- Congratulations to Ken Kaplan and team at Intel for winning the PR News' awards "Communication Influencers" category http://bit.ly/d2n1T1 (via @BryanRhoads.)

The award is for the Intel Insiders program of which I was a member for two years.

- - -

- Pepcom's MobileFocus media event was surprisingly fun with many interesting companies. The Looxcie exhibit was a big hit. It's a behind-the-ear webcam that also doubles as a bluetooth headset.

It streams video to your iPhone and users can edit and share straight from the phone.

It's not the prettiest of devices but the form factor can be improved. Interestingly, the video it produces is not shaky because your head sits on a cushion of muscles and is remarkably good at acting as a steady cam.

I wrote about the coming of such devices recently in an essay: The Fly On The Wall And Its Social Effects - A Short Story From The Near Future... - SVW

As computers become more ubiquitous so will video cameras. It won't be long before there are video cameras all around and in places where we aren't used to having them.

It won't be long before we have always-on video cameras operating in all our social spaces.

Imagine living in a world where nearly every conversation, every meeting, every step you take in the physical world is recorded and archived in the cloud.

If you knew that every conversation with your kids, with your parents, with your friends -- was possibly being recorded and stored -- would you think twice, maybe thrice about what you had to say?

Welcome to the future. Cost is $200 - Looxcie Wearable Camcorder: Capture Unexpected Moments

- - -

I ran into Dan Gillmor, the former San Jose Mercury columnist and one of the original bloggers (on my list of Original Thinkers). Dan is enjoying the academic life as director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The Center, funded by the Knight Foundation and Kauffman Foundation, is working to help create a culture of innovation and risk-taking in journalism education, and in the wider media world.

We had an interesting chat. Dan is not too happy with the use of anonymous sources in a lot of news reporting these days. He says he doesn't trust the sources and that reporters should not use them.

- - -

- Angelgate: "Those aren't Angels, they are VCs..."

(Photo by Marek Zywno)

I recently moderated a panel on financing for startups. Panel members were Paul Bragiel, Partner, io Ventures; Jay Cohan, Investment Partner, Western Technology Investment; and Ian Sobieski, Founder and Managing Director, Band of Angels.

Paul Bragiel made a great point about the "Angelgate" accusations that Mike Arrington made recently. He pointed out that Angels get together all the time to discuss the industry and there is no collusion.

Ian Sobieski said: "They aren't Angels. They are VCs, they invest other people's money. Angels by definition invest only their own money." Good point.

Mr. Sobieski's advice for startups looking to raise money: "My advice is always to avoid raising money. Don't do it. Try a different way. But if you really must then give me a call."

Pictures from the event are here courtesy of Marek Zywno.

- - -

- It was good to catch up with Tony Hynes and team at Bite as they hosted a PRSA party Thursday. Interesting conversation about shoes. It's not only women that can talk about shoes :). Also good to meet Kim Hong (@NYjetsetter).

- - -

My tweet caused a bit of a stir:

Had a great chat with @chrisheuer last night and how 'social media expert' is becoming code for douchebag...

http://twitter.com/#!/tomforemski/statuses/26680587497RT

Lots of retweets. The word "social" is losing much of its meaning and becoming a bit of a four-letter word these days. It's probably because it is being abused by many people who don't understand what it means and whose "social media expertise" leaves a lot of burnt clients.

- - -

- In case you missed it...

Here's my analysis of the competing strategies between Google (fast) and Facebook (sticky).

Google is betting it that if its users spend less time on search then it will make more money.

This is a far different strategy from that of Facebook which wants to be the stickiest place on the Internet.

Nielsen estimates that each month, an average US internet user spends around 2 hours on Google, and more than 7 hours on Facebook.

Also:

Jason Calacanis Plans Revenge With A Techcrunch Disruptor...

Techcrunch is vulnerable to anyone that can come up with a way of luring its best writers (and those of VentureBeat, GigaOM and ReadWriteWeb) to a new publication. Salaries and equity deals could be made alluring and difficult to turn down or match; it would build an instant editorial team with high traffic straight out of the box.

It wouldn't take long to parlay that into a deal 18 months down the line with a nice profit and just rewards for the writers.

- - -

- Congrats to Shelley Risk on joining Ogilvy:

This could be the most important news announcement of the year http://budurl.com/tmfs #selfpromotion

- - -

- A Call for Guest Posts:

If you have a guest post you'd like me to publish send it to me for consideration. I'm thinking of launching a Friday Guest Post Watch. It doesn't matter if it has been published somewhere else.

- - -

- WeekendWatcher:

If you are in San Francisco SF Open Studios starts Friday and runs the entire weekend with open artists studios in Bernal Heights, Castro, Duboce, Eureka Valley, Glen Park, Mission, Noe Valley, Portola. Download Weekend 1 Map

Friday evening I'll be at Workspace on 2150 Folsom, which opens at 7pm. Facebook | San Francisco Open Studios.

- - -

Last weekend Warren Hellman, the EBay billionaire treated us to the 8th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. Dozens of top acts on five stages in Golden Gate Park, all free. Thanks Warren!

I caught the excellent Patti Smith performance. Here is some footage I found on YouTube of her performance of the Rolling Stones' "Play with fire" from the festival.

I also curated some additional Patti Smith footage here via Pearltrees for fast browsing.

Happy weekend.