step.” Done. Typing this sentence took four times longer. You don’t need to do anything more. You don’t need to explain why you know Gary Chan. Etc. Etc. I never do and I don’t feel guilty about it. If I know people I know why and how I know them and I don’t need to tell you all that. Later on I might add some value to my contact list that way.

So, why do I say it’s my new business card collection? Well, if I am looking for a contact, at, say, Yahoo, I troll through my Facebook collection. Most Yahoo employees leave their phone numbers and email addresses on their Facebook profile. Hint: they work on the iPhone. So, I visit their profile and click on their phone number and I’m instantly connected.

Plus, I know everything about them that they’ve wanted to share.

For instance, Bradley Horowitz, of Yahoo, is on my contact list. By looking at his profile page I know all sorts of stuff about him. His relationship status, his political views, who his friends are, what kind of music he likes, his favorite TV shows, his favorite movies, his favorite books.

He has the Snapvine app, so I can leave a voice mail for him. He tells his friends where he lives (has a Yahoo Map gadget that shows that, of course). Puts all his Flickr photos up. I know his mood. I know what party he’ll be at tonight. I know someone at Microsoft that he’s talking with and who visits his page, so I know some influence networking that I could do with him. I know his college experience and his past work experience.

All voluntarily turned over and when I interview him do you want to bet this stuff comes up? Damn straight it will.

If I go to the party he’s going to tonight (I might, it’s on my calendar too) I’ll have TONS of stuff to talk with him about. Music. Movies. TV shows. Politics. College experience. And other stuff.

Oh, heck, let’s go look at Jason’s Facebook. I see his religious views. Jason has put his mobile number there. His educational experience. And more. Plus I can see who wants to suck up to Jason on his wall (I’m there, so read into that what you want. By the way, so is the co-founder of Flickr, the founder of B5 Media network, and a bunch of other interesting people).

I also like that all his Twitters are there, so I can see what else Jason’s been ranting about without being forced to chase Jason all over the Net. On my profile you can see my Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Kyte, Wordpress, Google Reader, and many other things. That saves you time of figuring out everything I’m doing.

Now, can I get this info any other way? LinkedIn? Maybe. Twitter? No. Pownce? No. Jaiku? No. Following his blog? No. Kyte? No. MySpace? Don’t be ridiculous.

Could I have called him? Yeah. I have his business card and his mobile phone in my contacts. But why would you waste Jason’s time asking stupid questions when the answer is already online? Will that lead to a good result? A ride in his Corvette, for instance? Or a business partnership?

Anyway, let’s specifically answer some questions Jason asked, cause they are interesting:

1. Facebook is a multilevel marketing platform. Jason’s right. But, then, so is my rolodex from the 1980s and 90s. Some people in that rolodex are a LOT more important to me than other people. Some people in that old-school rolodex introduced me to TONS of other people and influenced my life in major ways. That rolodex is now moving to Facebook where it’s getting MUCH stronger than it was on little business cards or in Outlook where I didn’t have pictures and didn’t have an ability to see inside the networks of friends each person has (Facebook lets me see all of your friends as well, if you leave that open, which most people do).
2. Facebook is a great way for me to promote what I’m doing. Absolutely. Jason’s right there! But it’s NOT one way! Hint: great parties, great people come to you, too. I’ll have a lot more to say about that soon.
3. Are we creating a social system to communicate with each other at a distance because the reality of creating and maintaining that social networking face-to-face is, well, scary? Well, I’m sure that some people would be scared by getting a ride in Jason’s Corvette, but I’ve been there and it was one of the greatest thrills of my life. Can I experience that over Facebook? No, but Jason’s phone number is on his Facebook so you can always call and invite him out for dinner.
4. Is Facebook a more efficient, rejection-free, surrogate for the real world? Um, Nick Denton didn’t accept my friend request. So, no, it’s just like the real world where some people think you’re an asshole and other people think you’re cool. I notice that Jason has enough people who think he’s cool that there’s an entire group of people who think he’s cool on Facebook. Seriously. Do a search on Jason’s name and you’ll find the group.
5. At a certain point social networks create negative returns on your investment. Absolutely. These things get noisy the more people you add to them. So, if you want to have no noise definitely don’t have any friends. Or keep your networks down to only your “real” friends instead of anyone who wants to come in. My strategy? I’m going with the noise cause I don’t know where the gold is going to come from. I realize not everyone is a weirdo like me in that regard.
6. Are we going to hire someone to manage our social networks? I haven’t yet and I doubt I will. My friend network is too important to me and there’s all sorts of gestures that are coming to me through it that I’d miss if some intern was tending to my network.

Anyways, interesting discussion. If I were really smart I wouldn’t be engaging in this right now and, instead, testing out the new CoComment that came out yesterday. Now THAT is interesting.

Of course now that Jason has closed down comments maybe that’s not so interesting after all.

I’ve been on Facebook, what, about six weeks? I have more than 4,000 friends so if anyone should be complaining about “Facebook chores” like adding new friends or dealing with “application spam” it should be me. Jason Calacanis has been on for a while and only has 395 friends and now is giving up because he hasn’t figured out how to keep up with “Facebook chores.”

Rex Hammock chides him. I’m not going to link directly to Jason, cause I want you to read Rex’s post first cause Rex has a good point on this issue.

My response? I LOVE WHEN PEOPLE GIVE UP ON FACEBOOK!

Why? Because Facebook is now a media distribution network (among other things).

I’m in the media creation and distribution business.

When Calacanis gives up that means there’s fewer competitors.

Media creation also means I need to be a professional networker. That’s why I go to TechCrunch parties — to find great people to interview. Last night I collected a stack of business cards. Those people get invited to join Facebook. Why? Facebook is the new business card AND the new media distribution network. Watch what’s happening with video inside Facebook. Watch what’s happening with applications.

More of the best names in tech are on Facebook than any other social network I’m on (and I’m on a ton of them).

I’m glad Jason isn’t taking the time to do it.

Anyone else in this business want to avoid Facebook? Please do it! Means more opportunity for the rest of us.

Speaking of which, I’m gonna leave a little video message on this topic for Jason over on my Facebook profile.

UPDATE: as an example, over on Facebook I just shared a video done by Terry Storch and Brian Bailey on the Blogging Church (Brian blogs for one of the biggest churches in the USA). Facebook is the ultimate “pass along” video source. No one person gets huge distribution, but get passed along enough and a sizeable audience will show up. In fact, I can’t add more than 5,000 friends in Facebook so the audience size of any one person will always be small. But the passalong is huge. The app platform there works the same way — virally. Anyone miss that iLike got millions of visitors in the first two weeks? I didn’t.