Last night, I partied with the IT team at Genentech at Full Spectrum 2008.  It was an awesome event.

On the one hand, it was a typical tech party (note: Dr. Spock and Neo).  On the other hand, I’ve never seen an IT team embrace Facebook with such vigor…

And, as an added bonus, there there were glow-in-the-dark dancers on roller skates, casino games, and at least 4 simultaneous games of “Rock Band” (the video game) going at a time…

Thanks to Paul Lanzi for the invite and the photos.

Check out the post I wrote on SocialMedia Networks’ blog about how social application developers can maximize their advertising revenue returns.

Check out the latest post I wrote on SocialMedia Network’s blog.  The post is an interview with Dennis Yu, SocialMedia’s resident SEO and advertising expert.  In it, Dennis explains the basics of social advertising, especially as it relates to SocialMedia Network’s Appsaholic.

Check out the new blog post I wrote for SocialMedia Networks about social advertising.

I just published a new post at SocialMedia Network’s blog.  Check it out!

Yesterday, I started a 2 month, part-time consulting gig with SocialMedia Networks, a leading provider of social network services including a large and growing network of applications across Social Networking platforms.  SocialMedia’s flagship product, Appsaholic, currently available on Facebook and MySpace makes it easy for independent software vendors (ISVs) to manage, market, and monetize the applications they distribute online. In other words, SocialMedia helps developers buy and sell advertising space inside their application, cross promote their applications, and more.

A couple of weeks ago, SocialMedia announced that it secured Series A financing of $3.5 million. The investment was led by Charles River Ventures, with additional investors including: Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape and Jeff Clavier, founder and managing partner of SoftTech VC.

In the next couple of months, I’ll be getting Developer Relations up and running, writing the company blog (which is very good already), and working closely with Julia French from Covered Communications, who I’ve been working with over the last several months on marketing and business development projects for other clients.

If you’re a developer on the SocialMedia Network or are interested in joining, please drop me a line to introduce yourself!  And, check out SocialMedia’s blog
in the next few days (I’ll post a link on my vox blog when I do my first post).

Last week at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2007, Ryan Kim of the San Francisco Chronicle sat down with Lowell McAdam, the CEO of Verizon Wireless.  If Ryan Kim were one of my Facebook friends, I’d “high-five” him for putting McAdam’s feet to the fire during their chat.  In his Saturday post on the “Tech Chronicles” blog, Kim writes:

I asked [McAdam] about Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg’s blog comments about the big carriers acting like the old Soviet government restricting the freedom of their users, namely what kind of phones and services they can use.

McAdam said he had heard Mossberg bring this up repeatedly. He said that the U.S. mobile industry has nothing to be apologetic about in terms of innovation and competition but that Verizon Wireless is considering opening its network to new devices and applications, as Mossberg advocates.

“The industry is so innovative, and there are so many applications and devices coming, we’d be foolish not to respond to the market,” McAdam said.

Reading McAdam’s response to Kim’s question several times, I couldn’t help but think it could be interpreted one of several ways.  Will Verizon completely open it’s network? My bet is ‘not anytime soon.’  Will Verizon introduce cooler devices and increase the size of it’s developer network?  To remain competitive, they’ll have to.

While I won’t be surprised if Verizon introduces an increased number of apps – especially social networking applications and services in the next couple of years, I’ll be really surprised if they open up their network to the masses, voluntarily.  Verizon’s ‘walled garden,’ “V Cast” is the most fiercely defended ‘service platform’ I’ve seen in the mobile industry.  It’s going to take an unprecidented amount of pressure from mobile industry evangelists and critics including journalists like Walt Mossberg, entrepreneurs like Dustin Moscovitz (co-founder of Facebook who talked about the need for more openness in the mobie industry at CTIA), innovative OEMs (Google?!), ISVs, and customer advocacy groups to knock it down.

In my last post, I talked a bit about what the decreasing value of the dollar means for social media start-ups.  Yesterday in Tech Crunch, there was an interesting article on who is “winning” and “losing” as a result of the dollar on the slide.  It is well worth a read, offering an interesting and valid short-term perspective on the impact of the fluctuation of the dollar.

I hope that we’re only seeing a short-term devaluation that will turn around in 2008 with the promise of a change of administration (and hopefully war and economic policies), but if I’m wrong, the number of “losers” (to use Tech Crunch’s term) will increase.   By way of example, most of the 3rd party mobile developers I’ve worked with abroad do business in Dollars but have to pay rent, expenses, etc. in Pounds or Euros, and they’re feeling the pinch.  If the dollar’s downward spiral continues, this could mean a decrease in innovation and/or an increase in cost of goods worldwide.

In addition, anyone (like me) who is based in the US but does business with companies abroad and/or frequently travels abroad is feeling the pinch with increased operating and travel costs.  I could go on (and on), but I’m feeling a little nauseous thinking about it, so I’ll continue to think optimistically in the hopes that things improve (or that I find a way to get paid in Pounds!).

I just got back from a 2 week work + vacation trip to London.  On the night I arrived (Sept 26), I was invited to a London Girl Geek Dinner in London sponsored by Astraware, a company I worked closely with while I was a consultant at Palm.  The Girl Geek Dinners are increasing in popularity and a great way for women who are involved in technology to meet each other.  (Sarah Blow, the founder of London Girl Geek Dinners tells me that they recently had over 100 people attending one of the events!)  This particular event had about 50ish ‘geeks’ and included a few talks (including one from me).

John Phillips and Alison Barclay (VP of Business Development and Marketing respectively) from Astraware asked me to speak to the group about trends in social media/ social networking.  I talked about how I see social networking evolving and where I think its going (regurgitating topics I’ve spoken about before in this blog).  I also highlighted the business opportunities that abound for entrepreneurs and developers in this space (thanks to several new Facebook-related venture funds).

At the end of my talk, there was a Q&A, and (gasp) networking (the Brits hate the term “networking”).  Most of the people I spoke to had Facebook or other social networking accounts, but interestingly many were not convinced of the viability of business opportunities for UK-based Facebook developers.  Instead, most of the women I spoke to felt that the big opportunities in social media/ social networking are in the mobile applications space.

While I continue to believe that there is a huge opportunity for Facebook developers (mobile app or web), I agree with those I spoke to that the opportunities are currently largely US based.  With the British Pound valued at an all time high against the US Dollar, the cost of doing business in Britain has reached an all time high (£1 now equals ~$2.04. Three years ago £1 was about $1.75).  And, this can’t have gone unnoticed by those VCs investing in social media, which are largely based in the US.  I expect that this is a short-term problem.  Currency fluctuations eventually ‘right’ themselves, and by the time the US Dollar is a little stronger against the Pound,  I’m betting that the value of business opportunities for 3rd party developers on Social Media/ Networking platforms will be well proven and opportunities will increase for UK- based developers.

For all you tech-savvy women out there… There’s a new, 2-day technology event coming up at the end of October (22-23) in Mountain View, CA called “She’s Geeky,” which should be good.  Unfortunately, for wireless geeks, it overlaps with the first day of CTIA’s Wireless I.T. and Entertainment 2007 at Moscone Center in San Francisco, but it She’s Geeky sounds like a great couple of days.

It’s an “unconference” with an agenda molded by the attendees.  According to the website,

It is designed to provide women who self-identify as geeky and who are engaged in various technology-focused disciplines with a gathering space in which they can exchange skills and discuss ideas and form community across and within disciplines.

I don’t identify myself as being geeky (after all, there’s a difference between being geeky and well informed), but based on the women I know going, I’m sure that’s not a pre-requisite.  The goal of the event is to get women in technology fields to learn from each other, talk about what’s happening in technology, and network.

If you’re interested in going, register here.  The event is being sponsored by Google, Plaxo, and others.  If your company would like to be a sponsor, email She’s Geeky.