One of the least-changed parts of AllThingsD since we started this site has been our “Voices” section, which has attracted robust and ever-increasing traffic over the years.

But today Voices gets a new look as we relaunch an updated section to bring you even more writing and information from outside sources. Voices will be run by senior editor Beth Callaghan, and will offer six regular features:

Must-Reads — formerly called Voices — will be the same daily compendium of links from around the Web. These are pieces we’ve selected editorially because we think they’re worth your time. We’ve made two changes in order to clarify the nature of the content and our role in suggesting them: We’ve renamed the links “Must-Reads From Other Web Sites” and we’ve simplified them to consist merely of outbound links. The links will appear in widgets across the site and in an archive — but when you click on a headline, you’ll be taken directly to the original Web site.

Voices is now made up of exclusive op-eds and posts from outside contributors who are well-versed in AllThingsD and have unique perspectives to share. We welcome and will evaluate all such pieces, and also plan to reach out to a range of industry experts on a variety of topics. Our goal is to spur debate and also give smart and engaging content a platform on our site.

Forum is conceived as an assembly of quick opinions from four or five well-known personalities on a single issue that is in the news. Topics can range from thoughts on the possible bubble in Silicon Valley to what’s the most interesting new trend to how possible privacy regulation will impact the tech industry. We hope to elicit a lot of different opinions and insights from a wide-ranging panel of execs, academics, venture capitalists, Wall Street analysts, entrepreneurs, bloggers and more.

Eye to Eye will be even more pointed, pitting a pair of often-opposing viewpoints on a controversial topic of the week — kind of like a Spy vs. Spy, but with words. The possibilities are endless here: Was $1 billion too much for Facebook to pay for photo-sharing site Instagram? Will Yahoo’s recent restructuring work? Do you think Google Glasses is a good idea? Where will Apple’s stock be in a year?

Numbers is a weekly story told by data — sometimes scientific, sometimes irreverent, always interesting. We will be working with many top research outfits, and will also be doing a number of our own polls of readers. We love infographics, surveys and pie charts at ATD and you’re going to get a whole lot of them.

Lastly, Ten Things About Me finds answers to entertaining and informative questions aimed at prominent people in the digital realm. It’s a little like the Proust Questionnaire mixed with the kind of queries that we are well known for at our D conferences, plus a whole lot of unusual ones, so you can get to know a variety of tech and media figures in a different way. First up: Twitter and Square inventor Jack Dorsey tells us what he’d be up to if he weren’t doing what he is doing now.

The new Voices will roll out all this week. Enjoy.

It turns out that people responding to our poll about whether they were buying an iPad 3 — which Apple is unveiling this coming week — are overwhelmingly planning to fork over the dough for a new one.

Nearly 70 percent of those who answered said they would be buying the latest iteration of the popular tablet device, while 17 percent said they were sticking with their old one.

Only 11 percent used a competing tablet — powered by Google Android or Amazon Kindle.

And about 4.5 percent of respondents said that they had not decided, but were looking forward to the last “Twilight” movie, now that Bella finally has her fangs as a newborn vampire with a newborn baby, too.

Thus, many want a bite of the latest Apple, but are definitely not Twihards.

Here’s the poll again, if you want to add your vote:

View This Poll

Apple is expected to unveil its latest iPad next week at an event on Thursday Wednesday in San Francisco.

It’s not clear when the newest iteration of the popular tablet device — the iPad 3 — will be available to consumers, but here’s a poll you can take to register your interest in it (or not!)

Also below, the really cool iPad concept video from Aatma Studios that got a lot of look-sees last week.

View This Poll

It’s not clear if Netflix’s recent series of snafus are Amazon’s gain or not. But in a just-released report by ForeSee, one went up and one went down.

It’s an easy guess which was which.

In the well-known customer satisfaction survey of the Top 40 online retailers during the holiday season — which ForeSee has been conducting twice a year for the last seven years — Amazon rose to its highest spot ever, while Netflix’s score dropped significantly.

Amazon got an 88 out of 100, up two points, while Netflix dropped seven points to 79. The survey noted that “Netflix saw scores drop in every single element of the website that ForeSee measures, including site content, site functionality, merchandise, and prices.”

Ooops.

(Netflix fared better with customers in another poll last week, conducted by Citigroup. As Peter Kafka noted: “They’re less happy than they used to be. But they don’t seem to be going anywhere.”)

But in the ForeSee survey, Netflix moved from being a consumer darling to just another face in the crowd. It garnered the average score, which is also 79, a number that has risen from 74 since 2005.

But Netflix was not the only online retailer hit. Also down: Gap.com (down 6 percent to 73), and Overstock.com (down 5 percent to 72).

But on the up: TigerDirect.com (up 8 percent to 79) and J.C. Penney (up 6 percent to 83).

In general, ForeSee concluded that consumers are starting to get the hang of this e-commerce thing, and have become less price-sensitive, too.

And here’s a pretty chart explaining it all (click on the image to make it larger):

It should probably come as no surprise to the board and top managers of Yahoo that the just-released annual poll of its workers — called the Yahoo Employee Satisfaction Survey — paints a picture of a deeply demoralized workplace.

Apparently, Yahoos can’t get no satisfaction.

The YESS questions went out to employees the week that the company fired CEO Carol Bartz, with most of the responses gathered in the ensuing weeks.

One major drop — not much of a shockeroo — was the employee assessment of senior leadership, under the question of whether “Yahoo is an effectively managed well-run organization.” That dropped 11 percent from last year.

Also troubling, according to numerous sources who have recounted the results to me, was that 19 percent of employees said they planned to leave the company within less than a year, in case a better opportunity arises.

(I like to call that the anywhere-but-here question.)

This is a large figure for any tech company for such a survey, which is commonly done throughout the industry. Typically, those numbers are around 10 percent, according to several human resources execs I queried, although Yahoo’s chart noted that the industry benchmark was 14 percent.

In any case, this YESS is Yahoo’s highest percentage of negatives for departure intent in several years.

Worse, it is higher in the product unit, where most of Yahoo’s engineers work and which is key to any technology company’s viability. Intent not to stay is 21 percent in the division.

On the plus side, numbers for manager effectiveness, teamwork and accountability did grow year over year in the product unit.

YESS documents sentiments I have been hearing widely and ever louder anecdotally from a plethora of mid-level managers at the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Most are worried that they cannot hold onto critical employees as Yahoo is conducting a major strategic review of its businesses, either to sell it or make sweeping changes.

The uncertainty has put its employees on edge and there has been a spike in attrition throughout the company.

And worry. At a recent meeting with its staff, interim CEO Tim Morse was buffeted with questions about the fate of employee stock options and other similar issues.

Despite all the turmoil, Yahoo has surprisingly not yet put an overall new plan into place for retention, although it has given some employees more money and other benefits.

“Can a company collapse from attrition?” one exec joked to me recently.

Yes, it can, which has to be of prime concern to the board of Yahoo, as it seeks to right itself. I cannot stress enough how many talented and committed employees remain at the company, desperately hoping for some effective leadership to finally take hold.

Because for all the swirl of what will happen to the whole company, one truism of technology innovation in Silicon Valley remains, if you want to survive: It’s still all about the talent.

[UPDATE: Here are some more YESS stats, according to sources:

"Yahoo is innovative": 42 percent agree, 27 percent neutral, 31 percent disagree.

"Yahoo anticipates changing customer needs and wants": 33 percent agree, 37 percent disagree, five points worse than the previous year.

But here is the hopeful kicker: 79 percent feel proud to say they work for Yahoo.]

Yahoo — which has been trying to right itself after a series of missteps and an ever-weakening business — took another direct hit yesterday, as it got dinged in a high-profile annual survey of the Top 100 global brands.

According to Interbrand’s “Best Global Brands 2011,” Yahoo dropped 11 percent in brand value — calculated as $4.4 billion — in the year in which it fell from No. 66 to No. 76.

Way to go, Yahoo marketing! I think that pricey “It’s You” advertising campaign might not have worked.

Meanwhile, Apple broke into the Top 10 list for the first time, vaulting from No. 17 to No. 8, rising 58 percent in brand value to $33.5 billion.

Other tech companies did pretty well in the Interbrand poll — which is the gold standard of the state of brand health with consumers — especially compared to Yahoo (whose brand value high was in 2007 and which is now back at 2001 levels).

For example: IBM kept its No. 2 spot, with brand value rising eight percent; Microsoft fell three percent, but maintained its No. 3 place; Google stayed at No. 4, up 27 percent; and Amazon rose 32 percent and reached No. 26 from No. 36.

Even troubled companies prevailed over Yahoo’s twin declines: Hewlett-Packard held on to its No. 10 slot, with brand value up six percent; Research In Motion dropped only five percent and two slots, from No. 54 to No. 56; and Nokia fell from No. 8 to No. 14 and saw its brand value decline 15 percent.

Most interesting, perhaps, about the 12-year-old survey: Six of the Top 10 brands are tech companies.

The results are in for AllThingsD’s survey of readers to determine the best (and snarkiest) moniker for the $12.5 billion Google bid for Motorola Mobility.

And the winner, by a huge amount, is Googorola, with 53.2 percent of more than 1,000 votes, with second place going to ScrewYouApple at 14.9 percent.

It was followed by: GooMo (6.7 percent); Gotorola (5.8 percent); MoGoo (4.9 percent); Motoroogle (4.6 percent); Motoogle (four percent); Moola (2.8 percent); YouTooMicrosoft (1.1 percent); MaBell (0.8 percent); AlsoNokia (0.6 percent); and NotSoMuchHP (0.6 percent).

Here’s a colorful chart to peruse:

Groupon’s S-1 filing for an IPO last month certainly got a lot of ink.

Unfortunately, much of it was negative, focused on several controversial parts of the document. Most scrutinized were large slugs of money taken out of the social buying site by its founders, as well as aggressive accounting terminology to make large losses look less, well, large.

Rattled by the intense media and analyst reaction to the filing, sources said the Chicago-based company commissioned a poll of its consumers and merchants to gauge the impact.

One source familiar with the survey said that top execs and its board wanted concrete reaction from key constituencies, instead of relying on “noise from the echo chamber” of Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

And, said several people who had seen the poll, it should probably come as no surprise that the impact of the drumbeat of Groupon-is-doomed news on merchants and consumers was low, with only one percent saying that they had formed a negative opinion of the company from the filing.

That, of course, does not mean that those important groups for Groupon aren’t disgruntled about a whole laundry list of other issues.

But — for now, at least — an S-1 with some warts isn’t one of them.

Whatever the case, Groupon will continue to face scrutiny as it moves to amend the filing after comments from government regulators, and also when it reports its latest financial results soon for the three months ended June 30, 2011.

And those are numbers that everyone will surely be paying attention to.

Tonight, Demand Media–in reaction to a new study showing that its flagship eHow site had now gotten much more negatively impacted by Google’s rejiggering of its search algorithm than previously–released a statement and blog post about the tempest.

In it, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company reaffirmed its outlook for fiscal year 2011, noting, in part:

“Certain third parties that have published reports attempting to estimate the effect of recent search engine algorithm changes made by Google on traffic to the Company’s owned and operated websites have significantly overstated the negative impact of those changes on traffic to eHow.com, as compared to the Company’s directly measured internal data.”

The company, though, declined to give specific details about the impact of Google’s attempt to clean up its search results by tweaking its algorithms to cut out poorly made material from so-called “content farms.”

While others had apparently been initially impacted by Google’s first foray, such as Yahoo’s Associated Content unit, Demand had not been.

That is, until a recent Sistrix poll (see chart below), showing eHow has now been hurt badly by even more Google search changes, codenamed Panda.

While acknowledging a decline in search traffic on eHow from the Google changes, Demand said the Sistrix data was way off.

In a blog post, Larry Fitzgibbon, Demand’s EVP of Media and Operations, wrote, in part:

“However, recent third-party reports attempting to estimate the impact to our search driven traffic, including one projecting a 2/3rds decline in eHow.com traffic, are so significantly overstated that we decided to comment.”

When Google began making changes to its search formula, Demand CEO Richard Rosenblatt told MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka in an interview that its relationship with Google was all sunshine and roses.

When asked how its relationship with Google was, Rosenblatt said:

“This is why our partnership with Google makes sense. 1) We help them fill the gaps in their index, where they don’t have quality content. 2) We’re the largest supplier of all video to YouTube, over two billion views and 3) we’re a large AdSense partner. So our relationship is synergistic, and it’s a great partnership. And it’s a partnership that we’re excited to continue to expand.”

It will be interesting to see how he feels now.

Here are both Demand’s official press release and blog below:

Demand Media Reaffirms Outlook for Fiscal Year 2011

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Apr 18, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE)

Demand Media, Inc. (NYSE: DMD), a leading content and social media company, announced today that it is reaffirming its financial outlook for fiscal year 2011 that it previously provided on February 22, 2011.

Certain third parties that have published reports attempting to estimate the effect of recent search engine algorithm changes made by Google on traffic to the Company’s owned and operated websites have significantly overstated the negative impact of those changes on traffic to eHow.com, as compared to the Company’s directly measured internal data. Recent search engine algorithm changes have negatively impacted search driven traffic to some of our websites, including eHow.com, resulting in moderately lower year-to-date page view growth for the Company’s owned and operated Content & Media properties compared to page view growth rates before the algorithm changes. Nevertheless, the Company currently expects that its year-over-year page view growth across its owned and operated Content & Media properties in the second quarter of 2011 will be comparable to, or greater than, the year-over-year page view growth achieved in the second quarter of 2010.

As previously announced, the Company will report its first quarter 2011 financial results on May 5, 2011. The Company will host a conference call to discuss the results at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (2:00 p.m. Pacific Time). A live webcast of the conference call will also be available and can be accessed within the investor relations section of Demand Media’s corporate website at ir.demandmedia.com.

Another Statement About Search Engine Algorithm Changes

Posted by larry fitzgibbon at 4/17/2011 10:05 PM PDT

It’s hard to imagine a company more focused on the connection between consumers and content than Demand Media. That point of connection gives us the opportunity to inform, engage and serve the consumer. And it’s where trusted relationships start. So, how our content reaches the consumer–whether it’s through direct visits, social media referrals, apps or search–continues to be top of mind with everyone at the company. Consumers are connecting with more content than ever before as social media and mobile access have emerged to play huge roles that didn’t even exist just a few years ago. And search engines, of course, continue to play an integral part in content discovery and have been hard at work improving their products to create the best consumer experiences possible.

As I discussed on my last blog post, Google recently made significant search algorithm changes in an update dubbed Panda that has rolled out in various capacities from late February thru mid-April. With respect to Panda’s mid-April update, some of our properties saw Google search referrals move up while other properties, including our largest property eHow.com, saw these referrals go down.

As I said in my prior post, we generally do not comment or speculate on changes by major search engines, as these changes can happen nearly daily. However, recent third-party reports attempting to estimate the impact to our search driven traffic, including one projecting a 2/3rds decline in eHow.com traffic, are so significantly overstated that we decided to comment. As discussed in our press release issued today, we currently expect that in Q2 2011 our owned and operated Content & Media properties will generate year-over-year page view growth comparable to or greater than the year-over-year page view growth reported for Q2 2010. We have also reaffirmed our calendar year 2011 financial guidance in this press release.

Demand Media has a myriad of impactful sites and many sources of traffic. We are encouraged that the investments we’ve been making in site experience and content quality are making an impact with our consumers. Organic growth in visits from non-search sources to eHow continue to grow rapidly and Cracked.com is now the most visited humor site on the Internet with the majority of its page views coming from direct visits. Improvements have been registered from eHow’s recent redesign and the introduction of new video series leading to significant growth in Facebook likes. Our brand advertisers have also reported encouraging results with their intent-targeted campaigns. Rest assured, just as we have been innovators in building one of the largest online audiences, we are applying that same rigor and intensity to delivering a quality experience for consumers and advertisers.

As a disruptive digital media and technology company, we have been operating in a fast moving environment since the company’s founding five years ago. While change is frequent, one thing is certain–Demand Media is steadfast in our commitment to produce great outcomes for our consumers, advertisers and community of creative professionals. We’re in the trenches listening, learning, adapting and innovating–and we are very excited about the opportunity in front of us. We look forward to providing details on all of these topics and more in our previously announced conference call at 5:00pm (Eastern) May 5th, 2011 to discuss first quarter 2011 financial results.

Larry Fitzgibbon is Demand Media’s EVP of Media and Operations, and manages the company’s rapidly growing network of consumer properties.

Yes, it is perverse, but I really want to come in dead last in Time magazine’s “140 Best Twitter Feeds.”

Why? Well, there’s no way I am getting near the top with the likes of Sarah Palin and Lady Gaga in the same list, so I felt the 140th–get it?–slot on a Twitter poll is the next best thing to aim for.

Here’s the deal, according to the magazine’s Web site:

“TIME picks the 140 Twitter feeds that are shaping the conversation. Take a look and vote on whether you think these top tweeters should be on our list.”

The list is split up into categories, such as authors (Neil Gaiman, who is #1, and Margaret Atwood), celebrities (Gaga and the inevitable Justin Bieber) and companies (Zappos and Whole Foods).

There is also a technology group, with luminaries such as New York VC Fred Wilson, man-about-Web Kevin Rose and, of course, the King of Tweets Robert Scoble.

I am in that group too, with the description: “When this woman reports a rumor, you can pretty much count on it to be true.”

Thanks…I think–although I prefer to call it reporting a fact.

In any case, early on, I was doing badly in the voting–as I had hoped and is entirely correct considering I am unknown to anyone but certain geeks–and was right near the bottom with some suspect deal sites.

But by last night, GigaOm’s Om Malik had dropped below me, along with Wilson. I was at the unacceptable 131 spot.

This will not stand! Thus, so I can shoot the moon, I urge everyone to vote for:

132 Mike Allen
133 Om Malik
134 Amazon Deals
135 Fred Wilson
136 DealDivine
137 Nieman Lab
138 Best Buy Deals
139 Coupons.com
140 Steven Johnson

A well-known writer and entrepreneur, Johnson has 1.4 million followers on Twitter and does not deserve this ignominious loss as much as me.

Tweet that.

Yahoo’s Luke Beatty said he is not worried.

“We welcome the change,” he insisted about Google taking aim last Friday at so-called “content farms,” producers of low-quality content that spam up the Web and the search giant’s results. “And we endorse what Google is doing 100 percent.”

That’s ironic, given among those allegedly hit hardest by changing of its famous algorithm–based on early, and perhaps questionable, surveys–is Yahoo’s Associated Content.

But, if true, and traffic at Associated Content–which the Silicon Valley Internet giant bought for $90 million last May–is indeed badly hurt, it’s obviously going to be a problem for Yahoo, which relies on advertising revenue as its core business.

A quick poll by Sistrix, a search engine optimization firm, using one million keywords before and after Google’s changes, showed that Associated Content’s “visibility index”– including keyword and ranking positions ranking and clickthrough rate–was down 93 percent.

So yesterday, Beatty, who founded Associated Content and now works at Yahoo, dialed up BoomTown to talk about what the Google shift will mean to Yahoo.

First off in the wide-ranging interview, he noted, “everything on the Web is changing all the time,” noting that Associated Content used to rely more on the now weakened Digg and RSS for its traffic and distribution.

“Obviously, that has changed and we have still managed to grow,” he said.

Beatty said it is still not clear that the new tweaks in search criteria at Google would mean for Associated Content’s offerings–coming from 400,000 contributors of all kinds.

“Our data will not be reconciled for weeks…but some will be up and some will be down,” he said, adding the overall, “I suspect it will be down, although it’s not accurate by any means in the numbers released so far, since there is no way you can know this early.”

Still, it’s obvious that Google’s latest move has not been not good for Associated Content, although Beatty noted that the Silicon Valley search king is no longer the main source of traffic for Associated Content material.

Instead, that would be the owned-and-operated sites of Yahoo, most of all, and–increasingly–social networking sites such as Facebook.

“When we sold the company, we know that sites of Yahoo itself would be the biggest driver of our growth and that was the plan,” said Beatty. “And, though smaller, social means of distribution are clearly the way people are now finding our content.”

In an email later, Beatty underscored this point:

“Search traffic is not our focus within Yahoo–it hasn’t been for 10
months…traffic sources have changed endlessly over that last six years…search is one, albeit an important one and clearly, [but] now it too is changing and we see the future of our content distribution coming from O&O properties and social networks, as much as anything.”

Still, Beatty said Associated Content will adapt as long as Google does not make its tweaks on a network basis and rather than on a site basis. (Interestingly, that would presumably include Google’s own–and often spammish–Blogger property, which is fueled by its powerful AdSense engine.)

“It appears that changes have been made on an asset-by-asset basis
is good–networkwide cramdown would be inappropriate and uneducated,” he said.

Still, the best way to fight the Google initiative is by delivering higher quality content, which Beatty said was being done at the company via a series of ongoing measures to improve overall submissions.

Those include a Yahoo style guide for content creators, a two-tiered human editor review process, analytical analysis, a featured contributor program and, interesting, an online tutorial process called the Yahoo Contributor Network.

It’s not exactly Harvard University, of course, but Beatty said there is more to come.

“We are committed to supporting and helping our contributors navigate through this and every other change in the crowdsourced content economy,” he said. “We want the best article to get more traffic.”

Of course, with Google’s doubtlessly continuing changes in its criteria for what good content is, presumably, that won’t be Yahoo’s to decide.

Is it Facebook? Twitter? Personal email? Work email? A news site or aggregator? A corporate collaboration tool or chat room?

It’s a minor detail perhaps, but something I love asking people. Your bleary-eyed self may speak the truth about the utility you find in these sites and the loyalty they command.

(Personally, I’m not always a creature of habit; I mix it up. My All Things D email and our internal Socialcast stream are high up on the list. Facebook and Twitter usually come a little later in the morning scramble.)

There’s a user poll going around on Facebook at the moment that a couple of people from disparate parts of my life have taken, so it’s been popping up in my newsfeed. The poll asks, “Which do you check first each day: Facebook, or your Email?”

So far, with 518 responses, email is pulling 54.1 percent of the vote. This is in a survey of presumably very active Facebook users who would take the time to fill out the poll (which is part of the beta Facebook Questions product). What about you?

P.S. Quora has a question on the matter as well, with fewer but more diverse and detailed responses.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

So says a new survey, commissioned by people who would like mobile phone users to pay attention to ads.

MocoSpace, a mobile social network, and Briabe Media, a mobile marketing agency, say 37 percent of phone users they polled are able to recall brands they’ve seen advertised on their phones. Or, at least, they say they can.

The survey results, which you can see embedded at the bottom of this post, are pretty consistent over different ethnic, gender and age groups. Basically, about four out of every 10 people say they can recall ads they’ve seen on their phones.

Those kind of numbers should be encouraging for the mobile ad business, which is supposed to grow dramatically but is still pretty modest.

One important, and/or worrisome, caveat is that poll respondents are most likely to say they remember seeing ads for mobile carriers. The top five most recalled brands are Verizon, AT&T, Wal-Mart, Macy’s and Sprint. (You can see the top 20 in this nifty graphic on the right.)

And perhaps poll respondents are seeing a lot of ads for mobile carriers on their mobile phones. But I wonder if they’re just used to seeing the branding that’s already on their own handsets. Which wouldn’t be nearly as helpful to the nascent mobile ad industry.

Here’s a summary of the research:

TheMobileConsumer_BrandRecall-MocoSpace_Briabe_2-3

Of course, he won.

Dominating tech’s mindshare and press coverage in 2010, Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs also handily took the No. 1 slot of a reader poll conducted by BoomTown in the last days of year.

Jobs–who introduced a range of innovative products, such as the iPad, over the course of the 2010–garnered just over 30 percent of the votes for the question that asked: “Who are the 10 Most Interesting People in Tech in 2010.”

Among the reasons he was selected, from comments posted by those who took the survey:

“With the iPad, he’s re-inventing the personal computer. Again.”

“Because he never stops.”

And my favorite: “Because if he had to be dictator of the world, he’d actually take doing a good job of it seriously.”

And, despite not acing him out for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” WikiLeaks head Julian Assange got 16.3 percent for the No. 2 spot, followed by Facebook’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at 10.1 percent.

Said one voluble commenter: “Whether one agrees or not with the how, governments and the individuals in power tend to do things that, we as a public, need to know, given that their actions, ultimately, impact how we must live our lives. Assange, is merely bringing to light things that many would rather not have brought into the light of day. One could argue that we do not need to know, for security or other reasons. However, negotiations, diplomacy and conflict, are all simply ways or resolving issues. Since, as a public, we allow these people into power, should we not know they are acting on ‘our behalf’?”

Arguing for Zuckerberg and his increasingly powerful social networking site, one person said: “Changed the way we looked at the Web and added another layer of connection between user and the Web, as well as sites connecting to each other.”

A wide range of people, not included by name on the list I compiled, got the No. 4 slot with 7.3 percent. They included Google Android head Andy Rubin, Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, Demand Media co-founder and CEO Richard Rosenblatt, Arianna Huffington and, um, me!

Longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur-turned venture capitalist Marc Andreessen was No. 5 at 6.3 percent.

“Visionary as a grad student, very successful as an entrepreneur, now doing some really interesting things as a VC,” said one person.

The red-hot attention around social buying start-up Groupon–and its gutsy choice not to take Google’s offer of billions of dollars–got co-founder and CEO Andrew Mason the No. 6 slot with 5.7 percent.

Pure curiousness about the future outcome spurred one choice: “Is he really lucky or really good? I’m guessing 2011 is a fairly decisive year. I’d like to know more about him…”

The mishegas around Yahoo and its voluable CEO Carol Bartz put her in the No. 7 position.

Said one commenter: “She’s taken the impossible job and will succeed. However, rewiring is taking more times than expected…”

Innovation put social magazine iPad app Flipboard co-founder and CEO Mike McCue at No. 8 with 2.3 percent.

No. 9 was Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at the same percentage, with the inevitable Betty White clocking in at No. 10 with 2.1 percent.

The reason for picking the longtime Hollywood movie and television star, after lobbying by rabid Facebook fans got her a gig on “Saturday Night Live”?

Simply put: “She rocks.”

And, indeed, she does.

Here’s my lovely bar chart showing the winners, which, perhaps most fascinating of all, did not include anyone from search topper Google or software giant Microsoft or microblogging leader Twitter (click on the image to make it larger):

According to the poll, 61 percent of Internet users said they’ve noticed that some online ads appear to be targeted at them based on their Web-browsing habits. Curiously, though, 90 percent of respondents said they pay little or no attention to online ads.

Two-third of respondents said advertisers should not be allowed to target ads based on online tracking. And 61 percent said tracking is not justified even to keep websites free.

The poll, of 840 adult Internet users, was conducted Dec. 10-12 by USA Today and Gallup Inc.

The poll suggests users want more control over tracking and behaviorally targeted advertising. Respondents were asked if they’d prefer to allow all advertising networks to target ads, none to target ads or “only those advertising networks you choose.” Nearly half, 47 percent, preferred being able to select networks that could target ads; 37 percent did not want any targeted ads and 14 percent said they would allow all targeted ads.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

There are the incumbents like the iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. Motorola is gearing up to launch a Honeycomb-based Android tablet at CES. HP has said it is working on a Palm Tablet (which Fox News says is coming at CES), while RIM is readying its PlayBook for release around March.

And that’s just the big guys. Expect to hear a lot of smaller firms enter the tablet fray as well, including many at CES. Education-centered tablet maker Kno–which announced its product at last year’s D conference–has started shipping its large dual-screen and single-screen models, while Notion Ink has been further teasing its Adam tablet.

Plus, Microsoft, which has been on the outside looking in at the early slate growth, hopes to get back into the game next year as well.

Even with a big market, that leaves a lot of companies angling for a piece of the pie.

For its part, Fuze Box is touting the fact that a lot of these tablets (37 percent) will be used, at least in part, for business purposes.

But other uses will also abound. Half of users plan to use it for social networking, while even more will use it for computing tasks like sending email (75 percent), browsing the Web (78 percent), and reading books and other publications (53 percent).

As far as work uses, correspondence topped the list, followed by online meetings, marketing and training.

“Since before the iPad launched in April, we’ve persisted that tablets would soon become a widely used business tool,” Fuze Box CEO Jeff Cavins said in a statement. “With 2 in 5 tablet owners using their device for business by 2014, we have officially entered the post PC era and the potential is there to reinvent the business environment for collaboration with portable and tactile computing devices, complete with cameras, document sharing, cloud computing, and storage.”

Last week, BoomTown posted a survey–titled “Who Are the 10 Most Interesting People in Tech in 2010?”–asking for readers’ choices.

We have gotten a cornucopia of responses so far, but All Things Digital is running the poll one more week.

We’ll publish the winners as part of our year-in-review postings before 2011 dawns and we get a whole new passel of digital characters to kick around.

Thus, here’s a whole bunch of choices below for your selection–pick only one, or add to the list.

Also say why you did so and we’ll publish the top 10 next week (and sorry the survey looks jammed).

If you have done the survey already, you cannot do another:

There is no question Adam Bain is a charmer, as you will be see from the video below.

He has to be, of course, as a longtime online advertising guy running News Corp.’s Fox Audience Network and now as president of global revenue at Twitter.

It’s a big splashy job for Bain, who also has some substantive geek credentials, unlike most sales people. But it is also a really tough one being the point man behind figuring out and building a viable and lucrative advertising business for the popular San Francisco-based microblogging service.

Is there gold in them thar Tweets? We’ll see, and Bain has to show us the money–and fast.

In fact, that was the title of an interview I did with Bain yesterday at TWTRCON SF 10, which also published an interesting poll about consumer reaction to Promoted Tweets and more.

The chat we had was a lively one–at one point I asked Bain if he would tell me Twitter’s revenues, if he “did not mind,” and he answered, “I do mind. I’m all about managing expectations.” Which is to say, they are probably less-than-impressive still.

Bain also pulled out a bullhorn to make his point to advertising clients about the noise online (and also to shut me up!).

Like I said, charming!

Here’s the two of us talking more about it, inexplicably inside a freezer at the hotel where the conference was held:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101119/video-boomtown-puts-twitters-revenue-dude-adam-bain-in-the-deep-freeze/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20101118/heres-a-promoted-tweet-survey-from-twtrcon/ http://allthingsd.com/20101118/heres-a-promoted-tweet-survey-from-twtrcon/#comments Thu, 18 Nov 2010 13:30:30 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37494

Later this morning, BoomTown will be at the TWTRCON SF 10 conference to interview Adam Bain, Twitter’s spanking new president of global revenue, in a session titled “Show Me the Money.”

I will surely make him show it!

The former head of News Corp.’s Fox Audience Network advertising platform, Bain is about as amiable a guy as there could be.

So, it will be interesting to see if he is feeling the pressure after only 45 days on the job of being the main person charged with figuring out and putting into action a lucrative business model for the San Francisco-based microblogging start-up.

No pressure, Adam! (But be forewarned: Don’t be fooled by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo’s friendly smile.)

Until then, I embedded a poll below that TWTRCON is releasing today on Twitter Promoted Products.

Among the key findings:

• Most Twitter business users have noticed Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts.

• As users, most have had a neutral reaction toward these products; the reaction is least favorable toward Promoted Accounts. Promoted Trends have had the highest response rate, with 37% saying they’ve clicked on a Promoted Trend to learn more.

• Half of corporate Twitter users are somewhat or very interested in Promoted Products as a marketing vehicle. Ten percent of respondents are at companies that are already experimenting with these products.

• About half of business users want to see more metrics to understand the potential ROI of Promoted Tweets, Trends or Accounts. One in five describe Promoted Products as a “very powerful tool” or the “future of advertising.”

• Thirteen percent believe that “users will push back.” Others would like to see Promoted Products better integrated into the Twitter user experience.

Here’s the full poll:

TWTRCON oneforty Promoted Products Survey 2010 1118

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101118/heres-a-promoted-tweet-survey-from-twtrcon/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101108/you-may-be-reading-this-in-the-bathroom-on-your-phone/ http://allthingsd.com/20101108/you-may-be-reading-this-in-the-bathroom-on-your-phone/#comments Mon, 08 Nov 2010 22:21:21 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=25633 Give Microsoft credit for this one: It’s ginned up a press release I have no choice but to pass along to you.

It’s designed to get me to mention today’s Windows Phone 7 launch (Katy Perry! Maroon 5!), and I’m totally fine with that. Because in return, Microsoft has provided us with a series of great statistics about “Bad Mobile Phone Behavior,” gleaned from a poll conducted by Harris Interactive.

If you like bathroom humor, you’ll enjoy these stats (via TechFlash):

• 48 percent of adults think that it’s bad to talk on the phone in a public restroom.
• 43 percent of adults think it’s not okay to text, email or Web surf in a public potty.
• Which means, presumably, that the majority of adults think it’s just fine to talk, text and type away while you’re in the stalls.
• Unless that means you drop your phone in the toilet, which 19 percent of adults 18-24 say they’ve done. (Me too, though I was well out of the demo by that point.)

Still reading? You can get the press release, which has a link to the survey itself (via a Word document–go figure) here. Oh. And here is that clever Windows Phone 7 Ad*.

*Here’s why these ads are really great, by the way. Not because they’re funny–they’re funny, but more grin funny than laugh funny. And not because they sell cell phones, because who knows? They’re great because they’re inadvertently but fundamentally honest about something uncomfortable: Many times, often times, in some cases all the time, we want to be distracted by our phones. We want them to take us away from the place we’re at or the person we’re with. No one wants to say this out loud, so Microsoft deals with it by pretending that we’re all dying to get back off our phones and into the real world. But we’re in on the joke, us and Microsoft, so we just nod and grin. Truth-telling = great ad.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101108/you-may-be-reading-this-in-the-bathroom-on-your-phone/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20101101/california-not-golden-for-silicon-valley-techie-gop-candidates-whitman-and-fiorina/ http://allthingsd.com/20101101/california-not-golden-for-silicon-valley-techie-gop-candidates-whitman-and-fiorina/#comments Mon, 01 Nov 2010 17:00:58 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36565

After all Meg Whitman’s moneybagging and all those demon sheep thrown by Carly Fiorina, polls right now are showing that it is unlikely either of them is going to emerge victorious in tomorrow’s elections in California.

While the pair might pull it out, given how the GOP is surging this election cycle, most expect them not to do so.

Whitman has handed over a giant pile of her eBay-generated fortune in an attempt to be the Republican governor of the Golden State, which seemed to have been working–until it didn’t.

In fact, it seems as if her wealth–and various controversies around it, such as IllegalMaidGate–has diminished her efforts to paint herself as CEO of California.

While she was way up over the summer over Democratic rival Jerry Brown, she has been trailing him recently.

And, although the race has tightened up, surveys show Brown is still ahead, such as a Rasmussen Reports survey that showed him up 49 percent to Whitman’s 45 percent.

In the Senate contest, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Fiorina seems to be more certainly headed for defeat.

A new Field Research poll gives Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer 49 percent to Fiorina’s 41.

And while both candidates drastically oversold their business credentials as just the thing the troubled state needs, it seems the magic of tech in California does not necessarily transfer to voter enthusiasm quite so neatly.

But, let’s not end this election without another look at the infamous–and accidentally hysterical–”Demon Sheep” television ad by Fiorina against her GOP-nomination opponent Tom Campbell.

That video is followed by a very funny rejoinder, “Demon Sheep II: The Fleecing of California.”

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101101/california-not-golden-for-silicon-valley-techie-gop-candidates-whitman-and-fiorina/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20101021/millionaires-have-no-time-for-facebook/ http://allthingsd.com/20101021/millionaires-have-no-time-for-facebook/#comments Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:31:51 +0000 Robert Frank http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=31385 A new poll suggests that a majority of millionaires have signed up for social media sites. There is just one problem: They don’t have time to actually use them.

The poll from SEI Wealth Network, a wealth-advisory firm, showed that 70 percent of respondents with $5 million or more in investible assets are users of Facebook and other social media sites. That is more than the 61 percent of the broader population who use such sites.

SEI touted the results as proof that the rich are social-media animals. “Wealthy individuals are engaged with social media even more than the rest of the American public,” said David McLaughlin, Senior Managing Director for the SEI Wealth Network

That would be true-–if the wealthy spent time on the sites. But the poll also showed that only 17 percent of the multimillionaires use the sites on a daily basis. That is far less than the broader population, in which 38% use such sites at least once a day.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101021/millionaires-have-no-time-for-facebook/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101018/another-week-another-social-networking-poll-this-time-the-kids-are-alright/ http://allthingsd.com/20101018/another-week-another-social-networking-poll-this-time-the-kids-are-alright/#comments Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:00:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=35667

Last week, Common Sense Media released a poll it conducted that showed parents fretting about the growing power of social networks.

Now, TRUSTe, a Web privacy trustmark firm, has released another, titled “The Kids Are Alright,” which shows a little-nicer picture, especially for Facebook.

In fact, according to the survey–based on responses from 2,000 parents and teens, ages 13 to 17–parents and teens feel in control of social networking sites, including their privacy.

Wrote TRUSTe of the poll:

“It reflects in many ways parents and teens doing the right things on social networks. For example, parents are monitoring and engaging with their teens online; and, teens are using available privacy controls.”

The possible snafus: Teens oversharing, overfriending and, of course, overhiding from parents.

Yes, all that.

Here is the official press release, a short and long version of the study and some tips for teens, as well as a guide for parents:

TRUSTe Social Networking Survey Results Release_Draft 7_101310_KB

SNS_shortdeck

TRUSTe Parent and Teen Social Networking Study _Full_

SNS_TeenGuide

SNS_ParentGuide

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101018/another-week-another-social-networking-poll-this-time-the-kids-are-alright/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101008/from-the-department-of-the-obvious-poll-finds-parents-are-worried-about-privacy-on-social-networks/ http://allthingsd.com/20101008/from-the-department-of-the-obvious-poll-finds-parents-are-worried-about-privacy-on-social-networks/#comments Fri, 08 Oct 2010 07:10:43 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=35149

A national poll released today by Common Sense Media asking how well social networks protect kids online produced an answer that should come as a shock to exactly no one:

Not very well, at least according to parents.

A full 75 percent of them gave social networking sites such as Facebook a negative rating for the task.

About 2,000 parents were polled by the nonprofit media organization, as well as 400 teens, who also gave thumbs down to social networks’ ability to police themselves.

There will be a big roundtable discussion on the topic in Washington, D.C., this morning, which will include Common Sense Media head Jim Steyer, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz and Deputy Secretary of Education Anthony Miller.

Along with the poll results, San Francisco-based Common Sense Media said it will also announce the launch of the “Protect Our Privacy–Protect Our Kids” campaign to help parents protect kids’ reputations and personal information online.

I love the smell of impending privacy legislation in the morning!

Already from Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts: “As the House author of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, I remain intently interested in ensuring that children are not targeted online and their privacy is strictly protected. Twelve years after the bill was signed into law, entire new technologies and industries have emerged that could put children’s safety at risk, making a legislative update necessary. I look forward to introducing such legislation to bring COPPA into the 21st century.”

Thus, here is more for pols to chew on: The bulk of those surveyed are more concerned with online privacy than they were five year ago (another obvious one); parents do not believe Web sites, including search engines such as Google (GOOG), should share the location of kids (count me in on that one too!); and teens think their friends overshare (you think?).

But instead of me telling you, just read it all here in top-line results for adults and teens, as well as in the official press release:

Final CSM adults topline

Final CSM teen topline

Privacy Poll Results and Campaign Launch

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101008/from-the-department-of-the-obvious-poll-finds-parents-are-worried-about-privacy-on-social-networks/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20101006/exclusive-new-msnbc-com-bermanbraun-online-political-site-bltwy-launches/ http://allthingsd.com/20101006/exclusive-new-msnbc-com-bermanbraun-online-political-site-bltwy-launches/#comments Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:12:41 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=34952

While it seems to be a stealth launch, the new online political site for MSNBC.com, created by Hollywood production firm BermanBraun, is now up and running.

Called BLTWY–as in “Beltway,” presumably for the road that rings the nation’s capital–the striking rich-media content site is now live. (You can see it above.)

BLTWY seems to follow along the sweeping horizontal wall and extensive use of larger photos and videos that characterize BermanBraun’s popular Wonderwall celebrity site.

In May, BermanBraun and MSNBC announced the collaboration in a blog post, noting:

“Politicians have now become part of popular culture, and de-facto celebrities, attracting considerable media attention. BermanBraun and the Msnbc Digital Network announced a partnership to create an original destination site which will go beyond policy and polls to explore the celebrity side of politics…It will take you inside the beltway to explore the lives of politicians as celebrities, giving politics the Wonderwall treatment.”

BLTWY is definitely aimed at meshing celebrity and politics and has a lot of interactive elements, such as polls and Facebook Connect.

In fact, the main feature at the moment is a diva depiction of the Supreme Court.

The slick site also appears to be developed in HTML5, rather than using Adobe (ADBE) Flash technology and fits to the entire screen with the homepage remaining in a persistent manner.

BermanBraun has already created several sites for Microsoft (MSFT) and its online properties. Wonderwall debuted in 2009 on its MSN portal, where its women-focused Glo also resides.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101006/exclusive-new-msnbc-com-bermanbraun-online-political-site-bltwy-launches/feed/ 0