Hey, Look! Mark Zuckerberg Is On Google+! (GOOG)

Looks like he's checking out the competition. 

And yes, we're pretty confident it's him, because that's a picture we haven't seen before, and most people in his "circles" are Facebook execs. Is he going to add Google's head of social Vic Gundotra?

If you want to add Mark to your "circles," there you go →

10 Things Google+ Ripped Off From Facebook →

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See Also:

• THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Where Netflix Falls Short, YouTube Can Dominate
• Here's One Reason Facebook Should Be Nervous About Google+
• Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook Is Going To "Launch Something Awesome" Next Week

Hey, Look! Mark Zuckerberg Is On Google+! (GOOG)

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Hey, Look: Foursquare Finally Got A Real Office In San Francisco

Foursquare's New York headquarters are pretty awesome. Its satellite office in SF hasn't been.

Foursquare used to share Square's space in the old SF Chronicle building. When Square got too big, Foursquare moved to a small shared room in the basement with a couple of other startups.

This week, Foursquare finally made the move to a real office -- a classic old warehouse south of Market. There are only about 15 full-time employees out in California, but the company is growing fast and wants to recruit more talent from Silicon Valley. And a lot of Californians don't want to move to New York.

Last night the company had a party to celebrate its new location, and we got a tour of the aftermath this morning.

The new space is on one of the small alleys south of Market Street in SF. Supposedly they're named after famous Gold Rush era madams.

Weird -- looks like a garage is here.

The actual office is upstairs.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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See Also:

• An Insider Tour Of Facebook's New, Still Under Construction Menlo Park Offices
• 15 Unintentionally Inappropriate Domain Names
• What It's Like To Be A Foursquare Intern

Hey, Look: Foursquare Finally Got A Real Office In San Francisco

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Hey Foursquare, Why Didn't You Think Of This?

We intend to do much more than we actually do.

It's called procrastination and Matchbook, a New York startup, is planning to cash in on it.

Three weeks ago, Jason Schwartz launched an iPhone app, Matchbook, that allows people to bookmark places they intend to visit. Schwartz hopes the app will eliminate mental notes and scribbles on scraps of paper.

Users walking by a location, viewing a website, or simply recalling a place can add it to their automatically-organized Matchbook list by clicking a button.

Companies like Foursquare and SCVNGR have been banking on people actually going places, but Schwartz is betting that intending to visit is a more frequent occurrence that's equally beneficial to local advertisers.

"To advertise on a local basis, you need local activity," says Schwartz. " One of the ways [to generate local activity is to ask] Where's a user right now? That's the check-in space.  The other way is to ask, Where do they want to go?"

Schwartz says Matchbook is an aggregator of user intent. "Intent is a really powerful thing.  I can tell advertisers, 'I have 1,000 people that want to come to you.  What would you offer them as an incentive?'"

The local advertising market, he says, is worth $140 billion and $35 billion of that is digital. Schwartz hopes to snag a solid sliver of the market with intended visits and a future itinerary feature.

"When someone comes to New York they ask friends, 'Where are the best places to visit?' And friends send them back a list of places. We want to capture that existing behavior and make it available with the app," he says. "Like a best of New York list that can be shared among users."

For the latest tech news, visit SAI: Silicon Alley Insider. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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See Also:

• "The Age Of Social Sharing Has Reached Its End"
• Organizing Events Is Less Of A PITA With NY Startup Fridge
• THE APPLE INVESTOR: Is Apple Stock Price Being Illegally Manipulated?

Hey Foursquare, Why Didn't You Think Of This?

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Hey Kids, What Time Is It?

As Mark Twain, or Yogi Berra, famously said, reports of Twitter’s or Foursquare’s death are exaggerated. There’s way too much left from picking over RSS’s carcass. No, seriously, I really mean that. There’s way too much value lurking in Jack Dorsey’s original pivot from a bike messenger dispatch service to be mined, and who better than Dorsey to lead the charge as the iPad drives the push notification queue into the new media vortex. It’s two minutes past the Big Bang, and not enough time to grab the low hanging fruit. As Professor Irwin Corey, or Wavy Gravy, said Adam said to Eve: Stand back, I don’t know how big this is going to get.

Hey Kids, What Time Is It?

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Hey, Google: Amazon Just Beat You At Your Own Game (GOOG, AMZN)

What's more surprising: That Amazon is launching an ad-subsidized gadget, or that it's doing it before Google?

Since we first heard about Google's mobile ambitions many years ago, the theory was that the company would be able to subsidize consumer devices -- phones, tablets, whatever -- with all the ad money that it would be raking in, before anyone else.

Yet it's 2011, and there's no Google ad-subsidized anything, unless you count the Android program in general. Heck, the semi-official Google "Nexus" phones are among the most expensive you can buy.

Meanwhile, Amazon of all companies is knocking 20% off its most popular Kindle, and trying to make up the difference with special offers and advertising.

So either the math is going to blow up in Amazon's face, and this is going to become a huge failure, or Google is missing in action.

As mobile analyst Chetan Sharma tweets, "While Google is focused on Facebook, Amazon is coming in from left flank. Beautiful."

Don't miss: Here's Why Amazon's Ad-Supported Kindle Is The Future Of Gadgets

For the latest tech news, visit SAI: Silicon Alley Insider. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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See Also:

• WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER BUY AN ANDROID PHONE? Take Our Smartphone Survey And Tell Us!
• Here's Why Amazon's Ad-Supported Kindle Is The Future Of Gadgets
• Amazon Launches Ad-Supported Kindle For $25 Cheaper

Hey, Google: Amazon Just Beat You At Your Own Game (GOOG, AMZN)

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