Google Open Standard Developer Kevin Marks Speaks to Theme Zoom

Hi folks,

This is one of the richest interviews we have ever given. If you know the right questions to ask someone like Kevin Marks, you can come pretty close to predicting the next couple years of Google's technology objectives.

Who is Kevin Marks?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Marks

Kevin Marks is a Developer Advocate for Open Social at Google, bringing external developers and Google engineers together to make a better web. Over the last 20 years he's alternated between giant companies and founding startups - BBC, The UK MultiMedia Corporation, Apple QuickTime, Technorati and now Google. The common thread has been working out how people, computers and media can complement each other, and solving the engineering and social problems where they meet. He is one of the driving forces behind microformats.org and advisor to the Open Rights group. He wants you to remember that URLs are people too.

CNET Credits Kevin Marks for the genesis of podcasting as he was a primary developer of the program that downloads RSS-enclosure audio files and transfers them to Apples I-tunes music player so they could be synchronized onto the I-Pod. Later this became know as podcasting. (This is why Feedburner has two feed options, one for podcasting and one for direct feeds).

Here are some of the major topics and controversial questions covered in this interview:

- How many Open Social applications exist at Google?

- Why is the concept of "data portability" a misnomer?

- How does Social Graph work with the publicly declared connections, XHTML friends networks, XFN markup and FOAF (friend of a friend)?

- Google did not create a unique crawler for XFN and FOAF. (This has been heavily debated and Kevin puts this controversy to rest).

- What are Google's plans for XFN and FOAF as it relates to Search Engine Optimization? (This has been heavily debated and Kevin puts this controversy to rest).

- What does it mean (exactly) that Googlebot follows XFN and FOAF? (This has also been heavily debated and Kevin puts this controversy to rest).

- XFN markup and FOAF were originally designed to display the distributed networks and social relationships to the general public. How should you prepare for where this is all going?

- What are the security risks and concerns regarding all of these publicly revealed social networks.

- What is an "activity stream" and how do you avoid mixing your friends from Church with your friends at the night club?

- Because Googlebot follows publicly declared connections via FOAF and XFN it should be easy to determine where the "influencers" are located over massive global networks. Why has Google rethought their strategy on where true influencers exist as nodes on networks?

- How will the recent "geek disputes" about this issue effect the proprietary and Google patented "influence rank" concept? (This is also called "friend rank" or "social value rank" by the Internet Marketing pundits).

- It it really possible to use "knowledge of influencers" to predictably place "interruption advertising" inside major networks?

- Can you expect good conversion using this sort of "influence rank" as a predictor? (Kevin really exposes the issues that Google has been sorting through in order to adequately answer this question).

- Why is it unwise to view social networks as a channel for Adsense based on traditional "search" behaviors?

- What is the best way to use social networks from a branding and advertising?

- What is a "self targeting" ad network when it comes to social networks?

- One of the biggest challenges Google developers have had is trying to create a data model that maps the natural discernment processes taking place in the human brain (Cognitive Neuroscience). What do you need to know about the weaknesses of machine driven neural and social networks?

- When will Friend Connect be released and why is it taking so long?

- What are the Google Friend Connect developers currently focused on in the lab?

- I-Google (Google personal desktop) now has Canvas mode. How will this relate to Friend Connect.

Special Thanks to Kevin Marks, Sara Jew-Lim and the Google Open Social development team.

Special Thanks to Erika Preuss of TechnologyGoddess.com who landed and coordinated this interview.

I look forward to seeing all of you at the Theme Zoom Protege Event where Sue, Jon, Erika and I can expand on exactly what all of Kevin's information means to your business over the next two years.

At the Theme Zoom Protege conference we might informally chat about the following topics between other program events, so take the time to listen to the interview:

- What does this new information about Open Standard means for your Krakken Keyword Genetic Code?

- How does this information influence the Silo Feed Machine System as Erika and I work out with Sue Bell how to handle the technology and final development aspects of the system. It is ironic that one of the final steps during our blueprinting of the Silo Feed Machine system was how we should deal with "podcast enclosures" as separate feeds from your primary data feeds- ironic in that Kevin invented these (sometimes) annoying-but-useful things.

- Feeds are the Glue that can hold all of your primary and secondary networks together if you know what you are doing. How can you use them (combined with your Krakken Genetic Keyword Code) to improve website conversion?

- How has this information been simplified by our Silo Feed Machine system so that you do not need to be a rocket scientist in order to implement geeky technologies invented by aliens?

There is a much prettier version of this streaming audio interview with Kevin on Erika's blog (aka Technology Goddess).

Streaming Audio Interview with Google Developer Advocate Kevin Marks:

http://budurl.com/xubm

Download the Complete Zip File of the Audio Interview with Google Developer Advocate Kevin Marks:

http://budurl.com/ku4v

You may use this audio on your website or blog as long as you credit Theme Zoom and provide a link back to our website.

Special Thanks to Kevin Marks, and especially Sara Jew-Lim afor talking Kevin into the interview.

Russell Wright, Erika Preuss, and the Theme Zoom Staff

608-4632-1387