Recently posted on Wired…. Need an e-mail list of customers or readers and want to know more about each ? such as their full name, friends, gender, age, interests, location, job and education level?

Facebook has just the free feature you’re looking for, thanks to its recent privacy changes.

The hack, first publicized by blogger Max Klein, repurposes a Facebook feature that lets people find their friends on Facebook by scanning through e-mail addresses in their contact list.

But as Klein points out, a marketer could take a list of 1,000 e-mail addresses, either legally or illegally collected and upload those through a dummy account which then lets the user see all the profiles created using those addresses.  Given Facebook’s ubiquity and most people’s reliance on a single e-mail address, the harvest could be quite rich.

Using a simple scraping tool, a marketer could then turn a list of e-mail addresses into a rich, full-fledged set of marketing profiles, with names, pictures, ages, locations, interests, photos, wall posts, affiliations and names of your friends, depending on how users have their profiles set.

Run a few algorithms on that data and you can start to make inferences about race, income, sexual orientation and interests.

While that information isn’t available for all users, Facebook changed its privacy settings in early December so that certain information can’t be made private, including one’s name, current city, profile picture, gender, networks and friend list (the latter can be somewhat hidden from public view).

Anyone with your e-mail address can harvest that information, the company admits.

That’s unacceptable, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Kevin Bankston, who says that’s not the Facebook people signed up for.

“Just because Facebook users want to share personal info with their friends does not mean they want to share it with any nefarious parties on the internet,” Bankston said, “but that is exactly what Facebook is forcing its users to do.”

With the new privacy settings, users can shut off being found by their name by changing who can find them on Facebook or by web searches.  But even if you restrict as much as you can, if an outsider knows your e-mail address, they can find the rest of your profile information that Facebook now designates as public, namely your name, profile picture (if you’ve uploaded one), current city (if you’ve filled one out), networks (if you’ve joined any) and pages you are a fan of, according to Facebook.

“If someone knows your e-mail address, they can find you even if you’ve restricted search privacy,” Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told Wired.com.

That’s very valuable information to marketers, who can use it to evaluate their product, understand their user base better, create targeted marketing materials or sell the information to others.

But Facebook says it works to catch rogue marketers and sets a limit on the number of e-mail addresses that can be run through its system, according to Noyes.

“We’ve developed several systems to detect and block malicious use of the Friend Finder,” Noyes said. “For example, we don’t allow users to upload contact lists past a certain size. We also block users who upload contacts at an anomalous rate.

Still, the onus is on users to make a decision about their information, according to the company.

“However, we encourage people with concerns to configure their privacy settings appropriately,” Noyes said.

Users should know that the information exposed in this little hack is not unlike that which is turned over to third-party applications whenever you or one of your friends installs an application, including such things as quizzes to decide what kind of pet you are.

It’s not clear if any marketers are using this loophole, but it would be very difficult to know

Facebook is pushing its users to share information in an attempt to keep Twitter from eclipsing the site as the center of the net’s online conversations. The site hopes getting users to publish more publicly will make it the place people turn when they need to find recommendations, a function currently dominated (with great profit) by Google.

But privacy activists say Facebook has broken the contract with its users. Some groups have filed a formal complaint with the FTC, saying the recent changes are illegal.

Augmenting marketing data to learn even more about customers isn’t new, and has been offered by companies such as Choicepoint for years. Rapleaf offers a strikingly similar service to the demonstrated hack for companies willing to pay money.

LinkedIn came out with the latest version of their iPhone app today. As you might expect from a 3.0 release, the app has been much improved, namely in its user experience.  In fact, it looks a lot more like Facebook’s iPhone app now.

As you can see, there is a new main screen that features 12 main buttons.  Yes, this is just like the new Facebook app main screen that features big buttons.  With LinkedIn’s you’ll get easy access to “All Updates,” “Status,” “Profiles,” “Discussions,” “Connections,” “Favorites,” “Inbox,” “Invitations,” “Recents,” “Reconnect,” “In Person,” and “Themes.”  Of these, the Reconnect, In Person, and Themes areas are entirely new.   Reconnect allows you to find people you likely know on LinkedIn with the click of a button. In Person lets you use the iPhone’s Bluetooth to easily swap contact information with any other LinkedIn iPhone use you happen to be nearby at a conference or event.  And Themes allows you to change the color of the main screen icons — you can choose pink, orange, gold, and a bunch of other crazy colors to ugly-up your app to your heart’s content.

Previously, the app featured a more standard bottom-bar iPhone navigation where you could switch between updates, your inbox, search, and other elements. This new layout gives you access to a lot more information quickly. The updates areas (All and Status) has also been been made more Facebook-like as each now features a user profile picture next to each update. You can also now comment on each of these updates right from within the app — again, yes, just like Facebook.

It’s also now very easy to “star” any profile to mark it as a favorite, to give you easy access to it.  Doing this also creates a filtering mechanism for the update streams.

Find the 3.0 version of the LinkedIn app, available for free in the App Store here.

The API (Application Programming Interface) has been an essential component for creating applications that hook into or utilize web apps such as Twitter and Facebook.  With it, developers have been able to create some amazing mashups and tools.   Some of the most helpful and oft-used applications on the web wouldn’t be possible without APIs.

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1. Google Maps

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Google Maps is one of the hottest APIs on the web.  The ProgrammableWeb API Directory tracks over 1800 mashups for Google Maps, which is more than three and a half times as many as the next most popular API. Google Maps perhaps did more to popularize the concept of web application mashups in the middle part of this decade than any other API.

1. Google’s Official Documentation for the Maps API is probably the best place to start. The site offers a developer’s guide, code samples and demos, case studies, and even a sandbox where you can test stuff out while you learn.

2. Earlier this year, Google abandoned its official Google Maps API blog in favor of a new Google Geo Developers Blog. The new blog encompasses all of Google’s mapping APIs, including both Maps and their Earth program. The blog is filled with useful posts about using the API, frequent news updates about changes and developments with the API itself, and links to creative uses by other developers.

3. The Official Google Maps API Group is probably the first place you should check out if you need help with your Maps-based project. The extremely active group hosts hundreds of thousands of discussions and is frequented by both seasoned and rookie developers, as well as Google Maps API core contributors. It is often the first place that upcoming API changes are made, so if your project hinges on the Google Maps API, then you should definitely keep an eye on the official group.

4. Mapki is an unofficial Google Maps API wiki at which Maps developers come together to discuss and document the API. The site has a huge list of developer’s tools and tutorials, as well as code snippets and FAQs.

5. Mike Williams’ Google Maps API Tutorial is an excellent and up-to-date overview of the API. It’s a great getting started point for anyone trying to get into mashup development with Google Maps or integrating maps into an existing project.

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2. Facebook / Facebook Connect

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Over a million developers have created over 350,000 active applications on the Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect has been adopted by more than 15,000 web sites, according to official stats. That easily makes Facebook’s platform and Connect API among the hottest development platforms on the web today.

1. The Facebook Developers site is one of the most complete and well-made and maintained developer sites on the web. It has a great getting started guide, as well as super active forums, an official blog for developers, and more.

2. If you’re developing anything for the Facebook Platform, then Facebook Developer Tools page is a must-bookmark resource. The tools, including test consoles for the API and FBML, as well as a playground environment for Facebook Connect, are super helpful for anyone working with the app platform or Facebook’s other developer APIs. They also recently released the Facebook Connect Wizard that makes integrating Facebook Connect with your site a snap.

3. Facebook’s Wiki offers a plethora of useful information for developers from guidelines to how-to guides to code examples and more. The site hosts over a thousand articles ensuring that if you need to do it with Facebook’s APIs, there’s a good bet you’ll find the information you need to know to learn how to do it somewhere in the wiki.

4. Though it hasn’t been updated in just over a year, the unofficial Facebook Developer online magazine is still an amazing resource for Facebook developers. It has an incredible archive of useful articles, tutorials, guides, and case studies that are still available for viewing.

5. It may just be a clever marketing tactic to get people to sign up for its hosting services, but Joyent’s popular Facebook Applications Developer Program, which offers free hosting for app developers for one year, is nonetheless a great resource. Especially for developers just getting into Facebook, Joyent’s program offers a no-risk way to test the waters.

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3. Twitter

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Anyone who reads this blog is well-aware of just how fast Twitter is growing. According to Compete, Twitter has grown over 650% this year, and it’s popular with developers too; Twitter application directory oneforty tracks over 1,800 Twitter-based or connected tools and applications.

1. The place to start, of course, is the Official API Wiki, which Twitter has packed with documentation, guides, tutorials, known issues, and FAQs for dealing with the Twitter API and OAuth.

2. Being Twitter, the Twitter API team naturally also has a Twitter account (@twitterapi). The account is updated by 5 core API developers at Twitter with news about the Twitter API and offers support to developers using it to build applications.

3. Twitter also has a blog, on which the company posts updates about their developer tools, as well as links to content that is helpful for developers, and spotlights of exceptional API uses. Also be sure to keep an eye on the service’s status blog to keep track of downtime issues and scheduled maintenance.

4. The Twitter Development Talk group/mailing list, which is hosted by Google Groups, is one of the best places to go to for help when you’re stuck with a Twitter API development problem. The site has had over 20,000 messages posted to it and is frequented by the API team. Twitter also operates a group for API announcements, which is a must-follow for developers craving the latest Twitter API news.

5. A search for Twitter on GitHub will return a ton of useful resources for developers, including over 13,000 code snippets and over 1,300 repositories, including many of the most popular Twitter libraries and wrappers. You can also find some of the open source technologies that actually power Twitter on GitHub.

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4. Flickr

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Flickr just recently passed 4 billion photos, so it’s no wonder that developers are excited to use it. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of mashups that rely on the Flickr API to add a little bit of visual appeal.

1. code.flickr is the home of Flickr’s official developer blog, and their official forum community. There are thousands of discussions in the Flickr API pool, as well as developers sharing screen shots of their creations, and the site also hosts the official SVN and Trac pages for the Flickr API, as well.

2. Yahoo!’s impressive Developer Network hosts a helpful Flickr section with a basic overview of the API, and links to the API key application form and information about rate limits and commercial usage. However, if you want meatier documentation, you’ll need to check out Flickr’s Official Flickr API documentation page, which offers a ton of information about using the API and links to third-party API kits for languages including ActionScript, Java, .NET, Objective-C, PHP, Python, and Ruby, among others.

3. If you’re still stumped, a good place to turn for an answer would be the YWS-Flickr Group on Yahoo! Groups. The active discussion list has over 3,000 Flickr developers that regularly share tips and tricks and help each other out.

4. The Ultimate Guide to Decoding the Flickr API is a very impressive tutorial from Nettuts+. Though just a single tutorial, it is a very good overview that is definitely a good place to start for developers interested in utilizing the Flickr API.

5. GitHub has a collection of over 200 Flickr code repositories including libraries and other helpful tools for developers. Ruby, JavaScript, Python, and PHP are the most popular languages among Flickr developers on the code sharing site.

A study conducted by Harvard Business Review reveals that most Twitter users don’t actually use the service much, or even at all.  In fact, 10% of active users are responsible for over 90% of all Tweets.

According to the research, conducted on a random sample of about 300,000 Twitter (Twitter) users in May 2009, 25% of Twitter users don’t tweet at all, while 50% of users tweet less than once every 74 hours.  Active users, on the other hand, tweet a lot, which makes Twitter a lot more like Wikipedia (Wikipedia) than an average social network (see graph below, courtesy of HBR).

Although this may sound strange at first, Twitter really is more like Wikipedia than, say, Facebook (Facebook). Twitter is not so much about connecting with your friends, it’s about broadcasting information.  Although it doesn’t necessarily take much creativity to create a tweet, only the most creative users actually persist in tweeting every day over a longer time period.

However, Twitter is also similar to a instant messaging tool, which should have a very different curve, with a larger proportion of users contributing to the number of overall tweets. It seems that Twitter’s micropublishing component is winning over its chatting component.

The Harvard Business Review study reveals another interesting tidbit: men seem to follow men more than women on Twitter. There are more women than men on twitter – approximately 55% of all users are female – but an average man will follow a man in 65% of all cases, while a woman will follow a man in 56% of cases. It’s hard to pull any meaningful conclusions from this anomaly, except one: Twitter is different than other social networks. But you already knew that.

Want to know how to unlock Facebook??  Get clients and like minded individual’s friending you in the masses on Facebook.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) to make Facebook a contact cash machine on the web to your niche.  The best way to attract clients and like-minded individuals on Facebook is to create a self explanatory profile using keywords, which explains what you do and what you have to offer.   Facebook profile picture and texted box are the first impression with these step by step methods clients and likeminded individuals never leave guessing.

• Identify yourself on your profile picture on Facebook like a business card.  The profile picture is the picture that you show to the world on Facebook and represent you as an expert.  “Do” use a professional picture of a suit or a coat (business attire).  “Don’t” use a picture of your kid or a cartoon because this will not identify the Facebook profile.  Hot tip if you’re a man, show a picture with a female like your wife, girlfriend or just a female friend this will show you’re not on Facebook to pick up on girls, double the friend ad with a couple picture.

• Use the texted box (this is under your picture on your profile page) to explain what you do and what you are looking for.  This will be seen when people add you,  so if you’re a web site builder you could say. (Example) I build custom websites starting at $999 check my site out for free advice http://www.digitaleyemedia.com.   So before they even request to add you as a friend they will know you’re a website designer - “PERFECT”.  This will make you have a group of friends in your industry or your clients.  Hot tip you can use 236 letters-symbols in the texted box and spaces don’t count.  Use spacing so people can read at a glance (less is more).  Also you can use your web address and the link will work just make sure you use http:// like this http://www.digitaleyemedia.com.

Facebook recently passed 350 million users worldwide, but the lingering question about the social network (and social media in general) is if it’s making any money. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the answer seems to be that at the least, revenue, if not profits, at social networking sites is starting to take off.

Using data from NYPPEX, the WSJ reports that Facebook’s estimated to generate $710 million in revenue next year. That would represent more than a 40 percent improvement from this year, where the social network is rumored to be bringing in about $500 million in revenue.

Elsewhere, NYPPEX estimates that LinkedIn will generate more than $200 million in revenue in 2010. The firm also says that four years from now, Facebook could be doing $1.9 billion sales, LinkedIn could be at better than $300 million and Twitter could be at $283 million (how exactly, they’re not sure either).

Of course, all of that is based on the social networking sites mentioned continuing to grow strongly both in terms of users and sales. That’s been anything but a given in the short history of social media, where we’ve seen sites rise and fall quickly. Nonetheless, the report does seem to support other research that indicates money is flowing into social media marketing at an increasing rate.

It’s been rumored that archenemies MySpace and Facebook have turned friendly in recent months, discussing the possibility that MySpace users might actually be able to sign into the social network using Facebook Connect.

Now, a more detailed report from the blog Inside Facebook says that this will become reality “in the first part of 2010.” According to their sources, MySpace is thinking along the same lines as Yahoo, who earlier this week announced major Facebook integration across many of its services. That thinking could essentially be summarized with the old proverb: If you can’t beat them, join them.

For MySpace’s purposes, that hypothetically would mean users accessing the site with their Facebook credentials, and then sharing back the increasing amount of exclusive entertainment type content that the site has been acquiring to their Facebook friends. In turn, MySpace gets more traffic that it can sell to advertisers, but ultimately cedes the race to be the Web’s social identity provider.

That space is seemingly a war that will be waged between Facebook and Google . The latter just launched integration with Twitter earlier this week, that allows users to sign into Google Friend Connect— its Facebook Connect rival — with Twitter. Maybe social identity ultimately won’t be that complicated after all.

Facebook is not only the world’s biggest social network, it’s also one of the most popular places to share photos. For users with lots of photos, however, the process of adding albums or collections to Facebook can be kind of a chore.

Sure, there are apps available to minimize the time it takes to tag people in your pictures, but the upload process itself is slow, dated, and buggy. Facebook agrees and today has introduced a new Photo Uploader Prototype.

Facebook describes the prototype as “a preview of an upcoming replacement for the existing Facebook photo uploader. This brand new experience makes use of the new Facebook Plug-In, a light-weight browser plug-in.” And you can activate it and start using it on your account immediately.

The new photo uploader is a huge improvement over the old version. This is how it works: the first time you launch the uploader, you’ll be asked to install a new Facebook Plugin. The plugin works with Windows, Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux 8.04 and up (the plugin only works in the 32-bit version of Ubuntu at this time). The plugin should install right in your browser, but you might have to download it separately and run the file, like I did on my Mac.

In any event, you don’t have to restart your browser to use the plugin. Once the plugin is installed you’ll see your standard “Create an Album” screen, but now when you select “Select Photos,” this is what pops up:

It’s fast and allows you to access photos from your computer (you can easily select folder or folder within folders). You can then add photos from all over your computer and when you’re ready, select upload. At this time, the upload process will take place in the background, meaning you can go back to using Facebook instead of waiting for your files to upload.

This is still in the testing phase, so you might find some bugs — if you have issues — you can always deactivate the prototype and go back to the old way of uploading. The Facebook team hopes to roll out the new version to all users as a replacement soon.

We have to say, the new uploader is a huge improvement over other options. In fact, stand-alone apps like the Flickr Uploadr not-withstanding, this uploader is one of the best ways we’ve seen to upload photos to an online service.

What do you think about Facebook’s new photo uploader?

With over 200 million active users, Facebook has become a personal, product and corporate branding hub. Every brand that exists on Facebook has the same core features and benefits, such as the ability to create a page, share resources, add multimedia and much more. You have a unique opportunity to leverage this platform for career success or as a playground for you and your closest friends.

The social graph is filled with CEOs, celebrities, entrepreneurs and people just like you who can be reached through Facebook’s messaging system without any boundaries or restrictions. Facebook is also a talent search engine and part of the college admission and corporate recruiting criteria. You will be searched on Facebook by potential dates, managers, and teachers, so use common sense in determining how you want to represent yourself. You are what you publish and first impressions are everything.

What follows is a guide to building your personal brand on Facebook. Continue the conversation by adding your own tips and stories below in the comments.

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1. Know your audience

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Too many people are sharing information to the wrong audiences. Your manager doesn’t want to know if you just went to the bathroom and, although your parents would love to eavesdrop on your relationship with your girlfriend or boyfriend, you might not want to share those details. Since our lives are starting to converge more and more every day, you need to decide what audiences you want to connect with on Facebook.

Do you want to use Facebook as a communication stream to your family and friends? Are you looking to network with professionals that could help you get a job? These are questions you need to start asking yourself before you add “friends” to your Facebook profile. If you decide to open it up to the masses, then you need to be mindful of what you share and how that could impact people’s perception of you. Remember, you can limit what select users can see on your profile, just by changing your settings, which we’ll discuss more below.

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2. Decide on your branding strategy

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Everyone should have a Facebook branding strategy and it should be based not only on the audience you’re targeting, but your overall life goals. Depending on who you are, where you are in your career, what you’re passionate about and an expert in, you’ll want to brand yourself differently.

If you haven’t signed up for Facebook, then you have a great opportunity to start fresh and to build your Facebook profile to best represent you. If you’re a current Facebook user, then start analyzing how your brand is being portrayed and take steps to customize it to reflect your branding strategy.

If you don’t want to build a branding empire, a strategy should still be extremely important to you; you’re already branded and that brand can help shape perceptions online to portray you in a positive light and help you secure a good reputation. This means choosing what links and media you share in your news stream to add value to your brand and those you’re friends with.

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3. Set your privacy settings

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Depending on your Facebook goals, you may set your entire account to private or grant certain individuals permission to view sections of your profile. You can also make your entire profile public for the world to see, which could be beneficial to you if you’re looking to become more visible in your industry and will result in your profile ranking high for your name in search.

I recommend turning tagging settings off for both photos and pictures so that you can take control of your Facebook wall. You wouldn’t want your friends tagging you in a picture of you doing something stupid, would you?

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4. Fill out your profile completely

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Facebook is a great platform where you can paint a picture of who you are. When filling out the information fields, be sure to focus on the education and work section, where you can reconnect with fellow alumni from college, or past colleagues that might be able to help you get a job.

Also, in the contact information field, be sure to list your blog, any websites you might own and links to your profiles on other social networks. Since hiring managers use Facebook’s search engine to find candidates, it pays to load up your profile with keywords that they can search against. Depending on your Facebook brand strategy, you’ll want to promote more information in certain fields like your contact information and less in other fields.

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5. Import contacts and grow your network

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Each month, you should go through the process of importing your contacts from your email accounts and your instant messenger screen name accounts. This will help you continue to grow your Facebook network as you’re meeting new people through your other channels.

If you have a blog, it’s also a smart idea to use Facebook Connect. By having Facebook Connect on your blog, you can bring your friends with you and promote your content through social interactions that start on your blog and end up on Facebook.

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6. Update your status

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Updating your status on Facebook allows your to project a single message to a large audience. Your status is a reflection of who you are and what you do. You can update your status with press mentions, your latest blog entry, a new project you’re working on or your interest in a particular job. Based on your branding strategy, you’ll want to update your status to either keep people informed about what you’re up to, push them to your content or both.

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7. Start a group or a page

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Facebook groups have fewer features than Facebook pages, but they are still important. Use a Facebook group to bring people together in your industry, become a valuable contributor to that community and market your blog, your product, or yourself! Facebook groups let you share links, videos, photos, and start discussions.

Facebook pages are for brands, ranging from Coca Cola to Barack Obama and even you. These pages resemble your Facebook profiles, so only use one if you have a large number of Facebook friends. By having a Facebook page, your brand can go viral, holding a spot on other people’s profiles. The other main advantage is that your page will rank high for your name in Google and you can use it for your professional career, while keeping your personal profile private.

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8. Join or start an event in your area

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One of the best aspects of Facebook is that you can get involved in your community by joining or starting an event in your industry. By opening up your event to everyone, you can meet new people and discover other people who have shared interest and can support your career. Events can also be cataloged on your Facebook page.

If you’re looking to start a weekly or monthly event and want to keep a calendar, logging it on a page is a good strategy. By starting an event, you’re positioning yourself as a leader and an expert, which is great for your personal brand.

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9. Link out to your Facebook profile

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You might already have a blog and accounts on other social networks, including Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Technorati, etc. If you do and your Facebook strategy is to promote yourself and remain public, then placing a link (and possibly a Facebook icon) on these other sites to your Facebook profile is a great idea.

As the chief marketing officer for your personal brand, you want to build your friend list, so that you have more people to market to now and in the future. Think of your Facebook profile as a digital asset and grow the equity in that asset over the rest of your life.

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10. Feed your social networks

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By using Ping.fm (), you can update your status on Facebook, as well as many other social networks in an instant, without duplicating your efforts. Also, you can import your blog titles in Facebook using notes or by using an application called Simple RSS.

Not only does this make you more productive, but it appears as though you’re contributing to your community, without you having to think about it. Since Facebook is all about sharing, those that share more will be remembered more, which is great for personal branding.

There is a lot of hype surrounding the real-time web, and much of the feeding frenzy reminds me of the RSS space four years ago — though there is a lot of potential, there is also a lot of noise. How do you navigate through it all and which developments should you be paying attention to? What are the emerging trends for companies and entrepreneurs to watch for? Here are four real-time web trends that I’m tracking.

1. Real-Time Collaboration is Ripening

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Real-time will play a major role in the future of online collaboration. We’ve seen all the hype around the new Google Wave platform, as well as the growth of Twitter and Twitter-like communications (such as Facebook status).  On the business side, SAP’s Gravity, a prototype of real-time collaborative business process modeling within Google Wave, is a good example. But I see this as the tip of the iceberg.

Companies that are more efficient have an advantage whether within their walls or with their customers. Imagine being able to make real-time changes with your colleague in another city and graphic designer at your local Kinko’s to finalize a presentation and print it hours before your meeting. Or working with your manufacturer in Nanjing, China on changes to your new BBQ grill design and seeing if it’s possible in real-time. Or game developers in Korea and Dallas story boarding a new video game concept in a new real-time game development application. There is massive potential for real-time collaboration across almost every discipline, and I believe there are an incredible amount of exciting possibilities here.

2. Real-Time Analytics Will Be Hot

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The reality right now is that there isn’t enough critical mass of real-time data in most areas, but when those tipping points are met, watch this space. This is not just about Twitter feeds, but shopping information, individual health information, movie and show reviews, and many other treasure troves of data.

Waze, which is a crowdsourced mobile map and traffic information service, is effective in Israel where it initially launched and needed just 0.5% of the population to become a reliable service. It recently launched in the United States, and will be challenged to reach critical mass in its target markets for its product to be useful to end users, who provide the real-time data that is uses. While Waze is not necessarily an analytics application — it’s a real-time information app (though it does analyze the data it receives in real-time to expose traffic patterns, accidents, and speed traps to users), it is an example of necessary tipping points for analytics to be relevant.

Once you have these real-time data sets, so many fields will be able to become more accurate and relevant in their decision-making processes. What type of real-time data would you like access to?

3. Real-Time Search is Looking Up

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With Microsoft’s and Google’s recent foray into real-time search, it would be easy to assume that real-time search startups are dead in the water. But I believe there are many opportunities for startups in the space, especially as public life streaming activities increase (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, IMs) and real-time search moves to vertical categories.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you’re wondering if you should you go see Depeche Mode in concert or if they are too old now to put on a good show. What are people saying about their concert from the evening before? If your search allows you to narrow your focus by date to make sure you’re getting info only from last night’s show, exclude all messages under 10 characters to filter out irrelevant information, and those from their home area of Basildon, Essex UK to rule out biases, you should be able to get a clear picture of what people think.

For the larger players, it will be a golden opportunity to capitalize on more event-driven ad dollars. Imagine the euphoria during the World Cup or Superbowl and all the tweets and messages surrounding these events. Now imagine the highly targeted ads that could be displayed to these users selling them championship videos or t-shirts at the height of their emotions. I’m still amazed by the uncanny targeting of ads within Gmail so it should be a short step for Google and other major advertising companies to be able to implement targeted ads across real-time streams.

4. Real-Time Ecommerce is Coming

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German company Apnoti indexes real-time pricing for consumers in the U.S and Germany. The primary benefit of their service is to help consumers find dramatic price fluctuations and to take advantage of pricing errors on various ecommerce sites. But this is really quite elementary compared to what is possible. For true real-time pricing to occur, there needs to be real-time inventory management, which will depend on major infrastructure companies such as EDS or IBM to build out those systems. As retailers move closer to real-time inventory management, they’ll improve on their pricing and sales efforts since they will be able to create more efficient price equilibrium adjustments.