Quick take on first glance:

1. Can’t blame the Friendfeed team.  They built a great product and an exit to Facebook makes good shareholder return sense.  The fact the price tag was $50M really shows how bad the economy has taken a toll on liquidity.  I would think based on recent history, Friendfeed would have gone a higher price tag even sans revenue.
2. Can’t blame the Facebook team.  As Scoble mentioned, Friendfeed was a lead innovator in the social stream space and Facebook was “borrowing” many of the innovations coming from them.  They are acquiring a great team that knows how to execute that should only continue to help them build their continually improving platform.

Personally, even while it may make sense for both teams, I can’t help to be a bit negative on this one when I probe into it a bit more.  Some of my concerns can be remedied with time, some not.

1. I would have liked to see Friendfeed to continue to evolve with more runway, they were doing some great stuff even if their penetration was only into the real early adopters.  It would be neat to see if they could cross the chasm just as Twitter did.  But perhaps they understood that it was too complicated for the mainstream.  This one we’ll never know, the writing is on the wall that Friendfeed will be absorbed fully.
2. I am concerned regarding innovation and also the number of players.  Louis Gray made a great point when he expressed a concern that there could be four major players, Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.  We need more independent companies doing stuff in the space.  Time will play out here.
3. Friendfeed never developed into a business model (perhaps this is why selling makes sense).  I always thought that their platform while fantastic for consumers had a great revenue opportunity for the enterprise, there is big revenue in the B2B collaborationa and communication space.  No one has won there yet and current market toosl do not satisfy the need fully.
4. I need more than one stream in my lifestream.  As Rubel comments, lifestreaming is upon us with this acquisition.  Here I am not so sure.  I need more than one “sub-stream” in my lifestream in Facebook.  Fred Wilson removed everyone and made Facebook his private lifestream for exactly this reason.  For him, Facebook is personal and Twitter is everyone.  For me, I am going through the same conflict.  I have personal and some business people (that I actually know) in Facebook.  This creates a gray area between Facebook and LinkedIn.  I don’t know (in person) many of the people I interact with on Friendfeed; I don’t want them becoming “friends” yet on Facebook.  Already, I don’t like the fact that former business colleagues can see on Facebook what my former high school friends are posting in my news feed if I comment on it.  This whole area is an issue and is ripe for innovation.
5. Facebook permissioning.  I know many of you are going to jump on point #4 above and say “Lou, Facebook has good privacy controls and you just need to manage the groups”.  Okay, maybe so but it isn’t clear to me on how to do this.  Is there a manual?  If you need one, there’s the first problem. It needs to be easy and straight-forward, right now it is not.   If I haven’t figured this out yet how can I expect my mom to creating multiple lifestream groups in the Facebook system.  One “newsfeed” to rull them all does not work.  Facebook may be the one to crack the code here in lifestreaming but it is beyond what they are doing now and is beyond what Friendfeed was doing too.  There needs to be innovation around easy management of the “different faces of one’s life”.  I will write another post fully on this.  But suffice it to say, the Friendfeed integration could get messy for many.  Time will tell.

So, time will tell on where this heads.  Not only for the integration of Friendfeed and Facebook functionality and follower lists, but also in the entire lifestream space in general.  Time will tell on where this puts Twitter and how quickly they potentially move to Google as Kara Swisher outlined yesterday.  Look out, lots going on and much more to be on the look out for.

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• Facefeed: No Surprises Here (cloudave.com)
• I like to think of Friendbook not Facefeed (socialmediatoday.com)
• FriendFeed is Facebooks Summize. It’s All About Search. (newcommbiz.com)
• Roundup: Facebook-meets-FriendFeed photos, Verizon’s bad deals, Scoble is leaving Facebook … now? (venturebeat.com)
• Facebook buys FriendFeed (thenextweb.com)
• FriendFeed Is Getting Ripped Off (regulargeek.com)

Certainly an attention grabber.  It certainly caught me off guard on first glance.  And I don’t think anyone will be clamoring to steal that tag line from them.

But there is certainly something to the campaign.  We live in a world of innovation, innovation is taking place everywhere around us:  genetics, new sources of energy, the web, sneakers that blink, sneakers that roll, beer that tastes like it has lime already in it…  While innovation is great and the right thing for many companies and products, is that always the case?

Too many times we see companies fall into the trap of innovating to create the next new thing that they lose sight of what got them where they are.  Worrying too much about what is next rather than concentrating on their core competency and ensuring that they maintain their competitive advantage  simply (or not so simply).  Sometimes, remaining the best in your space and at “what you do” needs to be the focus.  

I’ll always be a believer in being on the outlook for new markets, new features (that add value), new technology trends and understanding what could disrupt your business.  At the same time, focus must remain on the core, this campaign speaks volumes to how companies need to remain focused on the core knitting.  Just in the time its taken me to write this post, I like this ad more and more.  And it is just a bonus for Post that I don’t believe anyone is going to try to mimic this campaign.  How ironic. An innovative ad campaign saying ‘no’ to innovation.

Back to the two terms.  Much of the reason the two terms are used interchangeably is due to the tight correlation that usually exists between an individual or firm’s reputation and its direct impact on their respective brand.  That does not, however, mean they are the same.  When I was working for Dow Jones, I would often talk to customers that wanted to ‘monitor’ the news, particularly themselves, the competition and the industry.  Often times, their goal was to monitor how they were being represented in the media and to have a holistic understanding on its impact to their reputation.

In this pursuit, a key search companies would do is their brand name and the brand name of their competitors.  Those with more established practices, would extend their lens to areas of focus where key reputation indicators such as child labor, financial indicators, supplier relationships and large customers.  This is just a couple of examples.

In any case, having clear definitions of brand and reputation are helpful when understanding how one represents themselves and how they are regarded.  A recent article, Don’t Confuse Reputation with Brand (PDF version) has pretty clean definitions between the two:

Brand is a “customercentric” concept that focuses on what a product, service or company has promised to its customers and what that commitment means to them.

Reputation is a “companycentric” concept that focuses on the credibility and respect that an organization has among a broad set of constituencies, including employees, investors, regulators, journalists and local communities – as well as customers.

It is pretty easy to find companies that have strong brands and solid reputations.  Not so obvious are those where the correlation between the two terms -1? (i.e. one is bad but the other good)

What are companies have a superior brand but a poor reputation?  Or the inverse (and my instincts say more likely), what companies have a great reputation but not a superior brand?

The hot news of the day is Carol Bartz being the choice for CEO over at Yahoo! There is plenty of coverage out there about the news.  It seems from everything that I’ve read and how the markets have reacted that the choice is not a popular one.  My two cents on the subject is that we should take a step back and give Bartz a chance to assess the Yahoo! landscape, make some decisions and begin to re-align Yahoo! on the determined course and strategy.  I made some early comments on this over at TechCrunch.

Yahoo! has a tremendous number of assets and really smart people.  Products ranging from search to delicious to flickr all can be knitted together in a cohesive strategy if the right leader and decision making framework is in place.  The boat needs to get pointed in a unified direction. That is why I think Bartz could be a good choice.  She may be new to the web and to media but Yahoo! has a campus full of individuals who are passionate and go to work everyday to build great stuff.  Bartz, from what I’ve read thus far, seems like someone that can assess the playing field for the organization, distill the information and make key decisions.  She clearly understands the gauntlet laid out as she stated:

Yahoo…a company with great assets that frankly could use a little management.

It all seems to blur together at this point but it seems the news regarding the company has been on a downward news cycle since the infamous Peanut Butter memo.  Perhaps there was a lot of merit in that memo where the general gist is that Yahoo! had its hands in too many things and needed to focus.  That is before any of the Microsoft debacle even occurred.  Then everyone coming out of the woodwork to put their view on the situation and what they should do to which Bartz responds:

Everybody on outside deciding what Yahoo should or shouldn’t do–that’s going to stop.

As I said, she is going to need some time to get on the ground, assess and move from there.  She is going to need that chance to do it.  I, for one, believe she should have that chance.  Clearly, she does do:

I can’t give you a timeline. I’m very good at listening, digging around, finding out what’s going on. I don’t expect it’ll take an extraordinary amount of time, but this is a big company. Let’s not put ourselves in some crazy timeline. Let’s give this company some frigging breathing room.

I, again, am bullish on Yahoo!  I think they have some great elements going for it and I never quite rallied behind the concept that they were in real trouble.  Time will tell but I think picking a CEO like Carol Bartz is a step in the right direction in changing the negative momentum that has surrounded Yahoo! for some time and then getting the company plowing forward again.  That’s it, from here out, I plan to give them some room to breath.

While awards are nice, great to receive, they are not our primary focus.  We continue to concentrate executing our strategy, providing value to customers and helping job seekers find the right fit hourly positions. And we continue to build our team staying true to who we are.  What’s the most fun about what we do?  Every day we are helping people find jobs, it is that simple and that is the measuring stick we use as much as any other.  I met Pete Warden at Defrag last week and he was gracious enough to write a post, SnagAJob Makes the World a Better Place, that echos this sentiment.

An award such as this one is, however, another validation of our business and the what we bring to the marketplace, customers and job seekers alike.  And it is always great to get recognition from a respected and impartial third party like Deloitte.

(Disclaimer:  I work for SnagAJob.com but you could probably figure that one out. )

Lencioni uses a very engaging story-telling method to convey the real problems any business team and particularly executive leadership teams face.  It is an incredibly fast read, I read it in two sittings.  I cannot imagine a business team (even the most high performing) that could not take some morsel from this book and focus their team towards organizational improvement.  It should be required reading for any management team out there.

This book would also be very valuable reading for students at MBA or executive management programs.  It provides solid context for the five critical areas where team dysfunction can occur.  And the book outlines it better than any organizational behavior course I’ve taken and is a case-study within itself.

Check out other readers’ reviews of the book over at Shelfari.  And if you want to buy it, you can find it here at Amazon.  BTW, if you want to ‘friend’ me over there, you can find me http://www.shelfari.com/lpaglia.

Okay, time to shift.  Next up, Inside Steve’s Brain.

Perhaps the answer is obvious:  MONEY.  But that is the easy way out.  Perhaps there are other obvious answers that I’m eager to listen to.  My view is there are tons of ways to make money and Microsoft has some of the strongest (while showing signs of weakness in some cases) revenue streams in their Windows, Office and XBox franchies.

So again, I ask the question:  Why does Microsoft have to play in search at all?

Does Microsoft have to play in every arena that is technology-related and has a large market pie?  That does not strike me as a good strategic criteria and in the long-term, successful companies are successful by deciding what to do as much as the things to not do.  Microsoft has traditionally built an organization that has been able to successfully play in a number of areas due to sheer size, strength, capital and aptitude.  I think those days are over, the technology industry is too multifaceted for any one company to have their hands in too many different cookie jars if you want to lead in any.

Google is the leader in search, that is their core.  Apple is the leader in digital music device, that is in their core.  Why does Microsoft have to be in search with Live/MSN and in digital music device with Zune?  Because they can doesn’t see like the right answer and it sometimes feels like that to me.

To be clear, I am not shaking a stick at what Microsoft has accomplished (in anything they do or have done).  It is incredible what they have and continue to accomplish, particularly from a revenue perspective.  Even what they’ve done online with MSN and Hotmail while I am not a user of either.  So it isn’t about that.

It is about my asking what is truly their core business and why not place so much more focus there rather than diversifying into a space like search that I think everyone knows is a much different “kettle of fish.”  If they spent their efforts in the core, would they be demonstrating amazing new offerings in the area of online office tools, perhaps even acquired Zoho?  Why didn’t they buy Plaxo and integrate it into Outlook (always seems like a not brainer to me) and also consistent with their attempts to grab Xobni.

I don’t know.  There seems like a number of angles that Microsoft can compete from its traditional areas of strength to compete in the online world.  All this talk about Yahoo! and all of the investment in search is geared towards, well, competing in the search space.  But is that necessary when there are so many other (perhaps non-du-jour) areas to play in on the web.

Anyway, just some thoughts…  Interested to here what others have to say on the topic, I’m sure the opinions will be passionate and wide-ranging.

UPDATE on Sunday, May 25:  Tim O’Reilly has a great and very related post to this one up on his blog.   Arrington over at TechCrunch has his own views about the risk to the industry of creating a search monopoly.  I’m much more with Tim on this one.  There is merit to having competition in search and I have no doubt there will be even if everyone does outsource their search to Google in the short-term.  But I don’t see why Microsoft has to be that competition, better to concentrate closer to their core.

Here are some of my thoughts of Microsoft Live Cash Back:

• I do not view this as “big” news out of Redmond nor do I feel it is a huge strike into the hull of the Google search tanker?  Verdict:  No material effects on Google’s search bottom-line.
• I always get very concerned when “cash back” or “lower prices” is the angle.  Sometimes it makes total sense when it is the underpinnings of the business model (which it could be here).  But because this is Microsoft and they tried so many different tactics against Google, the combination of attempts conveys to me a “this is our last shot” attempt at doing something sort of feeling.
• I feel only the truly price-sensitive will use this as one of their many tools when looking for the lowest price on a product they know they are actively shopping for.  Is this a large market? Perhaps. Could this become a leader in commerce showing?  Absolutely.  But that should be a concern for the Shopping.com’s of the world and Google Checkout.
• On the point above, why is everyone looking at this against Google overall.  Perhaps Microsoft simply has decided that grabbing share in the general search arena is a losing proposition and that commerce search is still really the unclaimed frontier?
• People search for products all the time.  However, often they are doing research on the best product for them.  So while a large percentage of Google searches are commerce related they ARE NOT NECESSARILY commerce related with the “intent-to-purchase”.  And that is the only thing Microsoft’s offering real tries to solve for.
• People care about experience and ease-of-use.  That is why everyone fell in love with Google in the first place, because it works.  So, premise is only 10% of the battle.  Any new search-related product better beat Google (and beat it hands-down) in experience, ease-of-use and results.  Otherwise, people are going to switch and the low switching costs of the web are not going to help.  By early look didn’t impress and it didn’t impress others either.

In my mind, I am looking beyond the points above and asking a more philosophical question:  Why does Microsoft have to play in search at all? To me, that is the fundamental strategic issue and probably another post which I’ll follow-up on.  The rest of this is just details if that question was answered incorrectly in the first place.

AOL still enjoys many advantages that most companies can only dream about, from a prestigious brand name to an enormous revenue stream ($5.2 billion in 2007, down 33 percent from 2006). AOL’s Web sites attract 112 million visitors a month, and 9.3 million Americans still pay the company for Internet services.

I find it amazing at the difference businesses are viewed on their way up rather than down or hit maturity with no longer a steep growth curve. Granted I find that there a fundamental issues with the AOL business and there has been since the point where they missed the mark thinking $19.95/month was always going to be the path to perpetual greatness.

But, for a moment, think back to the time AOL was the media darling. When $1B, then $2B, then $3B (BILLION!) and so on made an online media company the place to be and was only sung praises. It is that oft imperceivable shift where you go from “a juggernaut, where will it stop” to “the pace of growth has slowed”.

(editor’s note: AOL’s advertising stream has slowed to 18% growth, I can think of a number of firms that pine for an 18% growth rate)