Two articles in a week is a sign… the subject in both was the fact that the new generation of Millennials coming up have a very different sense of privacy than their elders. Where many of us were taught that there was safety in anonymity, our kids are finding it more efficient to expose themselves on the Web. What they believe is that the Internet is simply another networking device that requires one to create in depth personal profiles in order to automate the process, or at least speed up the process of finding areas of interest. Moreover, they understand that the new invisible marketing engines that are hidden with the Web in general, and some sites specifically, actually provide some value in that they can market to you only the things that your profile suggests might be interesting. If it helps me only have to see ads that are targeted to things I care about, I am in – I will now tell the world all my secrets

Google is going into overdrive these days. Set aside the gPhone rumors for a second, and let’s deal with the announce OpenSocial standards. Google has signed MySpace, and many others (with the single exception being Facebook) to a set of eCommunity standards that will allow developers to write widgets that are portable across social networks. This is a boon for users because they can now standardize the tools they love across communities so that their preferences for tools can travel with them. Of course this also gives Google a powerful seat at the social network table because they can work even more deals to deliver targeted advertising. Click here to read more…
The mythical gPhone looks to be not so much an iPhone competitor as Google’s latest idea for advancing a set of standards that will ultimately grow the commodity Internet. Although they did not rule out someday producing their own handset, Google announced a large coalition of phone manufactures and service providers that would work together to deliver handsets that will allow software to be portable across carriers and devices. This is meant to unleash the creativity of programmers since they could then develop 3rd party applications that would run on anything that fits in your pocket and rings. This is no small idea. Google is carving out a very important role in the technology world because they are now continually pushing the world to standardize and use open platforms in order to extend the Web. Microsoft must be galled every time Google calls for a press conference with this type of announcement.