I’m tracking the new “friend divide.” What is it?

Well, compare your experiences on a number of services when you only have one friend vs., say, 500. Look at Upcoming.org. Have only one friend? It really is empty looking and there’s not much value. Get 500? And you’ll have tons of events reporting to you that you’ll care about (you picked your friends carefully, right?) Plus, you’ll be able to see which events are more popular which may make them more interesting to you.

Look at Flickr? No friends? No photographs that you care about. Add your family and friends? Lots of fun stuff to look at.

Facebook? Same thing. Choose your friends wisely, though. Professional people don’t poke or ask you to join stupid applications. Get lots of college kids and you might just lose your mind.

Dopplr? No friends? You won’t have anyone to meet at the airport or take out for a beer.

Pownce? No friends? You won’t get sent cool music or cool photography.

Twitter? No friends? You will think it’s a lame service? Follow only me and you’ll probably go insane. Follow 500, though, and you’ll probably start to see the value that I see in this service.

The friend divide means that people who have no friends on these services have poor experiences and aren’t getting any interesting information or apps or photos or music, etc. People who have tons of friends have HUGELY different experiences on these services. I’ll demonstrate those differences in a video soon.

But that gets me to another point. This weekend Andrew Baron is selling his Twitter account. That’s a PR ploy. But what’s interesting is that people assume there’s value in getting his followers (probably because they assume there’s some value in spamming those followers with marketing messages). That’s funny since it’s so easy to unfollow people.

But there +is+ value in having a great group of people you’re following. Follow @craignewmark and you’ll see what Craig is seeing or thinking (he’s the founder of Craigs’ List). Follow @pierre and you’ll see what he’s thinking (he’s the founder of eBay). Follow HRBlock and you’ll see what the team at H&R Block is thinking about taxes and such. Follow @newmediajim and you’ll see what Jim Long, who is a camera guy in the press pool at the White House, is thinking about.

Now, do you start to get it? If you define yourself by who is following you you’ll always feel inadequate. After all, you can’t control your followers and any idiot can follow people. But, define yourself by who you are following and you can really build something of high value.

People still aren’t getting this. They didn’t get how I was using Twitter and still don’t. I follow the world’s best early adopters, business executives, and entrepreneurs. I really don’t care if I have a single follower. If I defined myself by my followers I’d always feel inadequate. If I define myself by the people who I follow, well, I follow the smartest, richest, coolest, funniest people in the world. That makes me smarter, richer, cooler, and funnier.

So, how do you define your experience online?

Everyone is doing these 2007 wrapups, which are great ways to get more traffic to old posts. I should probably do one of those for my video show, but I have something else on my mind. I’ve put a few over on my link blog, but only the very best ones I’ve seen.

2007 was an incredible year for me in terms of life teaching me lessons. The lessons came at me fast and furious, so here’s some that had an impact on my life.

1. Having a new child in the family is a real joy. My only regret? Every day is going by so freaking fast. Neither Patrick nor Milan will ever have another day just like today. Neither will you or I, for that matter.

2. I lost a few good friends this year. Lesson? Today might be the last. Make the best of it and make sure your insurance is up to date (which we updated recently).

3. Pay attention to the “unimportant” people in your life. Last year this goofy guy walked into the CES BlogHaus. I introduced him to a few people and did an interview with him. He wasn’t famous. Didn’t have a blog. Hadn’t started a business or done anything that anyone would qualify as “important.” But between January and now he’s become a New York Times best selling author and he’s gotten me onto CNBC and the New York Times. All cause I paid attention to him back when he wasn’t “somebody.”

4. If your company doesn’t have a story to tell watch out. Keys I’ve learned? Every employee better be able to tell the story. The story better be reflected in the pitch the CEO does. Mike Arrington better understand the story if you want him to help you out (and Mike is just a metaphor here for any journalist or blogger). Your VCs better understand the story. The story better not change. For instance, the story behind Channel 9 at Microsoft hasn’t changed in four years. It was a community and an openess project that helps people get over their fears of Microsoft just like how Lenn Pryor was scared of flying (a pilot told him to turn on channel 9 on United Airlines). Does your business have a simple, compelling, story? My next thing will.

5. Are two employees of yours pulling your company in two different directions and messing with your story? You’ve got to solve that and solve it fast. Make one of those people work for the one who is closest to your business’s story. Don’t have a story? Fix that and fast. It won’t end well.

6. Everytime my ego tells me I’m important for some reason bad things happen in my life.

7. On the other hand, everytime Loren Feldman or Valleywag beat up on me good things happened in my life. Including even this past weekend. We’ll talk at CES about the latest good thing. So, bring it on in 2008!

8. If Marc Canter wants to take you out for a meal, go. The dude knows the best restaurants in tons of cities around the world AND knows how to make each one an incredible experience.

9. Revenues cover up a variety of sins. No revenues? You better be freaking perfect.

10. The one who has the most friends on Facebook, Twitter, Upcoming, Yelp, Plaxo, Flickr, etc does NOT win the game. But, the one who FOLLOWS the most people on each of those DOES have a better life!

11. When people were courting me to join them invariably they’d pitch me with “do you want to make a lot of money?” I always hesitated on that question. Why? I know lots of miserable wealthy people. The right question? “Do you want to have a ton of incredible experiences and great friends?” Now THAT I can say yes to, and do often.

12. If people are loyal to you, reward that loyalty. That’s why Rocky Barbanica and Shel Israel are two great friends.

13. When your wife asks you anything about stuff like whether or not she should go back to work, or whether she should buy a new jacket, or have her mom come live with us (which just happened) the ONLY correct answer is “do whatever makes you incredibly happy.” I’ve said that quite a few times this year and it’s ALWAYS paid off. Luckily I married a woman who always makes the right choice, so that’s easy to say.

14. It’s easy to build an audience by tearing other people down. It’s far harder to build one by building them up. Why is that? Humans love messes — it’s why we slow down on the freeway when there’s a big wreck. Building up people and companies is a lot more fun long term, though.

15. When my audience has said I’m wrong they are right at least 90% of the time (and probably more).

16. The more I read, the more interesting my life becomes.

17. Learning to swim through noise is one of the best skills I’ve learned in the past few years. Got me ready for Twitter. As I type this post there is a new Twitter arriving on my screen every two to 10 seconds!

18. Dealing with continual partial attention is a skill that psychologists and other mental health professionals will be studying for years. I’m learning that it does destroy productivity, which is why I force myself to do at least one video everyday. That turned out to be a brilliant decision (thanks to Andrew Baron of Rocketboom for telling me that). Thanks to Linda Stone for bringing continuous partial attention to my attention. Speaking of Linda, her dinners had a deep influence on me.

19. The world of media is undergoing deep changes that few people really understand. Everytime I show people my cell phone and explain it’s now a TV station their mouths hang open — they can’t believe that I can send video to the world from a cell phone. For free.

20. The two things I got most excited about (iPhone and Facebook) have ended up being the two biggest technology stories of 2007. I’m seeing less and less utility in Facebook, though, and what’s funny is when I met some people in the London Underground they said the same thing. So, Facebook will probably be the story of 2008, too. Will it keep its users? Will it find a good business model, etc etc?

21. Blogging is still a fad. Heheh. But now it’s a Twitter fad. A Tumblr fad. A Pownce fad. An Utterz fad. A Seesmic fad. A Kyte fad. Bring on the fads!

22. I’m not a good manager. The one employee I didn’t screw up this year was Rocky and I’m too scared of him to mess with him! :-)

23. Living life in public +is+ weird.

24. The best clients are ones who believe in you from the start and don’t need to be sold. That was true back in the 1980s when I worked a camera store counter and it’s true today with Seagate and, now, AMD who is sponsoring our CES shows.

25. There is absolutely no way to thank everyone who participated in this grand experiment this year. One thing that does is create a karmic imbalance that pressures me to step up my stuff for you next year.

26. If I do something really idiotic, it gets viewers. If I do something really smart, it gets participants. Ask anyone who has been linked to by Digg and they’ll tell you the difference between a drive-by reader and someone who sticks around and participates. That said, being an idiot did get me in that famous Bubble video! :-)

27. If your business is being run right the people who bring results to the boardroom table are probably getting more and more responsibilities. If they aren’t that’s a sign that the business isn’t being managed well and the right things aren’t being measured (or reported).

28. The worst thing I did all year is not answer your emails.

29. When your audio sucks on your video nothing else really matters.

30. There’s nothing worse than an A-list blogger who thinks he/she knows it all. Yes, I’m looking in the mirror.

31. I did six Amazon Kindle videos. The one where I was a jerk got 10x more traffic than the other five, where I was much fairer.

32. Everytime my wife tells me to do something (or not to do something) and I don’t listen to her bad stuff happens. It’s amazing, but true.

33. Whenever someone says that they are unsubscribing (or unfollowing on Twitter) my subscriber and follower numbers go up (and I’ve compared to my friends and they also say the same is true). Me? Maybe if you aren’t making some people mad you aren’t being interesting enough?

34. I didn’t exercise enough in 2007.

35. I wasn’t nice enough to enough people. Everytime I treated someone rudely they went to Valleywag or Uncov or Fake Steve Jobs and told the world what a jerk I was.

36. No matter whether I did something idiotic or brilliant Dave Winer kept being my friend. So did Buzz Bruggeman. Chris Pirillo. Jeff Sandquist. Shel Israel. Rocky Barbanica. Teresa Williamson. Francine Hardaway. Loic Le Meur. And a bunch of others — this list could go on for pages.

37. I miss my friends from Seattle. Chris Pirillo. David Geller. The Jeung’s. Steve Ball. Buzz. In 2008 I’m gonna come to Seattle more often to reconnect.

38. The interesting stuff that’s happening is going on outside the valley. What I find is interesting is that everyone assumes that things like Twitter and Facebook are happening only in the Valley or in San Francisco. That’s not true, just watch http://www.twittervision.com to see how wrong that assumption is. I want to go to China, Russia, and India in 2008 and I bet I’ll get to at least one of those places.

39. Big mistake? Not spending more time working on posts. The ones where I thought about the post for hours turned out great. The ones I banged out really fast without thinking too much? They are the stupid ones.

40. Not spending enough time with Patrick/Milan — they both bring such joy to my life when I hang out with them. Not to mention that Patrick is quite a geek and is figuring out stuff that I haven’t yet (I don’t play World of Warcraft, for instance, but he’s getting to be darn good at it). Gotta go.

I’m sure I’m forgetting about 1,000 other lessons I learned in 2007, but there is a limit to the length a blog post should be.

Happy New Years to each and everyone of you!

It’ll be interesting to see what lessons I learn in 2008. One thing for sure: you’ll get to learn from my mistakes as I make them! (And you’ll get to throw metaphorical fruit at me for doing so. Heheh). Take care and see you in 2008!

I uploaded this to YouTube. Why? Cause Kyte.tv wouldn’t let me upload this file and because I’m considering using YouTube to distribute some of my videos. Chris Pirillo is seeing a lot of success there, one of his videos a couple weeks ago was viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

Anyway, here’s a conversation I had with Andrew Baron, founder of the popular video show Rocketboom, on my cell phone as I drove him to the airport today. He told me that a “live” version of Rocketboom will be coming soon. He also gave me an update on what else is going on over at Rocketboom.

Speaking of YouTube: the video quality here is a lot better than Kyte.tv. Amazing how good my Nokia N95 looks on YouTube.

In the six-minute video Andrew praised DotSub. I love this service too and will be looking at how to use it for my own videos. What is it? It has the ability to embed translated captions into the video stream and anyone can add a new translation. This is going to be hugely important and is a feature I wish YouTube and Kyte would add.

UPDATE: did you see the truck go by at 4:41 in the video that says “more video on demand?” I didn’t even see that, but someone pointed out. Wild.

I gave Andrew Baron, founder of the cool video show Rocketboom, a ride to the airport today and on the way I found out he is an Apple fan. So, we pulled off the freeway and visited the mothership. Why do I say that? Well, check out this T-shirt. Short video, just to make all my “your videos are too long and boring” critics happy! Heh. You can only get this T-shirt at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, CA.

I’m also uploading a longer interview I did with Andrew too.

John Battelle asks a compelling question: why Facebook and why now?

Scott Rosenberg of Salon.com follows up with another point: that Facebook’s friends definitions are all messed up.

Over on TechMeme everyone is talking about how Facebook’s advertising isn’t working.

So, let’s take on these questions.

First, why does Facebook’s advertising suck?

Because it isn’t tied to people or applications. Everything I do in Facebook is about interacting with people. For instance, at the top of my Facebook inbox right now is Ryan Coomer. The advertising next to him says “Try Forex Trading Today.” There is absolutely NO connection between who Ryan is and the advertising that’s put next to him.

Imagine if advertisers could “buy people.” I just clicked on Ryan’s profile, hes into Running and Golf. Why don’t ads for running and golf gear get put onto his profile? Wouldn’t that make sense? He’s also a software developer. Where’s the Visual Studio advertisement? He’s into video games. Where’s the Halo 3 advertisement?

Translation: Facebook needs an advertising platform and it needs one in the worst way. I’m not going to even look at the ads until the ads are tied to the people on Facebook. Facebook knows what we’re into, put ads for those things onto our profiles and messages.

Second, how could the friends definitions and ties be improved?

1000 ways. I’ll be honest, I don’t use them at all. I just add you as a friend and don’t put any details in there about how I know you. For one, adding that kind of detail is a competitive advantage for me and for PodTech and not something I’m really anxious for other people to know.

For instance, my first result is for Danny Krimgold. I’ve never written about Danny. You don’t know who he is. But he was one of the first people I talked with on Netmeeting back in 1996. He was in high school then and I could tell he was damn smart. I kept in touch with him as he went to Cornell, got a masters in computer science, and now is working at McCann Erickson as a project manager. There isn’t a good way to tell Facebook how I know Danny. In fact, I found that there isn’t a good way to tell Facebook how I know people for about 70% of the people I know through the Internet. So, I just leave them all blank. I guess the best choice in NetMeeting is the “met randomly” choice, but that sounds so stupid. So, I leave it blank.

Finally, why Facebook, why now?

Well, I compare it to LinkedIn (which is the competitor that comes up the most in conversations), Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku. All of which have a social network component where you can keep track of your friends.

First, Facebook has far better contact management than Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku. If I look up someone on all three networks Facebook shows me more, brings it up faster, and has a better look into their own social networks. That leaves LinkedIn to compare it to. I dropped off LinkedIn a year ago cause the expected useage model there is to have your friends do things for you. Pass along resumes, give references, etc. Because of my popularity I simply got too many requests to do those things. There is no such expectation on Facebook.

When I talk with people about the two, also, they say that LinkedIn is for their professional lives and Facebook is for their personal stuff. A PR person at BEA told me that, for instance. I’ll leave her name out of this. Theresa Klein also says this (and is not very happy with me that I’ve turned Facebook into a professional tool).

To tell you the truth, the reason Facebook is the better networking tool is BECAUSE it’s personal. I don’t really care that Danny is at McCann Erickson. I would have known that anyway cause the first thing Danny tells me whenever we talk is what he’s working on. He told me the day he got accepted into Cornell, for instance. That stuff just comes up in regular conversation. But I don’t remember his wife’s name, Facebook shows that (they just got back from their honeymoon). I didn’t know his favorite drink. Mojitos. I got just the place to take him for great Mojitos when he comes out to visit. Facebook shows that. And I didn’t know anything about his social network. Facebook shows that too. Looking at the groups he’s added I can tell a lot more about him. He’s into going to free movie screenings in NYC, likes BMWs, reads the Economist, and lots more.

Oh, and he has his email and phone number there, so if I want to drop him a line, or give him a call, it’s there. Facebook has almost replaced my Outlook contact list because of this.

What other reasons are there for Facebook now?

Quality of people on the network. When I say my Facebook contact list is like a who’s who of the Tech Industry, I’m very serious. And I’m still adding more people to my friends network. I’ve been on Facebook for about a month and I’ve already gotten 2,452 friends. Let’s give you a little tiny taste of who is in my contact list.

Jeremy Allaire. He started a company, sold it to Macromedia, was its CTO. Now is founder/CEO of Brightcove.
Dion Almaer. Works at Google. Was the principal technologist for the Middleware Company. Founder of Ajaxian.
Stewart Alsop. Was editor at InfoWorld, now a VC at Alsop Louie Partners.
Marc Andreessen. Founder of Netscape and Ning.
Geoffrey Arone. Co-founder of Flock.
Michael Arrington. Founder of TechCrunch.
Eric Auchard. Tech reporter for Reuters.
Edward Baig. Tech reporter for USA Today.
Brian Bailey. Web developer for fourth largest church in USA.
Josh Bancroft. Most famous blogger at Intel.
Jeff Barr. Web services evangelist at Amazon.
Andrew Baron. Founder of Rocketboom.
Hank Barry. Famous Silicon Valley VC.
John Battelle. Founder of Federated Media, among other things.
Scott Beale. Famous San Francisco photographer and founder of Laughing Squid.
Joe Beda. Works on something important at Google in Kirkland.
Veronica Belmont. Now working with Jason Calacanis on some killer video project. Significant other of Ryan Block, top Engadgeteer.
Kenneth Berger. One smart dude at Adobe on Web Suite team.

OK, that’s just a few names off of my first page (probably represents 5% of the page). And I have 13 of them. I’ll add you to my friends’ list. Just request me to add you.

Oh, did you know that once you’re my friend you can look around at all the people who are my friends? This makes getting access to interesting people very easy. If I get complaints about you, though, I’ll remove you as my friend, so don’t abuse this privilege. Thanks.

But, that brings us to the grand daddy. Facebook’s application platform.

This is the real reason why I turned on Facebook. I don’t really care about the social network piece. There’s already other places I can get that (I could have stayed on LinkedIn if I really cared about being part of a social network).

But now my social network brings me cool applications. Well, some cool ones, like iLike and Zoho. But a lot of really crappy ones. It’s interesting to see what people add to their profiles, though. I wish I could see when people remove things from their profiles, in addition to adding them. Right now, for instance, I can see that 13 of my friends have added the Zombies application to their profile. I wish could see that 3 of my friends have already removed it, cause it’s a lame application.

Anyway, it’s the application platform that got me interested in Facebook and THAT is where I expect to see the hot new advertising models pop up.

But, no matter how you look at it Facebook is the one. Right now.

What do you think?

Ahh, YouTube is coming late to the video awards show game. Mashable is saying that tomorrow YouTube will announce its own online video contest. Destined to be very popular, I’m sure.

Glad to see we’re six months ahead of YouTube (not that it’ll matter much, YouTube has considerable brand and coolness factor going for it) but we have the Vloggies Show.

Just last week we put up a ton of interviews with online video producers. Here’s what you’ll find on the VloggiesShow blog — interviews with:

1. Adam Zbar of Zannel, large-scale viral media network.
2. Steffan Ray, communication director of Austin’s public access TV station.
3. Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, creator of Ask a Ninja.
4. Andrew Baron of Rocketboom.
5. Susan Kirkpatrick, founder of KityKity.
6. Reverend BIlly of the Church of Stop Shopping.
7. Colin Devroe, of Viddler, a service that lets you post much higher quality video than YouTube.
8. Bonny Pierzina, who runs a satirical news show.
9. Nontourage, who does a hit webisode series “Almost There.”

Thanks to Seagate for sponsoring both the VloggiesShow as well as ScobleShow. I greatly appreciate Seagate’s backing of up-and-coming video talent.

Seriously, it’s great that there’s more places to find great video. I’m looking forward to the YouTube awards.

Ahh, I already get called out of my Christmas blog vacation by Andrew Baron (he started Rocketboom), who is building a content mall named Abbey Corps. He’s positioning it against PodShow and the company I work for, PodTech, saying he can demonstrate it’s a better business than either of them. Dave Winer’s blog is where I saw this and Dave has a few of the names he thinks are involved, many of which are my favorite videobloggers.

An entrepreneur once told me: hope you have great competitors cause they’ll inspire you and demonstrate your dreams have value.

So, thank you Andrew for the Christmas present! Now, off to see Mary Hodder at Dabble who has a killer video/social media search engine/platform.

UPDATE: PaidContent is reporting that Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg are starting a new site too, based on their highly successful “D” conference. Oh, I can’t wait to see Kara and Walt at CES again. Everything they do is quality.

Oh, now I understand why Microsoft didn’t offer the ScobleShow a Zune sponsorship! Andrew Baron reveals that he was offered such but turned it down because the terms said he wouldn’t be able to say anything disparaging about Microsoft or the Zune. Since I’ve already done both, that leaves me out of the running explicitly.

Lame.

Seagate, for instance, hasn’t told me ANYTHING about what I need to say about them (they are the founding sponsor for my ScobleShow). I could say Seagate sucks. I could say they rock. Or I could say nothing.

That’s why I really appreciate Seagate.

But, while I got Seagate’s CEO listening to see what I WILL say, why don’t you have a go? Got anything to say about Seagate? Anyone have one of their new 750GB drives? I know Thomas Hawk bought two and swears by them. But, here’s the deal. I want to know if their products suck. Why? Cause I can take that feedback to their execs and say “fix this and you’ll increase your brand’s equity.” If you think someone else makes better storage devices, tell the world right here. Even better, link to your blog where we can read why.

Microsoft, I guess, still hasn’t discovered what’s magical about blogs: they let a big company listen in on the word-of-mouth conversation in a way that no one was able to before.

UPDATE: James Robertson says this isn’t the way to turn down a deal cause it blows up all bridges. I don’t agree. You define yourself and your business by the customers you fire. I’m sure that the next sponsorship deal that Andy gets offered will be a lot more like what Seagate gave me than what Microsoft usually offers.

This takes me back to what was so special about Channel 9: that the customers could write “Microsoft sucks” right on the home page and we wouldn’t pull it down.

It’s too bad that Microsoft just doesn’t put Jeff Sandquist in charge of marketing and sponsorships. There’s no way he’d have left that as part of any deal he offered.

Whew, lots of stuff came in about the Vloggies.

Weird America has a fun video from the evening.

We got on Valleywag.

Tom Foremski, of Silicon Valley Watcher, has more Vloggies interviews.

PodTech had its own video crew there and captured the event.

Thomas Hawk has killer photos, as usual.

Rocketboom is selling its award on eBay and has pictures of Andrew Baron, Rocketboom’s founder, getting on top of Ze Frank’s duckie that he sent in his place to pick up his award.

Thank you to everyone who came and made it a great evening, now back to work. Er, editing. Email. Oh, and I have a fun announcement to make. Coming soon.

Lots of famous people here from Kevin Marks (geek at Technorati) to Jerry Zucker. Jerry’s a famous Hollywood director. More than 250 people are here. Tons of video cameras, geeks, and videobloggers. The show starts soon, more reports coming.

Lots of great videobloggers here, from Andrew Baron who runs Rocketboom, to a Yellow Duckie who is here for Ze Frank.

List of nominations are here. We’ll keep you in touch throughout the night.

7:24 p.m.: it’s getting started.

7:32 p.m.: Jerry Zucker is on stage, explaining how he got started with a half-inch videotape machine back in 1970. If you don’t know who Jerry is, he’s on Wikipedia. Was the co-director of the movie “Airplane.”