Web strategist extrodinaire Jeremiah Owyang put me in a list of his top community advocates in the technology industry, right beside other people I have tremendous respect and love for. What an honor!

Will Pate, Community Ambassador, Flock/Rockstar
Out of all the evangelists out there, I’m likely to be the most jealous of Will Pate. Not because of his dashing good looks, (or so my wife tells me) or that he’s constantly surrounded by the ladies, or stylish garb, it’s because he makes it look so easy. I recently caught up with Will at the Community Next conference in Palo Alto and he described his role at Flock to be part community advocate, and part company evangelists. He helped to bring the requirements together, connect them, and build a better product. Today, Will can be found in Toronto, and he’s switched to a part time role at Flock, what’s next for Will? Greatness I’m sure.

If I make it look easy Jeremy, it’s only because being the community guy fits my personality so well. I’ve tried a lot of roles in the tech industry, and the “community guy” one just sings for me, personally and professionally.

As for what’s next for me, well I’ve got cool news coming on that very soon.

I love when a high placed, respected marketing person comes along and validates what I’ve told hundreds of companies over the last few few years. When they boil it down into a simple, inarguable point, it’s all the better. James Stengel, Global Marketing Officer at Procter and Gamble, recently said this brilliant little quote.

Market share is trust materialized.

This is something a lot of companies frankly are not prepared for. Earning and keeping people’s trust is not an easy job. You can’t do it with glossy marketing and a token Corporate Social Responsibility rep, it takes company-wide commitment to deserving people’s trust. Having a community manager or ambassador is just the start, they’re a membrane - not a magical antibody that creates a healthy organism.

In ony six months Facebook has quickly matured their Facebook Platform to 1.0 status. Developers are responding by creating a catalog of dozens and dozens of neat add on applications for Facebook. The Facebook Platform allows them to create their applications and remix data about profiles, friendship connections, photos and events.

Here are the best of the breed of the earliest Facebook applications. Only web-based apps are included here, no desktop apps. You will need to be logged into facebook to use all of these. Kudos to all the developers that made these apps!

Birthdays

Facebook Birthday Calendar Generator - Generate a birthday calendar of your Facebook friends and import it into Outlook, Google Calendar, iCal, etc.

Blogging

Facebook Photos plugin for WordPress - photos you upload to Facebook will be visible in a “Photos” tab in the WordPress blog post composition window.

Google Gadgets

Facebook Google Gadget - A little dashboard for your Facebook account that can sit on your Google personalized homepage, or your desktop if you have Google Desktop. Would be nice if it updated when you got new messages/pokes, etc

Hotness

Your Hottest Friend - Ratings of your friends plus a leader board. Oh boy, let the games begin.

Maps

Friend mapper - See a map of where your friends are from. You might be surpised at how far people live from their hometowns these days.

Photos

FBTF - Takes pictures you upload to Facebook and copies them to Flickr. Now, if only there was a way to do it the other way around…

Update: flickurbook allows you to copy sets of photos from Flickr to Facebook.

Product Recommendations

favrats - What are your friends watching, listening and reading? Not the prettiest, but fast and handy.

Politics

Your True Self - See how your friends map across the political spectrum. Very interesting to see how your network of friends skews toward a certain type of political thought.

If you want to find out more about how to get started developing applications for Facebook, check out Facebook Developers.

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technorati tags:facebook, development, api, apps, internet, technology, software, programming

Consumers have no reason to trust you, so it is you who must open the relationship by placing your trust in them.

Collin Douma sums up radical trust for companies so well in this infographic. We’ll have to get him out to the next VizThink.

tags: business, marketing, transparency

Wohoo! My application for a Northern Voice travel bursary was approved. Thanks to the organizing comittee for choosing me as one of their six winners.

I’m super excited about this because I get to go a conference that I can’t say enough good things about, see my west coast friends and colleagues so near and dear to my heart, and get an infusion of social web goodness to take back to Toronto and beyond.

So TorCampers, what do you want me to do for you while I’m there? What do you want me to find out, what kind of people do you want me to connect us to? Let me know and I’ll make it a priority.

tags: Technorati Tags: vancouver, northernvoice, torcamp