iPhone is Flickr's #1 Camera; Soon to be Facebook's #1 Video

Mashable is reporting tonight that the iPhone is set to replace the Canon Rebel XTi as the #1 source of photographs on Flickr:

That smartphone, with its weak 2 MP camera and its lack of zoom, is now set to overtake Canon Rebel XTi as the #1 camera on Flickr. This is according to Flickr’s Camera Finder graphs. Actually, as the LA Times has already caught, the iPhone has already passed the Rebel XTi on a few occasions as the two duke it out for the top spot.

This shouldn't come as a surprise (price differential, convenience and ease of mobile uploading) - but it is noteworthy. As an owner of both the iPhone 3GS and the Canon Rebel - I can say that I too have found myself opting for convenience and mobility over artistic and picture quality.

As we all await Facebook's new iPhone App (which is setting in Apple's approval queue and enables mobile video uploads), we should expect the iPhone to quickly become the #1 source of video on Facebook - which is currently the tenth largest video provider on the web. It will be interesting to see just how much activity the iPhone / video integration produces and whether it is enough to advance Facebook beyond #10 (#9 AOL is 50% larger and #8 Hulu is over 2x).

My Blog Has Moved to Media Temple (mt)

Goodbye Dotster. Hello Media Temple (mt).

Over the last few weeks, you may have noticed slowness (to put it lightly) on this blog. It was being hosted on Dotster with a shared server (that they repeated swore was never close to capacity). After wasting way too much time reviewing my Wordpress installation, blog code, plugins, etc - it was apparent that the blog itself was not the issue...

So I decided to migrate everything to a dedicated server using Media Temple (mt). Things are now lightning fast and mt's customer support and responsiveness have been outstanding. The blog should be running faster than ever and it should be entirely stable. Thanks for your patience and big thanks to Danny Leffel (of InGameNow) and Russell Cook (of beRecruited) for all of the assistance.

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Google Labels Gmail "The Iterative Web App"

I love this email from Google (full screenshot below and their blog post is here): On April 7th, we announced a new version of Gmail for mobile for iPhone and Android-powered devices. Among the improvements was a complete redesign of the web application's underlying code which allows us to more rapidly develop and release new features that users have been asking for, as explained in our first post. We'd like to introduce The Iterative Webapp, a series where we will continue to release features for Gmail for mobile. Today: Outbox.

First, I love the term "iterative web app". It's not entirely new - but it is a powerful way to express ongoing advancements and innovation. It also allows Google to then message users on an ongoing basis... and it gets users excited about the forthcoming changes and communications.

It is a more digestable, interesting way to engage with users from a product and communications experience. And it positions Google nicely as an innovator committed to improving their products and interacting with their users along the way.

Amazon's Email Marketing: Relevant, Timely & Includes Special Offers

I have written a fair amount about email marketing campaigns - pointing out effective ones and confusing ones (sorry Apple). I often point to Amazon as a best-in-class marketer on many fronts... and here is another great example.

As a gift, I purchased an item in their kitchen department and matched it with a cooking book (that they recommended). Within a week, I have an email from Amazon that is:

- Pertinent: it is clearly relevant to my recent order (I have no reason to ask "why I am receiving this?") - Enticing: the email is positioned as a reward (now whether it actually is a special discount, I don't know... but 50% off is always attractive) - Simple: the email is three sentences long. I know instantly whether I want to take action. - Good looking: the focus on the special 50% offer / button is clear and the email's layout is attractive

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

Your recent purchase at Amazon's Cookbooks store qualifies you for an extra 50% off select bestselling magazines, including Food Network Magazine, Vegetarian Times, Food & Wine, Saveur, and EatingWell.

You can use this offer to start a new subscription or renew an existing one. The extra 50% discount will be automatically applied at Checkout for each eligible subscription.

Madden 10 Launch Brings Interactive Ads to ESPN & YouTube

For video game and sports enthuiasts, Madden Football's release day is the equivalent of a major Hollywood blockbuster. In Madden 2009's first month, it did $133.5 million in retail sales. Today, Madden 10 arrives and the presales estimates were ahead of the 2009 numbers and many major retailers opened their doors at midnight last night.

Madden is taking to the ESPN.com and YouTube's homepage to promote the game's launch. Both units feature players from the Pittsburgh Steelers attacking the screen (the EA Sports Logo and Youtube videos respectively).

The Youtube unit expands and disrupts the homepage (much like the iPhone and Nintendo Wii ads of past). The ESPN unit does not expand - but it does take over with an extra-tall header (with video) and the square side unit to match.

Hosting Rails Rumble 2009 Competitors at Dog Patch Lab on Pier 38 (San Francisco)

Rails Rumble 2009 will be kicking off in a little more than a week: August 22nd and 23rd. The Rails Rumble is a 48 hour web application development competition. Contestants and teams get one weekend to design, develop, and deploy the best web property that you can, using Ruby and Rails.

Polaris will be hosting San Francisco and Bay Area teams at the Dog Patch Lab off of Pier 38. It will be a fun, exciting environment - and hopefully with a healthy mix of collaboration and competition.

If you are participating in the Rails Rumble and, along with your team, would like to spend the weekend at the Dog Patch Lab - rsvp either directly to me (rspoon at gmail.com) or on the Rumble Wiki. More about Rails Rumble 2009:

In 2007, the Tasty Planner team took home the first-ever Rumble championship belt for the initial version of their popular recipe sharing website. Since then, they've continued to develop the site, attracting an extensive community of web-savvy cooks as well as the attention of commercial outlets.

In 2008, our friends at MeetInBetween.us edged out the competition with their innovative meeting place mashup. By calculating common meeting points for groups of people and allowing users to pinpoint locations such as cafes and restaurants, the site is a truly useful, truly minimalist micro-app with obvious appeal.

Other 2008 award winners:

Social Reputation on Twitter (Foursquare Screenshot)

A great screenshot from Twitter (via Tweetdeck's iPhone app) that shows the virality of Foursquare. I've spoken a lot about the power of conversation in the real-time web - but this is notable because it taps into the power and influence of social 'gaming', reputation and location-based activity. Within a couple minutes, two prominent Twitter users separately announced the transfer of Foursquare mayorship at a New York coffee shop... one was proud and one was defeated.

By the way: if you do not already, I recommend following Jon Steinberg (@jonsteinberg) and Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) on Twitter.

Friendfeed is Facebook's Real Time Search?

Facebook today announced an acquisition of Friendfeed - getting an innovative, growing service (still small by Facebook standards: 1m users vs. Facebook's 250m) and, by all accounts, an exceptional team (comprised of ex-Googlers).

The twitter and blogosphere almost immediately and universally labeled the deal a talent acquisition. And while Facebook has indeed acquired a talented team (planning to disperse them through the organization), they also got two important product enhancements: real time search and filtering. I've said several times that I believe the next major progression for the real-time web is the ability for users to search, filter and determine authority / relevance. This is one of Friendfeed's strengths. And it is an area where they can instantly help Facebook - with thinking, product, data, etc. If the social web is (at least in part) predicated on conversation, the acquisition will help facilitate discussion by reducing noise and increasing relevancy. And if revenue opportunities exist within those conversations (just ask Starbucks and other active brands), search and filtering will play a role on the advertising and data side.

The Power of Social Recommendations

It's no surprise that social recommendations work - they are based on connections, shared interests, references, etc. I've written many times that I believe conversation - enabling it, aggregating it, filtering it and applying authority / relevancy - is where the real-time-web's great value is derived. An example from last night that: - proves the power of network-based sourcing (and demonstrates the size and robustness of Facebook) - validates the missions of certain companies (like Aardvark for instance) - likely frightens players in the recommendation space who are not innovating - and raises a series of other questions (more below)

Last night, in a bit of a scheduling bind, I was trying to secure a nice Napa hotel for a post-wedding weekend getaway (between our belated honeymoon later in the year). After spending a few moments unsuccessfully researching highly rated hotels online... I found nothing. After calling a couple friends directly, I still had no leads. So I posed the question on Facebook and received 10+ lengthy, trusted responses in a couple hours. The quality of the responses far exceeded anything I found online because it came from trusted sources, was articulate, qualified and timely.

The questions out of this experience: - in which verticals does it work and, depending on the space, how does the depth of experience change? - how can this content be archived and search? - if this list is truly better than Citysearch's Top 10 Guide - how can is it made available in relevant ways outside of my network? - can Facebook Connect enable the same experience and quality for sites off-Facebook? - what role does Twitter play a role here considering that it is a public network?