What gives?

With all due respect to Lewis, who is one of the greatest innovators in media, I left realizing that there are different ideas of what “social” can mean on the Web, and that not everyone knows where the gold lies. Putting the whole picture together, there are four different models for social that, despite sharing the same name, are completely different concepts.

• Social = Viral Hit
  For those on the marketing and advertising side especially, the word “social” often means that you or your client are jealous of someone else’s success. Viral hits are largely based on breakthrough creative, though great distribution is an often-forgotten second factor. Who wouldn’t want to be responsible for the next Old Spice guy? Of course, these kinds of hits are easy to ask for and hard to achieve. And if you do achieve it, you’ll need another viral hit to bring your audience back again.
  Verdict: Good luck!
• Social = 1,000,000 Fans
  
  Here, the theory goes that social means getting lots of fans, and then something magical is supposed to happen. Like the boys’ adventure with the “South Park” underpants gnomes, it usually ends up with a lot of time and money spent, a big collection achieved, and a big question mark over “what now?” It doesn’t matter how low your cost per fan was, if the value per fan is near-zero. It’s not the size of the fan base that matters — it’s what you do with it.
  Verdict: Bad strategy.
• Social = Comments
  Another concept of “social” is that it’s a medium for conversation. With programs like @ComcastCares, brands have used this approach to shape their brand images and reputations — and it has worked. On the publishing side, the Huffington Post and other publishers have succeeded in using social engagement to drive deep participation and connection among an inner circle of its audience. Hosting a conversation certainly builds a relationship. A “Like,” comment, or share from a user can all get you more exposure on the margin, but, as Lewis noted on our panel, the friends who come that way don’t stay very long and don’t come back much. They came for their friends, not for your Web site. That’s why, even though engagement strategies are great for your core audience, they won’t single-handedly drive the large, loyal audience we all crave.
  Verdict: Smart, but it’s not enough.
• Social = Lasting Relationship
  A lasting relationship with an audience is the holy grail of every brand online. In fact, it has made Amazon the most valuable e-commerce company on earth, and it’s made Disney and the NFL valuable over decades. But what some haven’t realized yet is that the most valuable mode of social is in keeping these relationships connected.

  Do you have any idea how valuable a “Like” is? Any seventh-grader goes all atwitter when his crush says, “I like you.” It’s permission to see someone more, get to know them better, and talk to them all the time — not just once, but every day. If you are doing it right, a “Like” or a “Follow” begins a two-way relationship: One where your audience is asking for programming from you every day, week and month; and giving you their interest data about what works and what doesn’t. With that relationship, you can choose what content you create, and when and how you share it. That relationship isn’t once-and-done — it’s ongoing.

  And data from our experience shows that it translates into a million visits a week from our fan base — almost one visit for every fan, not to mention dozens more impressions right in their home page, the Facebook news feed. Done right, social can already drive more traffic than search, making a new top venue to recruit, and more importantly, retain an audience.

  More and more, I talk to marketers and publishers who have hundreds of thousands or millions of fans and followers, and yet have no idea what to do with them. They haven’t realized that they have subscribers at the ready, waiting for great content and experiences — the currency of their relationship.

  Nor do they understand the tremendous value of those subscribers: If you give your friends what they are after, they’ll keep coming back for more, and they’ll bring their friends. This is exactly how companies like Groupon and Zynga have reinvented their categories and created businesses worth billions of dollars in the process.
  Verdict: There is nothing more powerful than a lasting relationship.

Ben Elowitz (@elowitz) is co-founder and CEO of next-generation Web publisher Wetpaint, and author of the Digital Quarters blog about the future of digital media. Prior to Wetpaint, Elowitz co-founded Blue Nile (NILE).

And so today they are launching TheIceBreak as a personal improvement site for couples — think of it as the equivalent of Mint or RunKeeper for relationships. (And you can use it even if you didn’t meet your partner on a dating site.)

TheIceBreak co-founders Christina Brodbeck and Dwipal Desai have read up on theories of relationships and enlisted the help of a couples therapist to design their service.

Here’s how it works: TheIceBreak asks one or both members of a couple to answer a daily icebreaker question about their partner or relationship, as well as capture a moment, like a photo of a smile. Once a week the service pings users to answer a survey about their relationship to be compiled into a stats report about how things are going and how they compare to other couples.

Participation on TheIceBreak is entirely private and/or anonymous, which could inhibit its growth, though the site does include hooks for users to share their relationship moments and accomplishments to Facebook and Twitter.

Brodbeck and Desai, who were a very early designer and engineer at YouTube, respectively, have funded TheIceBreak themselves and work out of the Founders Den in San Francisco. They’re letting anyone who signs up into their beta trial now and said they plan to launch mobile apps in the next few weeks.

The Street was looking for $6.06 billion and $8.09 a share.

Also, importantly, a shake-up at the top. From the release:

* Starting from April 4, Larry Page, Google Co-Founder, will take charge of Google’s day-to-day operations as Chief Executive Officer.
* Sergey Brin, Google Co-Founder, will devote his energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products.
* Eric Schmidt will assume the role of Executive Chairman, focusing externally on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership–all of which are increasingly important given Google’s global reach. Internally, he will continue to act as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.

Here’s the full text of Schmidt’s statement explaining the move:

When I joined Google in 2001 I never imagined—even in my wildest dreams—that we would get as far, as fast as we have today. Search has quite literally changed people’s lives—increasing the collective sum of the world’s knowledge and revolutionizing advertising in the process. And our emerging businesses—display, Android, YouTube and Chrome—are on fire. Of course, like any successful organization we’ve had our fair share of good luck, but the entire team—now over 24,000 Googlers globally—deserves most of the credit.

And as our results today show, the outlook is bright. But as Google has grown, managing the business has become more complicated. So Larry, Sergey and I have been talking for a long time how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making—and over the holidays we decided now was the right moment to make some changes to the way we are structured.

For the last 10 years, we have all been equally involved in making decisions. This triumvirate approach has real benefits in terms of shared wisdom, and we will continue to discuss the big decisions among the three of us. But we have also agreed to clarify our individual roles so there’s clear responsibility and accountability at the top of the company.

Larry will now lead product development and technology strategy, his greatest strengths, and starting from April 4 he will take charge of our day-to-day operations as Google’s Chief Executive Officer. In this new role I know he will merge Google’s technology and business vision brilliantly. I am enormously proud of my last decade as CEO, and I am certain that the next 10 years under Larry will be even better! Larry, in my clear opinion, is ready to lead.

Sergey has decided to devote his time and energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products. His title will be Co-Founder. He’s an innovator and entrepreneur to the core, and this role suits him perfectly.

As Executive Chairman, I will focus wherever I can add the greatest value: externally, on the deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership that are increasingly important given Google’s global reach; and internally as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.

We are confident that this focus will serve Google and our users well in the future. Larry, Sergey and I have worked exceptionally closely together for over a decade—and we anticipate working together for a long time to come. As friends, co-workers and computer scientists we have a lot in common, most important of all a profound belief in the potential for technology to make the world a better place. We love Google—our people, our products and most of all the opportunity we have to improve the lives of millions of people around the world.

His shorter comment, via Twitter:

Here, again, is a cheat sheet from Citi’s Mark Mahaney, so you can play along at home:

Because while those who live in the echo chamber of Silicon Valley are frequently wrong, but never in doubt, a gigantic amount of time is spent being more technical than realistic.

And by “technical,” I mean annoyingly detailed in making a point as to completely obfuscate the essence of anything.

Let me explain.

In the middle of yet another dullish release of features–this time mobile-related–at an event at Facebook HQ in Palo Alto, Calif., on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and CEO of the social networking giant, finally livened up the proceedings in the Q&A part at the end.

Ben Parr of Mashable asked a question everyone has been speculating about recently–whether and when there would be an iPad app for Facebook coming.

A fumbling “no comment” would have worked fine, but the real Zuckerberg seemed to have decided to channel the clever Aaron Sorkin-ish repartee of the fictional Zuckerberg in the movie “The Social Network.”

“It’s not mobile…it is a computer,” he said flatly.

“I think Apple would disagree with you,” noted Parr.

“Well, sorry,” Zuckerberg spat out, his voice dripping with the kind of sarcasm that only a super-nerdy Silicon Valley engineer can pull off properly.

And, while he quickly backtracked and declared a deep love of Apple products, it was clear Zuckerberg meant what he’d said and said what he’d meant.

That the iPad is just another version of the kind of computer he cut his geek teeth on and it is not at all like the mobile smartphones that are now moving squarely into power pole position in the digital universe.

Except, not so fast.

First, the creators of the iPad over at Apple do consider it mobile, and its own often-disdainful leader Steve Jobs has said so on many occasions.

While that does not make it so, of course, imagine if he got up and said Facebook was not actually a social network as much as, say, a glorified portal with more chitchat. Sort of an AOL-Plus!

You could make that argument, although it would not take into account a lot of key elements Zuckerberg did not take into account in his iPad-is-a-computer zinger.

But that’s not a good enough counter, of course, so let’s focus on real people using the iPad or tablets like it, such as the Amazon Kindle e-reader.

First, the iPad is a computer, because that is technically true, even though that makes a smartphone a computer too. (And, now that I think of it, my car is a computer.)

But actual civilians don’t make these kinds of distinctions and, if one spends any time watching consumers use tablets, mobile is entirely how they think of it.

If you want to get technical, I supposed “portable” is a better way to describe it, but not in the way a laptop is.

And here are the five simple reasons why:

No. 1: A tablet is typically carried around like a book or magazine, which are perhaps the most portable of all media.

While it has a hard shell, an iPad has the elements of those much more so than a computer laptop, which is much harder to manipulate, due to its clamshell design and keyboard.

No. 2: A tablet is largely used via a touchscreen, which allows the device to be intimate in a way a computer never is.

Watch people use a laptop and an iPad in a public setting and you will easily see the relationship is much different.

A laptop is treated more as a work device and an in-a-pinch entertainment player. Like a phone, the tablet is used close in and with no sense of boundaries.

No. 3: A tablet is largely used as a consumption device, with interactive and inputting elements, while a computer is an interactive and inputting device with consumption elements.

No. 4: The tablet, like my phone, is always on, with no boot up. It is persistent, while a computer is more periodic.

And a tablet is smaller and thinner than any computer and will only get thinner over time. Again, this kind of form factor makes it more and more a mobile device.

No. 5: And, even now, as large as the first iteration of the iPad is, it never sits on my desk.

A desktop computer, of course, does. My laptop sits on my desk, plugged into a big screen, and is often unplugged and taken with me when I travel.

But my iPad is never on my desk. Unless it is charging or synching, it is in my bag with my phone and always ready to go.

As in, mobile.

But that was back in 1948, long before Tamagotchi and Sony’s robotic dog AIBO recalibrated the objects of human affection. And desire. Long before artificial intelligence researcher and international chess master David Levy cast a randy eye on Furby and Tickle Me Elmo and began dreaming up all the lascivious possibilities. Because, according to Levy, within a decade or so robots will be so humanlike in their appearance, functionality and expression of emotions, that we’ll be falling in love with them, having sex with them and even marrying them–Defense of Marriage Act, ahem, permitting.

“It may sound a little weird, but it isn’t,” said Levy, who explores the idea at length in his Ph.D. thesis “Intimate Relationships With Artificial Partners,” concluding that “Love and sex with robots are inevitable.”

Levy argues that there are roughly a dozen basic reasons why people fall in love, and almost all of them could apply to human-robot relationships. “For instance,” he explains, “one thing that prompts people to fall in love are similarities in personality and knowledge, and all of this is programmable. Another reason people are more likely to fall in love is if they know the other person likes them, and that’s programmable too.”

Sounds like a possible new story arc for “Tell Me You Love Me” …

And what of the consummation vows and the marital bed? The human-robot sexual relationship? Silicone “love dolls” have already done some of the heavy lifting there. And there are folks hard at work developing the technology that may someday make coitus roboticus a real possibility. Consider this patent for “Simulated Human Interaction Systems”:

In a simplified form the mannequin or doll could be replaced with devices being artificial versions of human body parts used in sexual activities, for example artificial male or female genitalia as well as or replaced by devices for use in simulating oral sexual activities.

“Most preferably, however, the invention is applied using a mannequin or doll and preferably sensors are provided to be responsive to touch to various portions of the doll, whereby the control system can cause the visual output to correspond but in addition sensors responsive to movement, temperature and pressure and motion can be provided to initiate a physical reaction in the mannequin.”

(Above image courtesy Worth1000.com)