“Google doesn’t get social media.” This sentiment’s been bandied about since the dawn of social in the mid-aughts. Google executive chairman of the board Eric Schmidt even admitted recently that his biggest regret as CEO was “not anticipating the rise of social…”

Social media can be very loosely defined as a construct and in the ever-changing operating system of the web and its users, Google is still poised to thrive even as it continues to slowly, but surely ramp up its own platform, Google+. But things begin to get real when some key moves are made to create a more social environment within YouTube. While SoundCloud took cues to become the YouTube equivalent for audio, YouTube can learn from SoundCloud’s superior integration of social subscription discovery and how that improves the user experience.

YouTube is Google’s gateway to the living room and with the $35 Chromecast dongle now available in several countries, YouTube could become the primary source of both information and entertainment for both cable subscribers and cord-cutters alike. Chromecast makes it easier than ever to watch online video on a television. Sure, Roku and Apple TV have been around for years but Chromecast has the best YouTube integration and can be controlled via native mobile apps or a laptop.

What’s missing? A way to navigate and discover YouTube content based on your personal interest and those of your peers. A more social YouTube can empower not only users but also content creators while redefining the way we use Chromecast.

The fix begins with one [seemingly] simple feature: social subscriptions. The best and easiest way to begin watching YouTube via Chromecast is by browsing the new content from the channels one already subscribes to. But what channels to subscribe to? Users should be able to opt in to publicly share (at least some of) their subscriptions so others can discover new channels to subscribe to. Currently, there is no way to generate a dedicated link to one’s own page of YouTube subscriptions, you can only add a module with videos most recently watched to your own channel (see mine). Granted, not everyone wants to share their viewing preferences publicly – or even with friends – but for those accustomed to sharing and discovering new content and channels on platforms such as YouTube, this feature can be a game changer.

Now YouTube is only one “app” that plays over Chromecast — there’s an entire suite of them, including Netflix, HBO Go, Hulu Plus and others that are standard with the set-tops like Roku and Apple TV. But YouTube is free and has the greatest breadth of content, with more and more being made each day by fast-growing multi-channel networks such as Fullscreen, Machinima and Maker Studios, which will be acquired by Disney and will now be taking several hours of its YouTube content to cable TV, according to reports.

People are flocking to YouTube, no longer just to watch a song or search for a news clip but to watch regularly produced and even episodic content.

UPDATE 12/1/2014: You can now visit a users YouTube channel subscription list, example – youtube.com/user/revolute/channels (revolute is my YT username). There is some semblance of Google+ integration as well, when you go to a channel, you will see Google+ avatars at the top right of your contacts who have already subscribed to the channel. (Click here to make your channel subscriptions private.) With just a unique URL to shareable subscription lists that can be posted to Google+ I wouldn’t have to go through the tedious exercise of creating a web 1.0-style list of recommended YouTube channels for friends to subscribe to (as I recently did — copy/pasted below) and ideally the discoverer wouldn’t need to go through so many clicks to subscribe. Ideally, YouTube could create a profile tab similar to this one on Soundcloud (the YouTube equivalent for audio), which displays the accounts I’m following…

Below: A shortlist of some of the YouTube channels I’ve subscribed to over the years. I’d love recommendations of new channels to check out – there’s so much good stuff out there! Please leave your recos in the comments section.

Right-click (or command-click [Mac] ctrl-click [PC) on the links to open channels in new tabs then click “Subscribe.”

I got a text from Brent yesterday: “Are you in a Cisco commercial?!” And I knew my fraction-of-a-second of fame had gone live, on nationwide basic cable (namely, CNN). It all came about the Sunday after I moved from Echo Park to Venice (in October). I was walking around Abbot Kinney Festival when a young woman with a Flip camera stopped me. It was election season and I was initially skeptical as dozens of people were roaming about with clipboards and Roseanne/Cindy Sheehan 2012 stickers. Then she explained that she was sent out to cast a specific role for a commercial and the director really liked working with regular, man-on-the-street types found at farmers markets and street festivals. I spoke to her casually on camera about how I had just moved to Venice from Echo Park that week and was looking forward to a nice change of pace on the west side.

A couple days later I got a call.

Of all the “auditions,” the director, Mike Mills, chose me for the role of 40-something “CXO.” OK, so I’m only 37, but I’ve got the gray hair to pull off 40 and coincidentally, I do have a C-blahblahblah-O position (CIO at Adler). I showed up to a residence in Long Beach for my shoot. Mills was friendly and cool – I could tell everyone on the set enjoyed working with him. We rapped about east side / west side differences (he lives in Silver Lake) and after about 45 minute of sitting, looking at the camera and smiling / not smiling / smiling on the inside I was done. I learned from other people in the production crew that Mills had recently done a very successful ad for a beer company featuring fast-paced video stills and that a similar concept was at play for this Cisco ad (working title “The Next Big Thing”). I also learned that Mills had a reputation for bringing in musicians and others to entertain the crew during lunches on set.

As a “principal performer” in the commercial, I was compensated at the Screen Actors Guild day rate and will also receive residuals. I also have the opportunity to become a SAG member which I’d almost consider depending on the likelihood that I’d ever have such an opportunity again. After all, I do live in L.A.

Check me out at 0:54 in the clip below (don’t blink!). I’m there and gone within a fraction of a second:

Adler Integrated hosted a panel addressing these questions and looking into the current and future state of live streaming at Social Media Week Los Angeles last week.

Watch the discussion (in two parts) below:

The panel, moderated by AI’s Andy Sternberg, included an engaging audience Q & A and featured great insight from IROCKE‘s Karl Rogers, Livestream‘s Jeff Varnell, dick clark productions‘ Assaf Blecher and The Roxy Theatre And AI’s Nic Adler.

“If you don’t talk the viewers language there is a disconnect. So they need to feel that you represent them… they’re watching on their computer but you represent their voice,” said dick clark productions‘ Assaf Blecher.

“We’re trying to expand the consciousness of live streaming in the consumer’s mind… some of the most magical things that I’ve seen occur in live streaming is an impromptu appearance by an artist in a comfortable place and it becomes like a brainstorming session with the fans, said IROCKE‘s Karl Rogers.” “We’ve put the live streaming experience in a virtual place that’s like the physical event.”

“The difference here is access,” said Nic Adler, “now we can add to the live experience by socializing and adding value to it.” “Access to the artist if very compelling and can be done in the live department,” said Livestream‘s Jeff Varnell.

Click here to create a customized Spotify Play embed code.

Facebook‘s biggest and boldest move to date was announced last week at its f8 conference. Timeline is a complete overhaul of Facebook profiles and changes the way user behavior is reflected and shared across one’s network, or social graph. In essence, Facebook expects users to be active participants in the social web, actively sharing thoughts, photos, and more but also sharing semi-passively. What you’re listening to, reading, discovering and discussing across many websites can now be automatically archived on one’s Facebook timeline and published in real time to the Facebook News Feed.

Facebook has always pushed openness and sharing on its users and this latest innovation is bound to spark concern among users who wish to maintain significant privacy controls over their profile and presence. For users that embrace the increasingly open and social nature of the web, the distracting nature of Facebook is about to multiply exponentially.

News Feed
In October 2009 Facebook made its first significant shift to a focus on the home page news feed. In October 2010 it discontinued apps and revealed a roadmap signaling intentions to bring everything into the news feed. By October 2011 this will be closer to a reality as the news feed will feature a firehose of activity featuring users’ friends and interests and their actions across not only Facebook but on other websites that incorporate Facebook’s Open Graph.

The ability to see not only the primary news feed, occupying the middle of the home page but also to see the “hyper” feed at top-right can be overwhelming. This is where lists come in handy, and fortunately Facebook has begun iterating “Smart Lists” including segmentation by city. So if you just want to see updates from friends in your city, that list is automated if you click on “more” next to lists for your Lists index and then click on the list name corresponding to your city to view updates from people in a 10-mile radius.

The news feed also adds an added layer of engagement — see what friends are doing on Facebook in real time and join in. This is an area that will grow rapidly now that Open Graph has been released in Beta. Many users find this hyper-news feed to be superfluous and annoying and there is at least one Chrome browser plugin available to make it go away.

For now you can view what friends are listening to in real time by visiting http://www.facebook.com/?sk=music and interact, comment and even listen with your own Spotify, Mog, or Rdio account (or check out Earbits). In fact, Spotify is so deeply married to its open relationship with Facebook that it now requires all users to have a Facebook login.

Open Graph

This makes the Facebook Connect experience more complex and potentially more rewarding but also potentially embarrassing depending on what content you are reading. Visit this page to see Facebook’s initial partners announced at the Open Graph beta launch at f8, which in addition to the music partners include The Guardian, Washington Post and Hulu. Open Graph is in Beta and your mileage may vary, in fact, many of the supposed launch partners don’t appear to have any live integration at the moment while others lead to broken 404 pages.

By September 30th the new-look Facebook Timeline will be live for all users according to Facebook. No matter your level of Facebook engagement, interest, or concern regarding privacy, your experience and most notably the appearance of your profile will change. Those interested in implementing Facebook Timeline early can do so by clicking “Sign Me Up” at the bottom of facebook.com/timeline.

The greatest hits of everything that Facebook knows about you will be visible on your profile, in reverse chronological order. This immediately flips some simple privacy features that you may already have in place:

• Your age: Even if your profile is set to only show the month and day (and not year) of your birth it will appear on your timeline. It may even appear to date you as older than you are (for me it says 2000s, 1970s, Born; I was born in 1975). More on this here.
• Embarrassing photos: Timeline will pick and choose your greatest hits as it wishes, unless you go through and mark various updates and photos to feature in your timeline.
• Past lives: Your past jobs, relationships, hobbies, etc will all be easy to access if they are made public. Who you married, who you broke up with, what jobs you started and ended. None of this needs to be points for concern, I think it’s better that we become a more open and less bashful society, however, you may want to take a quick look in case there’s anything out of context to cherry pick.
• You can add a featured header image: I added a photo I took during a drive in Bariloche, Argentina. Amusingly, the first audible reaction beyond oohs and ahs that I got when I showed Facebook Timeline to my class last Friday was: “hello, MySpace!” I had a similar first reaction to the wider, two-column look and feel of the timeline.
• Your information: Be careful with passwords and “secrets” for all of your online accounts. If somebody really wants access they might be able to easily find your Mother’s Maiden name or date of birth right there in your Facebook Timeline.

You may or may not agree that Facebook is onto something incredible here. But if you are not already affected by the new features and the Nicholas Felton-esque Timeline design or people complaining about them) you soon will be.

Watch the archived video of the entire Facebook f8 keynote below:

Facebook Timeline, announced this week at f8, Facebook’s Developer conference, revolutionizes the Facebook profile as we know it, unfortunately at the expense of some pre-existing privacy settings and expectations. Timeline is expected to replace all user profiles by September 30th (you can opt in early at the bottom of this page).

All users’ birth dates appear on a user’s Timeline regardless of settings. Even if you choose to disclose only the month and day of your birth (and not the year), your age can still be approximated as a result of its appearance in the context of the Timeline.

I do not feel this is a betrayal of privacy but I am flagging it as it seems to be bug in the way Timeline works and that it may lead to the revelation of similar issues in the way we record our history and behavior on Facebook and across the social web. The fact that Timeline reveals your birth year should be among the least of your concerns [see my more in-depth post here]. (Another borderline-irrelevant privacy expectation that changes in Timeline is one’s ability to see which friends added in particular years are no longer friends.)

Facebook Timeline is an incredibly cool concept and a very sharp way to archive, scrapbook and view all the important events in one’s life. I’ve decided to go ahead and make public my year of birth, however, there does not seem to be a resolution for people concerned with age discrimination and those who wish to remain ageless.

A massive hurricane is swirling toward the eastern seaboard of the U.S. leaving 29 million people under a Hurricane warning on Friday night. Currently a category 2 storm, Hurricane Irene is forecast to straddle the coast before making landfall near New York City. Here in Southern California we don’t have many hurricane threats but then again it had been a while since the East Coast experienced a strong earthquake before this week. But in 1939 the only tropical storm to make landfall in California killed dozens at sea before coming ashore in Long Beach. 45 deaths were reported as a result of the flooding. And in 1858 a hurricane is said to have nearly made landfall off the San Diego coast, causing the 2011 equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars before turning back out to sea.

But in the 19th and even the 20th centuries we did not have the advanced warning and communications systems that we have today. Without even grazing land, Hurricane Irene is making history — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that today was the first time in the city’s history that mandatory evacuations had been ordered. About a quarter-million residents, primarily on the low-lying edges of Manhattan were urged to abandon their homes. New York’s subway system will be shut down Saturday at noon due to the threat of flooding.

It’s uncertain what kind of damage might result from up 20 hours of sustained tropical storm force winds (40-60 mph forecast), a storm surge up to six feet and a deluge of rain (anywhere from 6 to 15 inches) to top off a wet summer.

But one thing is for sure: Hurricane Irene is headed directly toward NYC. Unless it veers to the west. Or takes a more easterly track. In the post-Katrina era both the government and the public hope to avoid any catastrophic surprises.

NYC Evacuation Map

Google is hosting a central interface where anyone can view and mashup meteorological and government mapping data at crisislanding.appspot.com. FEMA announced a new text messaging service and an Android app today and is regularly publishing updates on local government emergency information sources available on Twitter and is recommending its Ready.gov preparedness guide. Mayor Bloomberg’s office is continuously tweeting updates as well. Maps of the evacuation zones and shelters have proliferated across the web even as the NYC.gov site buckled under heavy demand earlier today.

Power outages will be widespread and cellular voice services may be shaky as they were following Tuesday’s almost entirely unexpected East Coast earthquake. SMS and mobile data services, however, are more likely to tough out the storm and it will be Twitter messages and photos and YouTube videos that will keep people updated in near-real time on their internet-enabled smartphones even after the power goes out (until, inevitably the battery dies on the phone).

Originally posted on KCET’s The Public Note blog.

Today LinkedIn pulled a Facebook.

LinkedIn launched its own social ad network, which utilized users images and profile information in advertisements that would be served on the site, presumably to their contacts. LinkedIn really should have seen this coming — a few years back when Facebook did the same thing it experienced a user backlash.

What’s the fuss? Social network users expect the opportunity to select whether their likeness is used for profit. In both Facebook and LinkedIn’s case, users were initially opted in to the ad programs by default.

Now LinkedIn has stepped back just as Facebook did, claiming in an “I’m sorry but we told you so” blog post that the user trust was of utmost importance:

In early June, we announced changes to our privacy policy — including the new ad format’s opt-out policy — ahead of the first small test of these social ads. I also reiterated the same during the launch of social ads, explaining how members could opt-out of sharing their recommendations with their network.

The problem? Had LinkedIn taken a passive approach and introduced the social ad platform by spelling out an easy way for users to opt in to appearing in such ads — even perhaps offering incentive — it would have been fine. But automatically signing users up to appear in ads can be seen as exploitative and aggressive. Having corrected itself by pulling back on using user info and images, LinkedIn might wish to make amends by offering incentives to encourage users to participate in the social ads.

Facebook, by example of its incredible success, is not a normal company and likewise neither is LinkedIn. Both have found great success not without making relatively big mistakes. In March 2006, Mark Zuckerberg turned down a $750 million offer for Facebook insisting the upstart social network was worth $2 billion. In the first half of 2011 alone, Facebook’s valuation has been estimated at $50 billion to $100 billion.

But I digress. No matter what nonsense social networks put in their terms of service, the user will always prevail when it comes to a base level of privacy settings. These networks may be free but only at the price that the services take advantage of and in many cases sell its users. Once opted in to the network (by simply agreeing to the Terms of Service) the rules are always liable to change, most often in the interest of shareholders, and in the case of LinkedIn, with its stock still soaring at nearly 50 percent above its price when it hit the open market 3 months ago, keep an eye out for more creative maneuvers to capitalize on its 120 million user profiles.

There are consumer protections against such behavior, though not so much in America. But LinkedIn’s move this morning may have violated European law.

Photo by alancleaver_2000 used under Creative Commons license.

UPDATE: Watch video of the panel below.

For both businesses and consumers, geolocation apps and services are a dime a dozen these days. But many of these apps and tools serve to benefit both when used consistently and correctly. Much like social media itself, geolocation is a two-way entity.

“Geolocation makes it easier for consumers to get the services they want nearby and for local businesses to reach the consumers in their area,” Eli Portnoy, CEO of Culver City-based mobile marketing startup Thinknear told me matter-of-factly.

As consumers become increasingly engaged with smartphones and other mobile devices, geolocation will have a growing influence on commerce. For most businesses and services, location — and circumstance — means everything. More than one-third of U.S. adults (35 percent) are smartphone users according to a July 2011 Pew Internet report. Consumers are always on the hunt for quality goods and services at reasonable prices. As consumers grow accustomed to the “smart” aspect of always-connected, GPS-enabled mobile devices, the bargains appear at their fingertips and it only becomes a matter of convenience. As consumers discover the power of smartphones beyond texts, emails and phone calls, shopping habits change.

In the same Pew survey, 25 percent of smartphone owners indicated a preference for using the internet on their phone rather than their computer. This is likely not just a matter of convenience, it’s based on better circumstantial results. The top search results for “yogurt” on a home or office computer likely yield the Wikipedia entry, and links to the Dannon and Yoplait websites. But the same search from a smartphone directs the user to the nearest fro-yo shop. Geolocation is a win-win: consumers can find what they want and need at their fingertips while businesses can acquire new regulars by dangling their goods and services right in front of the smartphone user around the corner.

Geoloco & Business:

Do you see a map and a location listing for your business when you search Google? If not, you can list all physical locations on Google for free: www.google.com/placesforbusiness.

Gowalla, Foursquare, YP, Yelp…. Help!?! Forget about your business for a minute and try out each of these services via their mobile apps as a consumer. There are many tools, including these, which make it easier for consumers to get what they want. Search for your business on these applications? Is it there? Is the listing accurate? Not everything in the world is automated (yet) and so it’s never a surprise when new stores replace old ones but the old listing remains.

Your business (if it relies on a physical location) may only have one physical location but by making sure it’s populated and using any and all geolocation services at its disposal, you are doing the best you can to bring your offering to potential consumers on their terms. Foursquare may have more users than Gowalla but your next customer might discover you through Gowalla. Either way, these serendipitous, location-based discoveries often lead users to return and more importantly to share their experience with others via social media and word of mouth.

I was honored to be a panelist at this month’s Social Media Club Los Angeles event on geolocation, a topic I’ve been obsessed with for quite some time (it’s the subject of my Master’s Thesis). I wrote this post in advance of the July 26 SMCLA event.

I caught up with Bettina Korek, founder of ForYourArt this week to discuss the current state of the L.A. scene and what we have to look forward to this fall.

“The art world isn’t just about collecting often-expensive objects,” said Korek, “it’s also about learning and engaging and it can be a gateway to all different discplines.”

It’s great when both MOCA and LACMA have showcases like Art in the Streets and the Tim Burton exhibit but it’s equally important to experience and engage with the museum space as a whole.

“I hope that ForYourArt can be a resource for people to not only know what’s going on in L.A. but also to find that inspiring context that they can delve deeper into,” she said.

2011 has already been a strong year for art in L.A. but just wait for the fall: Pacific Standard Time, a collaboration between over 60 arts organizations with exhibits from San Diego to Santa Barbara. The first project of its kind in L.A., Pacific Standard Time, opening in October, is the result of nearly a decade of research by the Getty Institute and comprises a veritable history of the rise of art culture in Los Angeles over the years 1945-1980.