So the folks at ad:tech is helping to solve this rather large problem. Innovation Alley is a new section of the ad:tech exhibit floor that is dedicated to interesting new startups in the advertising technology world. There are plenty of conferences that focus exclusively on technology and web startups but they’re attended largely by people within that world. You rarely find customers at these kinds of startup conferences. Industry conferences for different verticals such as advertising, healthcare, transportation, etc., could take ad:tech’s example and devote space to highlight innovative new startups that would normally not have resources to buy exposure to influentials and decision makers from the industries they’re targeting.

The startups I found most compelling at Innovation Alley were ones that addressed the emerging importance of social media in advertising and marketing. I haven’t watched television for a long time. Most of my friends haven’t as well. Not only do we not see mass market television advertising, we don’t trust it anyway. And while we begin many of our purchases online through search engines, we will increasingly get influenced by our social networks of friends, colleagues and relatives to buy things we hadn’t considered before. This is why Google the Goliath is afraid of David Facebook.

Peerset helps advertisers improve their audience targeting. From what I gathered by talking to some of Peerset’s employees, the company combs through social network profiles to construct anonymized data sets of interests and behaviors. The more you reveal about yourself on your profiles and social status updates, the more you will receive relevant advertising. As much as we’d like to believe that we’re individuals with unique tastes and opinions, we’re very much like the rest of our friends. We are more easily put into a group or several groups that share common characteristics than we believe. What I’d like to see is “data profiling” companies like Peerset and probable competitor Rapleaf use their technology to not only help advertisers serve advertising more accurately but to also just produce more interesting content. Sort of advertising by not advertising. Yes, that’s very vague and unhelpful but I think someone will figure out what I mean.

140 Proof delivers advertising exclusively on Twitter. The company helps brands target the right people in the Twitter universe. This is another example of the increasing importance of social networks and the opportunity to customize messages based on personal, yet public, information. 140 Proof claims that great tweets get retweeted. The retweet function, which was invented by users and not Twitter’s management, is one of the most simple, brilliant, and elegant ways to make a message viral. It would be interesting to get real hard data on how often marketing and advertising messages get retweeted versus “regular” tweets.

Brickfish helps brands create campaigns that get consumers to create user-generated content revolving around the brands. Many startups have tried to accomplish this kind of concept. It’s really difficult. As much as we’re becoming more social, we’re also becoming more cynical or skeptical. Consumers are trained to beware of blatant advertising. We might be even more cautious of blatant attempts to get us to help create still more blatant advertising. I’m sure that Brickfish has encountered resistance in some of their campaigns. Perhaps they’ll figure out how to systematically incent customers to sing the praises of brands. If someone can figure this out, I think they have a big hit.

I’m looking forward to the next ad:tech in New York. I hope they will continue to allow startups onto the show floor through the Innovation Alley program. You expect to see the big guns like Microsoft (MSFT) and Google there. There should be room made for pleasant surprises.

Are you judging your personal, professional, and organizational results on a superficial basis? Do you just ask, “Did it work?” When the results are great, people celebrate. When the results don’t meet expectations, people panic or start pointing fingers. I think that’s the typical response. Very much like the New York Yankees under the reign of King George Steinbrenner. It’s the reason why turnover was so horribly high, Brian Cashman and Joe Torre being the exceptions.

Process over results. You should be asking, “Regardless of the results, did we go through the right process?” Design the right process and you can confidently stick to it. The results will still be highly uncertain but you won’t blame yourself for random effects outside your control. You’ll also be able to stay faithful to a good process despite less than stellar results.

The world would be a much better place if less people tried to build startups. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we could use less entrepreneurship. Innovative entrepreneurs will pull us out of this recession more sustainably and more meaningfully than any government bureaucrat with indirect policy levers could ever do. What I am saying is that we need more people wanting to build companies, not startups. That is not a too subtle distinction.

Would-be entrepreneurs proclaim proudly how they are starting new businesses and are willing to endure many years of blood, sweat, and tears. To be sure, the willingness to work hard and persevere ranks high on the list of essential entrepreneurial character traits, but I think we have over-romanticized the startup life. Low pay/no pay, long hours, and years of struggle have come to be badges of honor for those of us still in the minor leagues of startups. We’ve either frantically adjusted our business models (groping after every hot trend like Web 2.0, social networking, or microblogging) or we’ve stubbornly stuck to our original ideas regardless of market feedback. The most important thing we have in common is that we’ve been unable to graduate to the major leagues of thriving, growing, established companies too big and successful to be called startups.

However you define a startup, trust me, there is no glamor or glory in remaining a startup. But we’ve come to fall in love with the Myth of the Startup. We all know a few guys who seem to perpetually be working on a startup. They love the story of being a startup entrepreneur and the attendant lifestyle. Even more pronounced is the first-time entrepreneur who has bought into the Startup Myth. His romantic vision of startup life becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and he is destined to struggle with a small “startup” because that’s what he wants.

Dump the warm fuzzies. Entrepreneurship is not about startups. Entrepreneurship is not about eating ramen noodles and scraping by. Entrepreneurship is not about being able to tell your friends and family you are a founder of a startup so you can finally impress them. Entrepreneurship is not about working 12 hour days ad infinitum and sleeping only 4 hours per day to show the world how tough and committed you are. Entrepreneurship is not about attending industry conferences so that you can hear yourself speak and tell your competitors how excited you are about your opportunities. Entrepreneurship is not about blogging about entrepreneurship. Most of all, entrepreneurship is not about some romantic ideal of living a tough startup life.

Get real. Entrepreneurship is about growth and value. Entrepreneurship is about creating something a sufficient number of people want or need. Entrepreneurship is about turning every dollar of resources spent into something worth more than a dollar. Entrepreneurship is about building a company and growing it beyond startup stage. The list of what entrepreneurship is not is much longer than the list of what entrepreneurship is. That’s because there are a lot of things people associate with entrepreneurship that really don’t have anything to do with entrepreneurship. It’s like describing a hamburger. Despite the many different ways to make a hamburger, there are almost infinite ways to describe what a hamburger is not.

Dream, dream big. Think, think different. Start a startup and eat ramen noodles (rice and soy sauce in my case) if you have to. Revel in your foldout tables and chairs. Dance a jig in your cozy garage. But realize that all these are just trappings of a startup. Figure out a way to scale so that your startup can grow to be a valuable company. Build a company, not a startup. If you love the startup lifestyle, leave your company after it outgrows you to start something new again. It’s a good thing to have your company outgrow you, your garage, and your romantic visions of what it means to be an entrepreneur.

Hewlett Packard Garage

This post is not really about politics. Sure the presidential campaign continues marching towards an exciting conclusion. Sure a sudden bevy of vocal, cynical, and amateurish political observers and bloggers are loudly decrying the two presidential candidates as basically undifferentiated “clowns.” There are major differences between the two parties and the two candidates – would we really be so divided as a nation and would our political debates be as heated if they are essentially the same? Please people, let’s be respectful of our diverse differences and acknowledge that there are a mosaic of opinions on how best to govern this country. Often, these opinions diverge widely.

The Left vs. Right Phenomenon
This post is actually about the dichotomy of “right-brained” people who think intuitively and creatively vs. “left-brained” people who think analytically and logically. There are proponents on both sides who contend that their side is better (not unlike our political pundits). Books such as A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future and The Rise of the Creative Class make a forceful case for the right-brainers. Other books such as Building Left-Brain Power and Being Logical make an equally convincing case for the left-brainers.

We are Divided
In my work at Design Engine Lab, I interact with designers who believe that creativity and art reign supreme. They dismiss “soulless” businesspeople and “middle-managers” who think logically. When I interact with businesspeople in the venture capital or private equity worlds, they pay little attention to “frivolous” artists who speak in soft language and cannot deliver against measurable hard metrics and milestones. Both sides contain some truth but they are more wrong than right.

Connecting the Dots
The fervent advocacy of the different hemispheres of thinking by their respective fanatics threatens to create a shortage of generalists or whole-brainers. In this increasingly competitive world, we need generalists who can traverse both sides of the fence with aplomb and deft agility. The ability to communicate and “connect the dots” or weave multi-disciplinary fields of knowledge will emerge as the premium skills of this century. Effective communication has always been a desired skill but we will increasingly need leaders who can communicate with engineers and financial analysts on the left side along with artists and storytellers on the right side. Leaders will need to tell compelling stories and extract critical analytic insight from a swamp of data with equal mastery.

Mental Agility
This video makes a quick and fun exercise to explore whether you are right-brained or left-brained. How does the figure rotate? Do you see it rotating clockwise or counter-clockwise? I can make it spin either way in my vision.

I’ve tried all my life to expose myself to a myriad of wide-ranging experiences. If you look at my diverse background of life and career experiences, you’ll find it very difficult to typecast me in any single role. My goal is to be able to add value and lead whether I’m in a crowd of industrial designers or a crowd of database programmers.

The ability to synthesize disparate fields of knowledge leads to innovative thinking and innovative breakthroughs. Innovation arises strongest as a result of the combination of logical and intuitive thinking models. Thus, engineers can think innovatively, think creatively, and make beautiful things. Artists can use logic to create works of art that are beautiful and structured at the same time. The ultimate goal is innovation, not the singular domination of left or right brain modes of thinking.

To conclude, enjoy this painting by Georges Seurat. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte was painted entirely in dots, what is known as pointillism or divisionism. This was a drastic departure from the tradition of painting in strokes. Today, the pixels in our computer screens follow Seurat’s original insight.

Georges Seurat – A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

The Web is changing. The current Web is designed to allow computers to retrieve and deliver documents from other computers for the end user to view, read, and interpret. As anyone who has used Google’s (GOOG), Yahoo’s (YHOO) and Microsoft’s (MSFT) search engines can attest, sometimes the retrieval of desired documents and information is accurate and sometimes it is way off base. The Semantic Web, others prefer to call it Web 3.0, has the potential to change the game completely. In the Semantic Web, computers have the ability to understand the meaning of things, content, and documents. In essence, computers can read and interpret information, thereby lightening or shortening one of the steps human users have to perform in order to obtain, discover, and understand information online.

The game is changing but it has just begun.
The transition to Web 3.0 is in its nascent stages. Much work remains before it becomes a widespread reality but the promise is enormous. Some potential breakthroughs include a deeper understanding of user behavior, understanding what matters to them, and a revolutionary improvement in search. A lot of my work centers around health informatics, privacy of data, and multi-dimensional messaging. Much of it would be helped tremendously with the more intelligent approach promised by the Semantic Web.

Everyone is a publisher.
Google made a quantum leap over existing search engines when it launched. As the Web grows and everyone has become a publisher, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the search results have deteriorated in quality. This is because Google’s search engine cannot extrapolate or extract meaning from the web pages it scans and indexes. It can only match the words you type into the query field with the millions of web pages or documents that contain those same words. The next great search engine will be a semantic search engine. This could still be Google, but it will be a completely different Google from what we’re used to now.

Learning more about the Semantic Web.
Jupitermedia Corporation (JUPM) is producing the first ever Web 3.0 Conference & Expo this October in Silicon Valley. Some of the cutting edge companies pioneering advances in attendance include Dapper, Delve Networks, Metaweb Technologies, Powerset (recently bought by Microsoft – maybe Gates and Company get it after all, despite the bad Seinfeld commercials), Hakia, Peer39, and Zemanta. It’s exciting to see significant sums of venture capital being devoted to this opportunity to radically change search and the Web in general. I will be speaking in the Enterprise Information Management session.

Success breeds competition. My previous post also mentioned the formation of the Allied Security Trust, a consortium of large technology companies pooling money together to buy up key intellectual property in order to preempt the threat of patent infringement lawsuits. Members of the trust include Google (GOOG), Verizon Communications (VZ), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Ericsson (ERIC), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and many others. Former Intellectual Ventures executives have formed a competing fund called RPX Rational Patent. RPX’s investors include premier venture firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Charles River Ventures. The market for intellectual property assets continues to evolve but I believe this new level of competition will introduce efficiencies and is ultimately good.

At Design Engine Lab, we are affected everyday by intellectual property. We are actively creating new intellectual property; we have dozens of patents and patents pending as a result of our product development efforts. We must carefully research prior art and avoid infringing other innovators’ existing patents. We circumvent other innovators’ patents whenever we can can by designing different or better solutions. Our ability to circumvent adds value not just to our own IP portfolio but also to our client’s products. Clients come to us with a certain design or product specification and oftentimes, we are able to bolster their idea with a stronger workaround design or implementation. Since joining Design Engine Lab, I’ve instituted an IP mining strategy. We actively search for interesting patents and improve upon them with stronger implementations. We also approach patent owners to partner with them and create great products.

The rapidly evolving market for intellectual property raises many questions. I’m especially concerned about the Allied Security Trust (a horrible marketing and branding execution). Will a combination of such heft invite antitrust attacks? Certainly, if only large, well-funded technology companies that already dominate their respective industries can join the trust while keeping small innovators off the membership rolls and at an unfair disadvantage, a case for antitrust actions can be made. Will the stalled Patent Reform Act of 2007, which would have curbed the ability of patent trolls to extract large monetary settlements through patent infringement litigation, find fresh support? Does the renewed focus on innovation and intellectual property that permeates the environment represent a new economic opportunity for an enterprising entrepreneur? Can someone create a new marketplace or exchange where patents can be bid upon by competing players, much like how stocks are traded today? It sounds like an immense challenge and undertaking – which smells to me like great value and profits.

Umair Haque’s An Open Challenge to Silicon Valley put it in even stronger terms as he labels the current crop of Web 2.0 startups and their incrementalist approach “trivial” and “banal.” I certainly could see the banality of the Web 2.0 echo chamber. Say a company creates a service for users to share picture slideshows online. The next competitor provides a widget for picture slideshows with better transition effects. Then the next entrant will provide the ability to incorporate simple audio effects into slideshows.

Haque’s answer to “what’s next?” is to challenge revolutionaries or entrepreneurs to solve bigger problems. What are some huge problems facing this world? Haque mentions skyrocketing food prices, unstable financial systems, and a worsening energy crisis. To this list I would add terrorism, a deteriorating and increasingly costly healthcare system, global warming, and war.

Pieter van der Heyden – Sloth

The incrementalism Nolan and Haque decried is alive and well. Petty, self-appointed social networking gurus argue about the incremental virtues of Identi.ca over Twitter, Facebook over Myspace (NWS-A), FriendFeed over Twitter, Twitter over Facebook, and countless other variants of this rock-paper-scissors silliness. The other 99.9% of the world’s population couldn’t care less.

At the time I read Nolan’s and Haque’s posts, I was mired at SocialOptimize creating social networking applications for clients. My former partner and I collected exorbitant dollars per hour for our work but I felt as if we drastically overcharged for our services. I came to realize that what we produced were inconsequential products that added little to no value to the economy and society. Even the companies that employed SocialOptimize derived scant value from the apps we delivered. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy games and distractions as much as anyone but these apps constituted neither good games nor good distractions. They were merely companies’ halfhearted and “me too!” attempts at having a presence on social networks. The companies didn’t really even want these apps; they just got caught up in all the Web 2.0 hype.

As an investor, I’ve always been a contrarian but my entrepreneurial endeavors started to look like a vapid run with the herd. Haque’s and Nolan’s posts landed profound psychological kicks to my posterior. So I immediately interrupted my usual programming and have since been obsessed with searching for opportunities to address bigger problems.

My search for meaning has turned out to be fortuitous and delightful. It has taken me many months as I tried to vigorously filter noise from signal, short-term cash grabs from sustainable opportunities. Opportunities never appear scarce; the trick lies in carefully identifying and selecting the ones I can have the most impact on and the most fun with.

So I was ecstatic when I decided to join Design Engine Lab, a leading industrial design firm, as partner and chief strategist. Industrial design is an entirely new world to me and I’ve jumped in with complete enthusiasm. I am steering the firm gradually away from servicing clients and toward developing our own internal products and spin-off companies.

We have designed a new, patented interface technology that we will first apply to the lighting market. Our technology has the potential to curb energy usage drastically wherever it is installed. Some of Haque’s big problems are beyond the scope of my circle of competence, but global warming is one which Design Engine Lab’s greener and cleaner technology can have a very positive impact. Our technology will also affect the delivery and efficacy of healthcare, another big problem, by mitigating the environmental risk factors attendant in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Our technology will be used in hospitals across the United States and that specific segment alone represents a multi-million dollar market.

We’re also forming a joint venture with another company to develop a portable landing zone that will dramatically improve the success rate of emergency extractions of injured people via helicopter. I’ve accompanied helicopter pilots on test flights and have received nothing but the most eager feedback. I’m very excited about this product because it will actually save lives in the real world.

At Design Engine Lab, we conduct serious play looking for ideas that have global implications. Sometimes, that means huge ideas requiring complex execution. But we also engage in what I coined Bite-Sized Innovation®. Small does not have to mean incremental if the result is drastic. We attempt to make small changes that lever up to create huge consequences. Some of our upcoming medical device projects will reflect this Bite-Sized Innovation model. The best part of all this is the intensely joyful feeling of play that permeates all our brainstorming and experimentation sessions.

I don’t want to stray too far from the software world. So I’ve been fortunate to have also gotten involved with Sendside Networks as a consultant helping with research, marketing, business development, and fundraising. Sendside is creating technology that will change the way companies communicate with their customers. It is a highly risky strategy as we are trying to forge a brand new category in the Enterprise 2.0 market. But highly risky strategies are the ones that capture or create enormous value if executed well. In this case, the risk is vastly mitigated by a fantastic executive team and boards of directors and advisers filled with quality individuals. The team is the primary reason I wanted to get involved in the first place.

Without giving away the recipe for the secret sauce, Sendside has the potential to replace a sizable portion of the physical mail stream. In our vision, at its most revolutionary extreme, only junk mail and parcels will flow through the mail stream. Successfully bringing about this vision would make Sendside one of the greenest companies in the world, lightening the global burden on our forest lands forever. I have to give a shout out and thank my friend Jeff Barson, Sendside’s evangelist, for turning me on to this opportunity.

I’ve been lucky to have had the luxury of putting a halt to my daily grind to look for game-changing opportunities. I was especially lucky to have come across the two thought-provoking and ego-shattering pieces by Haque and Nolan. Umair Haque wrote in the end of his post that he’d put his money where his mouth is and advise five organizations trying to solve big problems. Umair, if you’re reading this, please get in touch with me. If not, I’ll be in touch shortly.

Patents are notoriously difficult to value but it is clear that patents are becoming a viable asset class in themselves. Taking the cue from many other asset classes, could there be a way to “securitize” a portfolio of assets? This could be a fun and challenging opportunity to address. One approach is Nathan Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures, a “venture fund” that invests in patents by acquiring those invented by others and developing some internally. There are many in the technology industry who fear Intellectual Ventures will evolve into the best funded and organized patent troll.

Below is an essay I wrote for an investment newsletter published in February 2007 distributed to high net worth clients.

Patent Bridge is Falling Down

Horror of horrors! We almost lost service for our Blackberry communication devices early last year. Also known as Crackberries for their users’ incessant finger-pounding of emails during company meetings, on the subway, and even on vacations, a patent infringement lawsuit filed against parent company Research In Motion (RIMM), threatened to sever the umbilical cord between the gadgets and their addicted users. NTP, Inc., a patent holding company, claimed that RIM infringed NTP’s wireless email patents. Legions of squinty-eyed telecommuters were relieved when RIM finally settled with NTP by paying an extortionary sum of over $600 million.

The Blackberry episode underscores the growing importance of an emergent business model. Disdainfully described as “patent trolls” by detractors, patent holding companies assemble portfolios of patents and wait for other companies to develop infringing products. Profits are then won in the courts and not in the arena of market competition. This form of intellectual blackmail has the potential of drastically altering the economic landscape and the development of innovative new products.

Innovation is the Holy Grail. Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen assured us of that universal truth with the publication of a couple of business bestsellers. Large corporations pursue innovation with a newfound zealousness. However, the editors of this publication submit that the innovator’s dilemma is no longer about large corporations’ inability to recognize and take advantage of disruptive technology; it is now about navigating the field of patent landmines.

Who takes the risk? Innovation is inherently a risky endeavor. Impactful advances in technology seldom occur at low cost. Invention, experimentation, testing, and prototyping can require large sums of capital. Furthermore, product evangelism often dwarfs the cost of research and development. Thus, the founding fathers created a patent system to reward the risk taker and incentivize risky behavior resulting in benefits to society in the form of improved goods. They must now be spinning in their graves. Patent trolls are, in essence, excellent risk arbitrageurs, because they have found a way to extract profit without undertaking the bulk of the risk. In the case of NTP v. RIM, although Research In Motion incurred the cost of developing the Blackberry device and bringing it to market, the patent troll almost succeeded in removing a winning product from the marketplace. Who loses? Ultimately, the consumer.

How does one spot a patent troll? Like the monsters of childhood tales, they hide and wait under a bridge until someone attempts to cross. Trolls then exact a toll from the weary traveler for use of the bridge. Only in the real world, the bridge or asset was built or developed by the traveler! Patent trolls are, in the words of the legal cognoscenti, “nonpracticing” patent holders. They have no intention of ever developing and commercializing their patents.

“But we are all patent trolls!” Panglossian defenders of the current patent system point to the huge patent portfolios of large corporations like General Electric (GE), International Business Machines (IBM), Intel Corporation (INTC), and even mundane consumer goods powerhouse Procter & Gamble (PG). In this world of limited resources and talent scarcity, even the most imposing corporate behemoths can ill afford to commercialize all their patents. Yet when the blue chips’ patents are infringed, they pursue legal recourse as vigorously as any litigant. Defenders of the status quo place the burden of diligence on manufacturers. All who aspire to make the next iPod (AAPL), Blackberry, Viagra (PFE), or toaster oven must search the United States Patent and Trademark Office archives for all prior art – just as it has always worked for the last two centuries. They have a point. If manufacturers are not thorough with their homework, why shouldn’t they be sued?

The problem is not whether large or small inventors are practicing or not. The editors submit that the problem is what we call the Goldilocks Paradox. Currently, too many overly broad patents are being awarded. When that occurs, it becomes very difficult to innovate around such widely defined intellectual property. When patents are too narrowly defined, it becomes very easy for competition to design around them.

“Yum yum, these patents are not too broad and not too narrow, they’re just right!” To get to this happy equilibrium, we humbly suggest a remedy. To curb trolling behavior, set a time horizon for making infringement claims. The deliberate strategy employed by patent trolls of waiting for another company to develop a market for a product to then sue for damages is diametrically opposite of the approach taken by most large corporations armed to the teeth with attorneys. After a certain amount of time, claims will either have no merit or will win reduced compensation. We believe this would put a significant chill on trolling behavior and allow everyone to get on with the business of making our lives better.

For all the Blackberry users out there, cling tightly to your beloved devices. On May 1, 2006, Research In Motion was sued by another patent troll, Visto. Ah, as Candide implied, “All is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds.”

A few days ago, I wrote about the commoditization of social networks or rather the social networking feature sets that currently make Myspace and Facebook so unique and neat. Pioneers in social networking like Friendster and Myspace introduced a new data and software architecture that, at the same time clumsily and elegantly, met Internet users’ desire to interact and share content with each other. Finding old friends, connecting with new friends, sharing music and videos, playing collaborative games, and expressing oneself to virtual audiences of thousands all were groundbreaking features or functions that captivated a whole new generation of Web users.

These features generated higher levels of engagement (or stickiness) many times greater than traditional web properties. This stickiness in turn attracted marketers and advertisers who wanted to be where the people were. This stickiness premium netted the founders of social networking startups wealth reminiscent of the dotcom bubble. Myspace sold for nearly $600 million in a buyout by News Corporation (NWS-A), Facebook was valued at $15 billion by Microsoft (MSFT), and Bebo’s owners sold out to AOL (TWX) for $850 million.

With great rewards come hordes of wannabes and copycats. Many people are staking their future on social networking. Some are attempting to create me-too social networks. Others are pimping themselves as “experts” in social networking and offering their “consulting” services. I did the same with my SocialOptimize startup. Although my now defunct startup was able to deliver good social networking applications to prominent venture-funded startups, I soon realized that social networking would become a game with few winners and many losers. I argued that once Web 2.0 methodologies become widely adopted and social networks become a feature set rather than destinations, those same Web 2.0 methods will become standardized commodities.

That march to commoditization may occur faster than anticipated. Google (GOOG) recently announced its Friend Connect program, which allows virtually any website to plug in a turnkey social networking suite. Owners of websites can, like Google’s AdSense product, embed a snippet of code in their webpages and immediately enjoy the benefits of offering social networking features to their site customers or visitors. Think of Google Friend Connect as a more powerful Google AdSense, but instead of offering relevant text ads it offers your site visitors the ability to connect with their friends, connect with new friends, interact with each other with messages, and share content.

Here are the search engine giant’s stated high-order benefits of Google Friend Connect (GFC):

• Anyone with a basic understanding of the Web can implement GFC, no need to hire an expensive programmer or self-branded “social media guru.”
• Drive traffic: people who discover interesting sites can bring their friends with them, and can opt-in to publish their activities on those sites back into their social network, attracting even more visitors.
• Increase engagement: access to friends and OpenSocial applications provides more interesting content and richer social experiences.
• Less work: any site can have social components without hiring a programming team or becoming a social network.

That last point is key. Google doesn’t want more “social networks” per se – it just wants more websites to have social features. A while ago, it signed a deal with Myspace to serve Google ads. At the time, Google paid a huge premium and there are reports that claim the Mountain View, CA behemoth has not recouped its cost. Signing advertising deals with mass market social networks can be expensive. Helping mom and pop sites to have social networking features will, in the long run, give Google a cheaper alternative. Google is simply facilitating the creation of more web pages (places to serve its ubiquitous ads), pageviews, and advertising inventory.

The message is clear. You don’t need to become a social network; social networking features are a commodity. Here, have a few social networking features for free.