This is the future. I’ve been waiting for this for five years. We will become the media and Refer.ly is a tiny peek at what that will look like.

Here’s a snippet from an article I was interviewed for back in 2010:

“Advertisers aren’t really giving incentives to Facebook users — and they should,” Hilimire said. “People are writing up movie reviews or posting links to their new Apple computer just for fun, but if companies start building this into their marketing programs by offering credit, discounts or free small gifts for sharing their thoughts, the impact could be huge.”

It’s coming.

I think its important that I start this post by emphasizing that a) I love new technology and b) I love Google.

Let’s start with the first point. If you know me, or know this blog, you know I love new tech and innovation.  So when I see the new Google Glasses videos and articles coming out, I get all geeked up. How can you not love the idea of these?

So needless to say, I think these things are great. Whether I’d wear them or not isn’t the point. The idea itself is fantastic.

As for the second point, I’m a huge Google user. I use their search exclusively. I use Gmail. I use Google Docs. I use Google Voice. I love all of these products.

So why do I wish someone else was making these glasses?

Google has a problem rolling out new services. They’ve failed, a lot. And while I talk on this blog about the need to fail in order to succeed, this is a different kind of failure. Startups need to fail often and quickly so they can get their product off the ground. What Google fails to do is give their products the necessary attention after they have launched.

See, Google makes 97% of its revenue from advertising (depending on the source – here’s one from Wired). And over 50% of that revenue is from search.

Bottom line: Google is kind of amazing at search. And its clearly the bread winner of the family.

This is why Google has a hard time rolling out new products successfully. They are far too over-indexed in one service area.

For example, even though Sergey can be seen here supposedly wearing the Google Glasses out in public, when he gets the smallest amount of pressure from his shareholders on revenue, I can assure you he’s going to hand those glasses back to an engineer and spend the rest of his time grinding on his search business to see where the problems are occurring and how to stop them.

Sergey looking super cool in his new Google Glasses (supposedly)

And you can’t hardly blame him.

Case in point: Facebook buys Instagram for a billion dollars.

Second case in point: Facebook closes down Places because they can’t beat Foursquare.

Both of those are examples of a company that is so focused on their core product that they can’t innovate in seemingly simple extensions of their business. You mean to tell me if Zuckerberg spent three months focused on how to compete with Instagram he couldn’t do it? Of course he could. But he has bigger fish to fry and therefore, like his friends at Google, he can’t innovate fast enough any more in new areas.

So while I’m excited about Google Glasses, I kinda hope some other players start jumping into the space because I’d expect we get another half-focus from Google on this one and we’ll end up with another Google Wave instead of another Gmail.

Engauge’s own social leader, @teresacaro, gives her thoughts in yesterday’s USA Today:

Instagram signifies a change in direction from Facebook’s previous strategy of buying, at bargain-basement prices, small-staffed companies that are on the “downslide” with smart founders, says Teresa Caro, vice president of social marketing at Engauge, a digital-marketing agency.

After getting location-based service Gowalla and acquiring social-networking patents from Friendster, “Facebook decided to spend a lot more for a stronger mobile presence — and Instagram helps,” Caro says.

Facebook’s Instagram buy could portend a few more deals, such as Google’s pursuit of Pinterest, to acquire eyeballs and data, and Facebook’s possible interest in Path, a popular social network for smartphone users, she says.

But the staggering price paid for 11-person start-up Instagram has some murmuring about another Internet bubble. Version 2.0, anyone?

“Unreasonable salaries. Unreasonable amounts paid for companies. Lack of resources,” Caro says. “It’s all so unrealistic, and it feels like a do-over for me.”

Yesterday Facebook bought Instagram for a billion dollars. Last week, Instagram received funding that valued the company at $500 million.

So the question is, why did Zuck pay double the valuation for Instagram?

Mobile and photos.

Instagram, like Path, is a mobile-only network. And Zuck, like many of us, knows that mobile is everything.

And Instagram just happens to do better than anyone the one thing that Facebook users do more than anything – share photos.

Makes sense why Facebook would be interested in them. My worry is, what will Zuck do with Instagram going forward?

He says he’s going to leave it alone, but that doesn’t make any sense. He’s going to want to integrate it somehow into Facebook, because sharing photos is inherent in Facebook’s DNA. It’s not like when Yahoo bought Flickr in 2005. Storing photos wasn’t part of Yahoo’s DNA, so it made sense for them to leave it alone and not try to Yahoo it up.

My personal take is that this is a bad thing for Instagram users. I’d say there’s a 30% chance that the original founders of Instagram, now that they’re super rich, are going to be less motivated with all their money and their new bosses; a 50% chance that Zuck tries hard to integrate Instagram into Facebook and in the process takes away the essence of the platform; and a 20% chance that this all somehow makes Instagram better.

So Kevin Rose builds up Oink to 100,000 users and then pulls the plug because it was just an experiment? Super for the 100,000 people that took the time to download and use the app. Appreciate it.

Can’t wait to try his next startup. I’m going to be super eager to waste time on it only to find out he had no intentions of ever making it into something real. Where do I sign up?

There are two iPhone apps on my second screen (my test screen) that I played with over the weekend – Highlight and CardMunch.

Highlight has been getting a lot of buzz over the past week, touted as SXSW’s “Breakout Star”. I wasn’t able to attend SXSW, but I heard a lot of people were loving this app. Essentially Highlight lets you find out about the people near you. Here’s what they say on their website:

If someone standing near you also has Highlight, their profile will show up on your phone. You can see their name, photos of them, mutual friends, and anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you have in common with them. And when you forget their name at a party a week later, Highlight can help you remember it.

I tried it out recently and it was very cool. It showed me that I was near a guy who was a friend of a friend, and told me a little about him and the things we had in common (presumably pulling from our Facebook likes). At a conference or when traveling, I could see this being a very useful app. I must confess, however, after I tested it out I quickly changed my setting to “pause” as I didn’t really want a bunch of people knowing I was near them and knowing all about me. That aspect is a little creepy.

The second app, CardMunch, is LinkedIn’s app that allows you to take a picture of a business card and it will give you the person’s contact info and LinkedIn history, complete with a button to connect with them on LinkedIn and the ability to download that card to your phone’s address book. It seems to take a little while for the card to be processed (someone told me they actually have humans doing this), but when it does come back its a very useful tool. I’ve been snapping pictures of business cards and throwing them away when I get them.

This app probably has a limited lifeline as I would imagine soon our phones will allow us to easily beam our contact info to and from other phones via something like NFC. But until then, its going to come in handy for me.

My second screen - the apps I'm testing

Great video of Jobs talking about how Apple is structured like a startup. Passed to me by new Engauger, @CarlRWarner.

We recently restructured the way that Engauge is organized to achieve exactly what Jobs talks about in this interview: a company driven by ideas and not hierarchy.

I had the opportunity on Wednesday to attend Startup Riot and while there, I saw Kyle Porter present about his company, SalesLoft. He did a great job and won second place!

Seeing Kyle present reminded me of his blog and of a post that I really liked, What’s your four minute mile?

Companies often will talk about a BHAG – Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

Professional athletes usually have a huge goal or achievement they strive for, be it winning a championship or running a four minute mile.

Entrepreneurs almost always have a ridiculously hard to achieve goal – selling their company.

But this got me thinking: If you’re not a corporation, a professional athlete or an entrepreneur, do you have a long-term, hard-to-achieve goal? Do you have something in your life that you’re striving for that is really, really hard to achieve? Something that you set your sights on and maybe ten years later you attain it?

When my partners and I were building our business back in the day (1998-1999), we had a goal to be acquired. From day one. We set our sights on that, knew it would be a long, long haul, and never wavered. And that focus helped us make decisions along the way.

I’d recommend everyone have such a goal. Think about your life, either personal or professional. Then think about what you’d be most proud of accomplishing. Something that wouldn’t be achieved in three months but rather ten years. Something really hard to achieve and that would completely fulfill you if you were able to achieve it. Once you figure that out, you can then backtrack and work through the steps it will take to get there. Then you have a plan.

Then you can begin the begin. And start the doing.

Startup Riot is my favorite event ever year, bar none. I’ve been to SXSW, I’ve been to CES, and a slew of others, and for me nothing compares to Startup Riot.

First off, @sanjay runs a great event, which is not an easy thing to do.

Sanjay describes the event as:

It’s one day where thirty startups present for 3 minutes each and then answering questions for 3 minutes. Audience members get to help pick the top three winners. Plus it’s affordable to attend and we make sure only the right people get in the room (sorry, no non-sponsoring service providers). What’s not to like?

Yep, what’s not to like indeed.

I’ve always loved this event, and I’m geeked up about going this morning.

On the Internet, small is the new big.

Instagram is “a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures.” And boy are they hot right now. In fact, Facebook tried to buy Instagram this past summer but the boys said no. If you’re curious why people love Instagram, here are two interviews I did recently with Instagram fanatics.

Path has emerged as one of the first mobile-only social networks and in January it reached over 2 million members. I’ve been loving Path (here’s why) for a while now and much prefer it to Facebook these days.

And then there’s Pinterest, describing itself as such, “Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.” It’s been kind of successful, being the fastest growing site of all time and all. Everyone at Engauge seems to be obsessed with it. Oh, and its not just for the ladies ;)

So the three hottest web properties today, Instagram, Path and Pinterest, are beginning to eat away at the big boys. Probably not enough to annoy them yet, but they soon will.

Why are these sites gaining traction? I have some thoughts…

They’re nichier. Yes, I realize there’s a good chance that nichier isn’t a word. If its not, and I’m too lazy to check, then it should be. These sites are all hyper-focused on one area. They aren’t trying to be everything to every one.

They’re more visual. I’m a huge believer that the killer differentiator for technology is the user experience.

They’re more exclusive.

They’re browsier.

And they’re coming at a time when the smaller, nichier social sites of the past have become massive, mainstream sites. Yes, we’ve seen this before.

Think about how Facebook started. There were already a few social networks out there (MySpace and Friendster), so what was different about Facebook? It had a simple design, but more importantly, it was a smaller network. Only for college kids. Every college kid at that time was on MySpace, along with the rest of the world. So when this smaller network popped up it became a place for more intimate conversations and personal connections.

The same can be said about Twitter when it first came out. It was fun because only a small, concentrated group of people were on it.

Now Facebook and Twitter are huge and these new guys are starting to dig away at their users. Both of these sites have “become” the Internet, making it almost impossible to extricate them from the web itself. People are once again looking for smaller, nichier experiences. And Instagram, Path and Pinterest are there to fill that need.