Who provided the presentation: Paul Adams, at thinkoutsidein.com, is a lead researcher for social at Google. He investigates how people use social media. He works on Buzz and YouTube. He wrote a book, Social Circles. It’s out in August.

Rumor mill: Mr. Adams’s observations could provide insight into how Google might approach its rumored competitor to Facebook, Google Me.

Get on with it: The slide show of the presentation is embedded below, and after it I’ve provided a list of 36 slides (out of 216), along with descriptions of them, that I found particularly interesting. I copied the language from the slides or slightly modified it for brevity.

15
The problem is that the social networks we’re creating online don’t match the social networks we already have offline. This creates many problems, and a few opportunities.

17
The social web is not a fad, and it’s not going away. it’s not an add-on to the web as we know it today. It’s a fundamental change, a re-architecture, and in hindsight its evolution is obvious.

19
The web was originally built to link static documents together, but evolved to incorporate social media, and now we’re seeing the web built around people, where their profiles and content are moving with them as they visit different websites.

28
People are increasingly likely to find out about products and brands from their friends rather than from your business. It means that it is much harder to control how people first come to experience your messages.

32
Almost all the sites and apps we design from now on will have embedded social features.

33
Understanding sociability will become a core requirement for designing online. Almost all of us will need to become skilled in social web design.

34
The social web, and all social media that operate within it, is a way of thinking as opposed to a new channel. It’s not about sales, or ads, or click-through rates. It’s about pursuing relationships and fostering communities of consumers. It’s about rethinking how you make plans when your customers are in the center and in control.

35
Understand behavior, not technology: The people using [technology] don’t care about [it]; they care about the communication that the technology enables.

42
A better long term strategy for business is to understand people’s motivations for using new technologies, and not the technologies themselves.

47 – 52
When we sign up, most social networks ask us to create our “friends” group, but no such group exists offline (47-48). … Offline people have multiple groups of friends that form around life stages and shared experiences (52) … Despite trying to mix them, people’s groups remain independent (68).

People create messages on their social networks for a portion of their social network, but their entire network receives the message.

84
Avoid the use of the word friend for connecting people. Understand how people describe their relationships for the behavior you’re trying to encourage.

Allow people to create custom names for groups, and allow people to rename the group if it changes over time.

Support side conversations. Allow people to fork conversation threads with a smaller number of people.

90
Though we have unique relationships with each person in a group in our social network, “all our ‘friends’ are treated equally on social networks, and all our contacts appear alphabetically and equal in our mobile phones.”

112
So much of our lives revolve around our strong ties, and we need to think about designing for them as distinct from other types of relationships. “Strong tie” relationships are our most connected, most important ones; familial relationships, for example. These relationships often involve physical proximity, are maintained over long periods of time, are interacted with very regularly.

113
Versus weak ties: People you know but don’t care much about. Characteristics: Infrequent communication, friends of friends

115
Most of us can stay up-to-date with up to 150 weak ties. This is a limitation of our brain. This number has been consistent throughout history.

Then several slides providing interesting examples of groups reaching 150 members, and then rupturing or intentionally splitting off into new groups.

123
Social networks changed weak-tie relationships by making it easier for updating ourselves on developments in them (no more phone calls, or meetings). Just check out their activity stream; “it gives us a lightweight route to get back in touch. This is a powerful route when we’re sourcing new information.”

125
But strong and weak ties are not enough when we think of relationships online. We need a new category of tie, and I call it the temporary tie. Temporary ties are people that you have no recognized relationship with, but that you temporarily interact with.

133
You don’t know these people beyond the one conversation you had, or the words they typed and whatever online profile they have. Your interaction with them is temporary. With the rise of user generated content online, temporary ties are becoming more important.

134
As designers, the biggest thing we need to think about when designing for temporary tie interaction is trust.

138
Don’t try to design something for all types of relationships. You’ll simply end up with a compromised solution for everyone. Understand which types of relationship ties are most important for what you’re creating, and design primarily for them.

141
In a world of many types of messages, four things that businesses need to consider when choosing the best communication features for their consumers:

1) The other person and their relationship
2) The content being communicated
3) The urgency of reply required
4) The level of privacy required

146
Different communication tools are better for different types of communication. Provide the one appropriate to your users’ needs.

153
We rely on others to make decisions: “If we want people to use our products, to use our website, it is important that we design in features that support our friends making decisions for us.”

155
How people influence each other is complex, and the role of “influentials” in society is over-estimated.

160
Whether someone can be influenced is as important as the strength of the influencer.

162
Two factors in understanding whether someone can be influenced: 1) What their social network looks like; 2) What they have experienced before.

164
The more people that give us an opinion, the less influenced we are by any one of those opinions.

173
Consider how to display multiple opinions, and how different versions might change people’s behavior.

179
People care deeply about how they look to others.

180
The most important thing to recognize about identity is that people don’t have one identity.

181
Online, it is hard to set things up so that one group sees you one way and another group sees you a different way. This has to, and will, change.

191
Some suggestions to enhance the ways people are allowed to represent themselves online.

204
Our systems need to be absolutely transparent and it is critical that we design this in. People need to understand the consequences of their actions, and we, as designers, need to do our best to make these things clear.

Recap: 212-216
1) Design for multiple groups (for example, true friends, family, colleagues, hobbies) in social networks.
2) Design for different relationships (strong ties, weak ties, temporary ties).
3) Design tools to give people options on how they present different online identities to different groups and individuals.

Found via Skeptic Geek

I see the next steps as:

1. Offering a way to verify baic info about the footage so it can more readily be incorporated into mainstream news outlet’s work. Who shot it? How to reach that peson? When was video shot? Where exactly? What are we observing? May the footage be used? How is this video verified as legitimate and truthful? The last one is the big one; is there some kind of automatic verification system? A trust system?
2. Providing ways to download higher-quality versions of the video and specific parts of the video.
3. Providing an easy payment system for uploaders who want to sell their footage to news outlets.

Via Journerdism.

Not awesome enough, Axis! I improved on the band’s hard work by:

• Making a list, on this page, showing the 38 songs in the video (in order of appearance), with links to buy each one from the Four Chord Amazon store I made to hold all of the tunes in one place.
• Building two MP3 players to preview all of the songs (in order of appearance).
• Providing a link to the starting point of each song in the Axis video.

If you want to buy any of these classics, do one of two things:

1. Click on “Buy MP3″ in the song preview players, which, for Amazonian reasons unknown to me, will take you to that song OR album (don’t accidentally buy the album if you just want the song).
2. Click on the “Buy it here” link, which will take you to just that song on Amazon.

Enjoy the Axis of Awesomeness Four Chord Song video below:

The song preview players and the full list of the 38 songs:

In the first clips compilation player, you can preview songs 1 through 20, except for No. 16. I made two because Amazon cuts off at 30 tracks. Click on the big “>” icon to open up the list of songs:

Songs 1-20

Songs 21-38

And the list of the 38 songs:

1. Journey – Don’t Stop Believin’

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

2. James Blunt – You’re Beautiful

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

3. AlphaVille – Forever Young

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

4. Jason Mraz – I’m Yours

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

5. Mika – Happy Ending

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

6. Alex Lloyd – Amazing

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

7. The Calling – Wherever You Will Go

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

8. Elton John – Can You Feel the Love Tonight?

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

9. Maroon 5 – She Will Be Loved

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

10. The Last Goodnight – Pictures of You

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

11. U2 – With or Without You

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

12. Crowded House – Fall at Your Feet

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

13. Kasey Chambers – Not Pretty Enough

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

14. The Beatles – Let It Be

Buy it here. This is Paul McCartney performing the song. I was unable to find the band’s original recording as an MP3. However, I found the entire “Let It Be” album in CD format, if you wanted to buy that.

Watch it on the video here.

15. The Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under the Bridge

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

16. Daryl Braithwaite – The Horses

Buy it here. Note that this is a compilation CD album of the artist’s work. There were no MP3s available.

Watch it on the video here.

17. Bob Marley – No Woman, No Cry

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

18. Marcy Playground – Sex and Candy

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

19. Men at Work – Down Under

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

20. Banjo Patterson – Waltzing Matilda

Buy a Tom Waits song inspired by ‘Waltzing Matilda’ here.

Waltzing Matilda is an Australian folk song with lyrics written by Banjo Patterson. This Tom Waits song (seemingly) was the one I knew of from personal experience. The others I found were incredibly cheesy, so I linked the Waits one.

Watch it on the video here.

21. A Ha – Take On Me

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

22. Green Day – When I Come Around

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

23. Eagle-Eye Cherry – Save Tonight

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

24. Toto – Africa

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

25. Beyoncé – If I Were a Boy

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

26. The Offspring – Self-Esteem

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

27. The Offspring – You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

28. Pink – U + Ur Hand

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here

29. Lady Gaga – Poker Face

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

30. Aqua – Barbie Girl

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

31. The Fray – You Found Me

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

32. 30h!3 – Don’t Trust Me

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

33. MGMT – Kids

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

34. Tim Minchin – Canvas Bags (Live)

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

35. Natalie Imbruglia – Torn

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

36. Five for Fighting – Superman

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

37. Axis of Awesome – Birdplane

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

38. Missy Higgins – Scar

Buy it here.

Watch it on the video here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For about $1,300, the ad (see 3:01 point):

1. Showed 7 times on Glenn Beck episodes
2. Ran 54 times on four cable networks
3. Picked up 1.3 million total views
4. Generated more than 1,000 visitors to vcantellyouwhy.com, a site they set up to track the ad’s efficacy

Here is the ad and a description of its creation:

Click here to view the embedded video.

As the narrator says at about 3:19, “The advertising industry won’t crumble overnight. But it’s easy to see that the barriers to entry have been lowered. And it might not be long before you’re promoting your blog or your punk band or your line of Christmas ornaments with an ad campaign on national TV.”

Yep, the Web again puts the tools of distribution into the hands of the people who need them, reducing the cost and inefficiency of using a middle man.

If you don’t have the time or skill to create your own ad, Google will find someone to do it in its ad creation marketplace. I see an opportunity here with the slow turnaround times of even the simplest ads; one firm needed 7 days to supply a roughly $500 montage of images with bad text.

Would it be possible, for example, to leverage your personal or business’s network to make an ad of satisfied customers? You know, Customer A does a short Web cam clip of saying how great your product is. Customer B repeats. So on and so forth.  To see how one band did just this for a music video, check out this post I wrote about it: To make your media masterpiece with the masses, divide projects into specific steps.

Of course, SlateV’s video about the process itself is an even better ad for the site than the one it made for national TV. That’s for a couple of reasons that demonstrate why “advertising” needs to become more like journalism:

1. It does not overtly attempt to persuade; it respects my time and attempts to provide information; it is helping me, not (overtly) manipulating me; it is “how to,” not attempted hypnosis
2. It is open to sharing and embedding; as a result, SlateV gets linked to from this blog

“As a general rule, the more complex the organism, the less autocratic and more democratic the biological networks appear to be, researchers report.”

Michael is upset:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via Mr. Biggs.

However, if this CamChat clone  were restricted to registered users on your site, you might be able to produce a targeted conversation channel.

So, for example, on the flyingflashlight.com/yogurtwatchers page (so sorry, it doesn’t really exist), registered yogurt watchers could randomly connect with others in a video chat room.

Larry Magid at the Safe and Secure blog on CNET wrote about this concept.

Again and again, I see it demonstrated that technical capabilities are quickly reproduced and spread across the Web. It’s like a gigantic toolbox that everyone can use to push their content however they want. So is software the path to making it big? Perhaps, if you’re first to market. That allows you to build a community around a particular type of service (like microblogging) before anyone else. The community (audience) later becomes the main value of the service. You can extract data from the community’s activities, then supply that information to others for a price.

To simplify, here’s the formula for modern Web businesses:

1. Make nifty (and free) tool that allows people to communicate and share information on the Web
2. Gather data about that tool’s users and their messages and activities
3. Sell that information to others

I expect we’ll soon see Chatroulette offer its technology — and audience — to other Web sites as some sort of embeddable feature. Twitter recently announced its own version of this.

Of course, you can have all the talky talk gizmos in the world, but people need something to communicate about. That’s where content providers come in. The interesting thing is that everyone is a content provider now, and every moment of life can be a candidate for being content-inized due to the ubiquity and ease-of-use of these tools.

And for an example of one of the more entertaining uses of Chatroulette:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Oh, and for an explainer on time traveling and the Higgs boson, check out this New York Times story, The Collider, the Particle and a Theory About Fate.

Finally, if you best learn your science via hardcore rapping, then enjoy:

What I took away was a technique for harnessing creative work via the Web from many people in a dispersed network: Assign a single task that is easily accomplished with readily available tools. In this case, the fans mimic a pose provided by the band members.

Could the same technique be applied to other projects?

I suppose you could break an idea for an article into a collection of questions that you could farm out. But a screenplay? You could spend days crafting all of the necessary questions, then re-asking them so the responses fit within whatever theme developed. Hmm…