One of the things I like best about playing the role of early adopter is getting the chance to test sites before they reach the general public. Sometimes, I can help guide an entrepreneur to consider new features, or suggest changes to their interface that I feel could help make the difference between confusion and success. Often, this process is done before a product launches, and at other times, it is done after the product launches, and gets iterated. But what rarely occurs is for the product to be open to the world and yet, we still don't talk about it - a position I've found myself in the last week.

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to meet with a sharp entrepreneur with decades of experience launching new services. He's taken one company public and sold it, and started others. He walked me through the new service, which incorporates many of the social media tools I enjoy and use.

As he passed his MacBook Air to me in Palo Alto as we ate breakfast, I clicked through each of the tabs, and tried to find holes in the product. There were some, of course. UI issues, unexpected behavior, and complicated menus that probably weren't intuitive. But despite the issues, it was intriguing to see the incoming data manipulated and displayed and filterable in new ways. I asked my unfair share of questions and got solid responses.

Of course, I asked when the service would launch to the public, and as I planned to write about it, when any embargo would lift, so I could take a note and be ready when he was. The answer? The product is live now, with no restrictions, but... please don't write about it, as it's too early.

The combination of being open but without the option to cover is unusual. Typically, you're either open for business, or you're not, so, despite my above story, I'm not yet ready to tell you about it. When it does go live, it should be an interesting player, one that brings new ways to get connected to people and topics. I can test it, and use it, and there are no restrictions on getting in for those of you who might figure it out. But it's not yet time, and for someone who likes to help spread the word, it's an odd position to be in.

Google is the best-known Web company that gives its logo a frequent revamp for holidays and other occasions, Halloween being no exception. But the search engine giant is far from alone in their creativity. Last year, I highlighted YouTube, Technorati, Yahoo! and FriendFeed as companies who went the extra mile to add pumpkins and other Halloween gear to their logo, and in 2008, many are back at the drawing board.


This Year's Entrants to the Halloween Logo Ball
As of midnight Pacific time on Halloween, Google has once again carved out a jack-o-lantern, replacing its two O's with the pumpkin and a seed scoop. The L in google? A candle dripping with wax.

In an attempt to seem similarly hip, AOL turned their O into a pumpkin and their logo is infested with bats. Yahoo! is displaying a Flash-based Halloween scene with pumpkins aplenty. Ask.com, an also-ran in the search rankings, tries to win out by making their entire page Halloween friendly, showing trick-or-treaters on a Fall day.

FriendFeed is back at it, with more attention to detail, as a youth in ghost costume springs up as the "n", arms aloft as one shoelace dangles untied. The two "e"s are jack-o-lantern ies, with toothpicks keeping the letter intact. Meanwhile, their real-time search engine has its unfair share of cobwebs.

Zuula brings up the rear of the alphabet, but doesn't lag in design with its own silhouetted pumpkin and Halloween scene.

Unlike last year, YouTube and Technorati are not yet in the Halloween spirit, nor are other brands, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or the long-forgotten portals of Excite and Lycos, which deserve their own cobwebs, if you ask me. Also not participating - Digg, Reddit and SocialMedian.

Added via the comments:


PopURLs: http://popurls.com/

Find any good Halloween logos this year? Let me know in the comments. And have a Happy Halloween!

When FriendFeed first gained significant traction early this spring, coming at the same time as Twitter was struggling with uptime issues and a reduced feature set, bloggers were abuzz with the idea that FriendFeed could replace Twitter outright. The excitement around the social aggregation site at times was so white hot, it was thought the team would soon render popular tools like Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader unnecessary. Rather than eliminate other services in the ecosystem, FriendFeed has instead, over the last several months, added support for many more services, and introduced upgrades that have made it even further integrated with those same sites, Facebook and Twitter.

Today, FriendFeed introduced a set of features that lets users update Twitter with all their FriendFeed activity, based on their own preferences - be it with native FriendFeed entries, or shares from popular sites, be they Disqus, Last.fm, YouTube, Flickr and many more.

The result essentially turns the lifestreaming functionality on its head. Rather than just have Twitter play a major role in inputting entries in user's feeds, FriendFeed now gives Twitter the chance to do more than operate as a microblogging tool, taking your personal FriendFeed, and mirroring it back Twitter's direction.


I've set up a number of services on FriendFeed to reflect back to Twitter.
Despite having served as one of the more vocal proponents of FriendFeed, I don't see that everything I do on the site needs to fill my Twitter stream. I won't be adding my FriendFeed comments to Twitter, nor will I be adding the vast majority of my social activity around the Web, including Google Reader shares, Delicious bookmarks, or comments, be they on FriendFeed, Disqus or BackType. After a certain point, the ensuing waterfall of updates would be certain to leave my in box full of Qwitter notifications.


A native post I made to FriendFeed was bounced to Twitter as well.
What I will be doing is notifying Twitter on native FriendFeed shared items, including all the iPhone pictures I take of the twins and send in via e-mail, as well as new blog posts, SmugMug shares and YouTube postings. This will effectively eliminate my need to use TinyURL for new blog posts, and probably will erode my use of Posty, TweetDeck or other Twitter applications. But as the integration is with Twitter only, Identi.ca and other microblogging services don't get any of the love.

Will Twitter's new role as a mainstream erode FriendFeed's differentiation? I don't believe so. The site is still all about following friends' feeds, and not just aggregating your updates. It's also become a strong platform for discussion and engagement. As links back to FriendFeed begin to increasingly populate Twitter, it should drive even more traffic their way, as both services aid one another, padding their lead in their respective markets.

Last week, Apple and Google made headlines for announcing their opposition to California's Proposition 8, which aims to restrict marriage to couples of different genders. At the time, following Apple's announcement, some, including Valleywag, asked why Yahoo!, still a thought leader in the Valley despite their many troubles, was remaining quiet on the issue. The company's Pride page features a "Vote No on Prop 8" link, but the company's leadership hasn't made the same headlines as Apple and Google have with their visible opposition.


Yang and Filo Both Donated $15k Against Prop 8
Without drawing attention, Yahoo! co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo have both donated $15,000 apiece, opposing proposition 8, according to public contribution records. (See: San Francisco Chronicle) In fact, the $15,000 donations make each of them the highest level donations in the city of Sunnyvale, almost double the third highest entry, which provides $8,000 in favor of the initiative passing.


The Pair's Contributions Lead Sunnyvale Donors
The controversial initiative is seeing money flow into the campaign for both sides, and recent polls have the initiative running with an even chance of passing, despite Silicon Valley's vocal opposition.

While Yang and Filo have made personal contributions against Prop 8, Yahoo!, aside from their Pride page, has made no official statement. My previous discussion on Prop 8 can be found here. And while I have heard some small buzz in the "Yes on 8" circles that they will boycott companies that oppose the initiative, at the rate it's going, they might not be able to search the Web or even use an iPod, so maybe they should at least rethink that strategy...

The full database of donations for and against Proposition 8 can be found at the San Francisco Chronicle's special page: http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/prop8/