Netly News

Google's Art of War—With Facebook

I don't know anything about art, but I know a little about Google. And I Googled this: Jeff Koons.

He's the artist whose "Chrome Tulips" decorated Google's minimalist search box yesterday morning. Lovely stuff. Beneath the empty box was a link to something called iGoogle Artist Themes ("What happens when great art mixes with your homepage?") Users who clicked on the link got to choose from among 70 artists' "themes." From the likes of such commercial artists as Marc Ecko, Diane von Furstenberg, NIGO, Michael Graves and Dolce Gabbana, users could select a theme and personalize their iGoogle page, a place that Google dearly hopes will quickly become your start page.

It seems pretty sweet. More free stuff from Google! And, by the way, raise your hand if you never used iGoogle or even knew it existed.

Read more on Time.com

Can Facebook Save Business 2.0?

The New York Times reported earlier this week that Time Inc., the corporate parent of Business 2.0, the magazine I edit, is considering shuttering it. Our situation is a fairly common one these days: As more and more ad revenue is shifting from print to online media, many magazines are going the way of the telegraph.

What happened after the Times story was published, though, was an It's-A-Wonderful-Life kind of surprise, one that continues to amaze me, minute by minute: Two readers from Canada started a Facebook Group to rally support for Business 2.0. Within 40 hours of the Times story, 350 people had joined the group. (I believe I was member number 7, having read about the group on Techmeme.) By last night the number topped 700 and as of this writing we've got over 900 supporters. At this rate, we ought to hit 1,000 people (bright-eyed geniuses, every one of them, with big brains and enormous disposable incomes!) by the weekend. Please forgive me for obsessively checking The Number; I am starting to feel like Jerry Lewis in the waning hours of a telethon...

So how big this thing will get? What effect it will have on the folks in whose hands the fate of this magazine rests?

Is Myspace a Prodigy?

    

Some of you kids may be old enough to remember Prodigy, which was one of the first break-out "interactive services" to attract the attention of mainstream America. Prodigy was ugly and dumbed down and annoying. Its environment was so closed and proprietary, it made AOL, briefly, look smart and open. Which is why, ultimately, it became AOL's lunch. Still, it's an important footnote to history: Prodigy introduced regular folks—over a million of them, which children, was a lot in those days— to the glories of the online world.

I wonder if Myspace isn't doing the same thing for social networks, and whether it's headed for a similar fate at the hands of Facebook.

OK, clearly, Facebook is having some kind of a moment. (See especially my wife's take in the paper today.) But beyond the 15 minutes of fame, we are witnessing the birth of the latest uber-network. Already, Facebook's population rivals that of Shanghai, and it feels like it's ready to grow even bigger.

I never saw the appeal of Myspace. (I understand why others do it, but it never hooked me.) Plus, it's ugly and chaotic, and closed. I find Facebook, by comparison, hugely amusing. Its white space and neat layout is positively Apple-like. It's interface simple but powerful. The way it handles privacy is smart. There's plenty do there—and with developers working to add new stuff, you can easily see how a network effect will create exponential growth. Where LinkedIn is an excellent tool for recruiting people, or finding a job or a contact within a company, there's no reason to hang out there. Facebook, though, is sticky.

The implications of all this are fairly fascinating. Prodigy declined when its users got pissed off over restrictive rules. Is Myspace hollowing out?  And if Facebook becomes the uber-social network, how long can it hold on?

(For an opposing opinion, see Owen's take.)