If you haven’t factored this into your business yet, you’re already on the endangered list!

That’s why I wanted to share with you his talk at Stanford University last month. In it he talks about how people like Scott Monty are humanizing the brands they work with, how new Zappos employees are forced to tweet to connect them to their brand and the concept of doubling pennies.

He finishes in true Scoble style with an understated truism – we all have a burning desire not to connect with thousands of ‘friends’ that we hardly know, but with just four people, the right four people…and that is all it takes to change the world, just four connected, passionate people.

Connect the dots – the right four people who have cracked the formula for building doubling pennies – an extremely powerful combination.

Definitely worth watching:

Another Cloud Reel … from Delrious on Vimeo.

As regular metarand readers know, I am a big fan of game mechanics. Foursquare combines social networking elements with game mechanics, encouraging users to explore their neighborhoods and make recommendations.

For example, a user can become ‘mayor’ of a specific cafe or pub by checking in there more than anyone else. Updates are shared across services like Twitter which announce when someone takes over as mayor.

I’ve found these tweets somewhat irritating, but I think that is due to the way they are written – it’s usually a few microseconds into my scanning a tweet before I realize its a Foursquare announcement and I move on.

The BART partnership with Foursquare involves awarding $25 promotional tickets to riders chosen at random from those Foursquare users who log in at BART stations. Users can also duke it out to see who becomes ‘mayor’ of various stations on their regular commute routes.

All up, an innovative use of social media, mobiles and geolocation to boost public transport usage.

Former Google Head of Strategic Initiatives, Chris Sacca is following up on his 20 or so personal investments with the formation of a new early stage venture fund.

To be named Lowercase Capital, this new $5m fund is perhaps a reminder to all venture capitalists that they are service providers first and foremost and as such should look at themselves in the lower case.

Notably an investor in Omnisio, Photobucket and Twitter, I look forward to seeing what else Chris finds interesting out there.

[via TechCrunch]

Ross has pointed to five key trends that are the leading edge of this transformation:

1. The democratization of influence

It used to be that influence was a direct result of a person’s placement on some form of elevated platform – the CEO of a multinational, politician or a journalist with a media empire backing them.

These folks are still heard, but more and more voices of influence are emerging from completely left of field. Tools such as Twitter have liberated the great unwashed masses. Anyone can start a movement and many are.

2. Quantifying influence

How well a brand campaign runs has always been one of the advertising industries great smoke and mirror acts. No more. Influence is becoming far more measurable. In fact, as Ross points out, there will be more metrics for individual influence as well and these will be used as for more accurate guide to who we hire and do business with.

3. Individual reputation trumps corporate influence

We are more likely to trust a company based on the reputation of the individuals running it than ever before. Steve Jobs drives Apple’s influence. Jeremiah Oywang’s move from Forrester to The Altimeter Group was more about him as a key influencer than about Forrester.

4. Influence is the new media

We listen to those who we trust, we listen to those who deliver us value. If a newspaper continuously delivers news items well after you’ve digested them from your personal newsfeed, the newspaper’s influence over you will decrease significantly. Ross sums this up well – publishing itself won’t get an audience – only influencers will create views.

5. The influence economy is born

Again, Ross has this covered: the $550 billion advertising industry may be transformed.

I’m really looking forward to the conversation next week.

A core premise behind the piece is that in an IPO and acquisition-starved market, the math of billion dollar VC funds doesn’t add up. Enter the traditional, venture capital as cottage industry style fund – smaller, leaner, more agile and definitely more entrepreneurial, similar in nature to the people it invests in and both able to identify with and nuture successful entrpreneurs.

It’s a good article and well worth the read.

I am witnessing somewhat of a shake up in the VC industry in Australia at the moment as well. Together with two partners, I’ve been running Innovation Bay since November 2003. At the time I was an early stage VC and there were a number of other players in the market. Over the next 5 and a half years though, the VC industry has gone through some major contractions. The number of active VCs has totally shrunk, yet the demand for capital and savvy advice has continued to rocket.

Fast forward to mid 2009. Innovation Bay is hosting a new format event on the 9th June. We are putting on an Angel Dinner for a select subset of our members, many of whom easily fall within the BusinessWeek rubric of ‘super angels’.

We are inviting along two technology entrepreneurs to pitch their ventures. I’ve been truly amazed at the number and talent of the entrepreneurs who have approached us with a view to being chosen. The hardest part for me is that I’d love to have them all along, but alas we have to limit the numbers for this event.

The demand, though, does point to a real need in Australia and I am hopeful that the newly announced Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute will play a major role in satisfying this demand.

I am also going to be a judge in a pitching competition for creative projects called Back My Project. It is part of the Creative Sydney festival of ideas and has a pool of cash behind it. Come along to the MCA on the 4th June if you are in Sydney – it will be loads of fun. It is all part of Vivid Sydney, the “biggest international music and light festival in the Southern Hemisphere”!

This is a huge step in the evolution of the iPhone platform towards a fully-fledged ecosystem. I also anticipate that it will bring about a boost in virtual goods.

Gizmodo thinks this is bad news, but meh, what do they know!