This is part of an ongoing series about government 2.0 written by Dr. Mark Drapeau. To view previous posts in the series click here.

Future planning is a big part of what the national security apparatus of the United States does, and it is incredibly difficult to do well. As the national security writer William Arkin relates in his 2005 book Code Names: “Our Intelligence Community is constantly being surprised by events in the world and misreads what is happening.” Along the same lines, Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his must-read book The Black Swan explains why and how we are often surprised by rare, extraordinary events of huge consequence.

Such events elude the analysis of even the smartest person. Most have heard the term “Renaissance Man” – a person of many diverse talents like athletic prowess, intellectual power, musical ability, street smarts, and a way with the ladies. But we may not need them anymore, with access to “Renaissance Networks,” a term recently coined by a new media analyst at CIA’s Open Source Center. Why have a genius in a cubicle when a person who’s merely “smart” can utilize global crowd wisdom?

Recently, I attended a small conference about using social tools for information sharing hosted at Johns Hopkins University and sponsored by the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). Our hosts for three days were the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) World Intelligence Review (WIRe) and the Director of National Intelligence’s (DNI) Intelligence Community Enterprise Services (ICES). They were able to bring together the people who build social tools, those who evangelize about them, and influential end users to have candid and open discussions about them.

In the intelligence community, as in the defense community where I primarily work, there are what people call “cylinders of excellence” – different agencies and units that internally may perform their functions very well, but they do not necessarily have a culture of community leadership and partnership in something larger than themselves. Some in the IC have been promoting information sharing as opposed to keeping secrets. (What’s the joke about secrets? Only two people know, and one of them is dead.) Lately, a big part of information sharing has been the INTELINK system, which is closed to outsiders and includes terrific “clones” of Wikipedia, YouTube, Digg, Flickr, AIM, Wordpress, and more – “These tools have no respect for the formal org chart,” Harvard Professor Andrew McAfee put it to the audience.

And the toolkit is expanding. The big development in IC social networking tools hitting the news recently is A-Space, essentially a mashup of Facebook, LinkedIn, and GoogleDocs designed to be an addictive work environment for analysts with access to sensitive human intelligence (HUMINT). A-Space will have status updates a la Twitter, subscriptions to updates, feeds and friends, activity streams, content management a la Sharepoint, a community grid tag cloud, RSS feeds from outside, drag and drop capability, discussion/question threads, a ’scrapbook,’ and widgets. This system – frankly better than anything I know about in the private sector at the moment – should increase collaboration and analytical thinking.

All the talk about collaboration inspired an interesting formal debate among two IC thought leaders, Geoff Fowler of the WIRe, and Chris Rasmussen, an IC 2.0 evangelist based at NGA. In a fun twist, the debate was moderated using a public Twitter feed by Carmen Medina, a former CIA Associate Deputy Director (Intelligence). The debaters were influenced by Medina’s comments and also by the audience’s, and by the end, participants from outside the conference were asking questions – which for the very private IC is quite profound. Debate largely centered around the question, “Who is an expert?” with the general acknowledgement being that despite the need for subject matter experts, “Buford T. Justice is now involved in the national security process.”

More futuristically, analysts will be able to use A-Space feeds for more than news and personality information. One the government connects the huge number of sensors and other devices reading all sorts of information (temperature, heat, satellite imagery, sonar, radar, robotic sensors, RFID tags, biometric scanners, law enforcement raid cams, views from pilots’ cockpits…) to these feeds (for example, a Navy analyst could subscribe to a feed from underwater sensors looking for suspicious activity happening near underwater cables), the possibilities are endless.

In the private sector, there is discussion about barriers to adopting social tools. These include concerns about computer and information security, side-effects due to using unproven technologies, and concerns about negative impacts on productivity. But, a recent Gartner study suggests that if IT departments do not implement social technology tool use, worker bees will find workarounds. Therefore, a fair amount of time at the WIRe/ICES conference was spent discussing how to change the culture of organizations to take best advantage of the inevitable use of these social tools.

At the end of the film The Good Shepherd, the new CIA director says to Matt Damon’s character, “A Senator once asked me, ‘Why don’t you say ‘the’ before CIA? And I asked him, Do you say ‘the’ before God?” With regard to integrating social technology tools into everyday intelligence operations and analysis the IC is not quite godlike yet… but they’re getting awfully close.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is an Associate Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC. These views are his own and not the official policy or position of any part of the U.S. Government. If you think this commentary is weak sauce, find him on Twitter and tell him about it!

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:National Intelligence Launches MySpace for SpiesWhat Happens When the Government Goes Web 2.0Google: Helping America’s Intelligence Agencies Find StuffIn Finland, Government Disconnects ItselfFacebook Banned For Ontario Government EmployeesFacebook Still Banned in SyriaOMG!! The Feds Launch Their Own MySpace Clone

Source:Mashable!

In the quest for URL shortener dominance in this era of the microblog and limited message space, BudURL comes out swinging. Going toe to toe with other URL shrinkers, BudURL combines metrics with URL shortening.

I am always wary of tools that try to combine metrics with social media, like Twitter Grader and Twitter Follower Friend Ratio. The main reason for this is the risk that people who don’t understand the nature of social media (engagement, conversation and a way to make being genuine a real part of business and personal online interaction) will use the metrics they attain to spam or abuse those in the social media space. Also, turning it into a competition defeats the whole concept of microsharing.

BudURL seems to have found the right mix of metric and social by keeping it simple. Unlike Bit.ly with its custom keywords or TinyUrl with its custom URL feature, BudURL gives you a way to track where your link was clicked. Keywords take time to track and rely on third party software for adequate information, and custom URLs are handy for sharing a link but offer no tracking. To see your referrers without any keywords involved is useful.

The lack of a keyword metric also helps prevent certain kinds of spamming. There is a huge subset of people and businesses out there who watch keywords like a hawk, looking for any opportunity to “game” a system with keyword metrics. By concentrating on where your link was seen and not the keywords around it, you are getting useful information and not contributing directly to a potential spam issue.

My favorite part of BudURL is the real time aspect of the referrer list - it auto refreshes every few seconds as people stop by your page. It was fascinating to me to see the test link I tossed up on Twitter get sent around the Internet. I got a fair share from Twitter, but I also got to see when someone else picked up the link and put it on other sites.

For people concerned with privacy, they may take issue with BudURL’s tracking of visiting IPs. In addition to referring URLs showing on the list, the visitor’s IP is tracked as well. I love this feature - I have a burning desire to see where my readers live and work. I find it interesting. However, if you are nervous when people know too much about you, it may help to keep in mind that clicking on a BudURL will give the person who made the URL your IP.

BudURL also gives you a way to track your BudURLs and create notes to help you remember what they were for. It also offers a toolbar button you can use to easily create BudURLs. Just add it to your toolbar with a simple drag and drop and click it when you are on a page you want to make into a BudURL. It took less than a minute to sign up for the service and install the button for me, and I didn’t even have to wait for a confirmation email. My account was active right away. Additionally, my URL tracking was active from the moment I first sent the URL out into the Twitterverse. Instant gratification is always a winner for me with a new application.

Overall, I think BudURL is going to hold its own against existing Bit.ly and TinyUrl. It isn’t as short as is.gd, so if you are looking for super-short, stick with what you know. I love the metrics feature even more than I love TinyUrl’s custom URLs (I never found a need for Bit.ly’s keywords). I think I’ll be using BudURL from now on to help keep a better eye on my links in microblogging and microsharing services.

Best Buy has announced plans to acquire Napster today for $121 million in cash. From the release, the proposed acquisition includes Napster’s approximately 700,000 digital entertainment subscribers, its Web-based customer service platform, and innovative mobile capabilities. In conjunction with the definitive merger agreement, Napster CEO Chris Gorog and key members of senior management of Napster have entered into employment agreements, effective at closing, pursuant to which they have agreed to continue as the Napster leadership post-acquisition.

Napster, which recently launched one of the world’s largest MP3 stores, had fiscal 2008 revenue of $127.5 million, an increase of 15 percent over the prior fiscal year; a loss of $16.5 million, an improvement compared with a loss of $36.8 million the prior fiscal year; and positive cash flow for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008.

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comScore has released their latest m:metrics report showing mobile search usage in the U.S. and several countries in Europe. Nearly 10% of mobile subscribers in the U.S. completed a mobile search and the total mobile search usage is up 68% in the U.S. In Europe where mobile usage is further along, usage is up 38%.

For all of the countries in the chart below, Google leads usage of mobile search. In the U.S., 63% of mobile searches use Google while 34% use Yahoo. In Germany, 85% use Google and in France 62% use Google. Spain and France were the only countries that had near 10% MSN search usage. 

I am all about applications and sites that tap into the power of the lazyweb, and Ask500People definitely falls into that category. We reviewed Ask500People when it launched, and over the past few months since then the company has gotten feedback from users on how to be a better resource. They seem to have taken those suggestions to heart, coming out with a long list of new features.

Admittedly, I am a Twitter junkie, and I do most of my crowdsourcing in real time via Twitter polling. I was convinced that I should give Ask500People a look, and can safely say that if nothing else it is a huge time sink. The dynamic visual results sucked me right in and cost me at least ten minutes - that’s a large time investment for my short attention span online, especially with something I’d never used before.

What’s changed since our last review? Ask500People is introducing demographic polling: poll for results by gender, age, location, team, education. That is huge, and definitely something you can’t do with a casual poll on Twitter. Knowing this level of details for an answer to your question is valuable information, and seeing it visually represented is even better.

The company will also be adding the ability to follow polls via a “favorite” system. This is handy if you want to track results over time. Coupled with the demographics and the new embed functionality, Ask500People should pick up a real presence in the online polling sector. Up until now, the fact that competitors like Twiigs and others have had embed capability from the start has put Ask500People at a disadvantage for getting noticed and used.

Other new features include the ability to vote on comments in a way similar to Reddit (arrows that give you an up or down option), and a way to vote on the poll questions as well. Ask500People has also improved the site navigation and given you a way to search past polls as well as integrating with Gnipcentral for volume control. You can also see the more popular question via RSS now, and follow Ask500People on Twitter (@ask500).

If you are a developer, you can now get access to the Ask500People API to develop your own use for Ask500People in the way that best suits you or your company. Last, but not least, the folks behind Ask500People are also giving away rocket logo stickers. If you are a laptop sticker junkie, you can request yours via an email to (Ryan Oazawa) ryan (at) ask500people (dot) com. I know I will be using Ask500People a bit more now that they have added demographics and embedding. That makes it much more useful for me than it was before.

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:Ask500People Whatever the Hell You WantSee Video Uploads on a Map: DailyMotionWikipedia Edits On a Map, In Case You CaredOrbitz Launches Incentives for Traveler Update ServiceFirefox 2.0.0.8 Released; Enables Leopard CompatibilityWordPress 2.5 Is Finally OutiPhone Update Renders Unlocked Devices Useless

Wiki provider Wetpaint is announcing tonight that they have hit the one million mark. The one million number represents "created" wikis on the Wetpaint platform, not active customers. It also seems the company is now marketing their service as "social publishing" rather than wikis. I think wiki is well known in the tech market but social publishing might be more mainstream-friendly.

Wetpaint also released the following stats:

• 8 million pages of content in the network
• users from 177 countries have created wikis on the Wetpaint platform

They are also announcing the launch of the "Golden Paint Can Awards" which will give prizes to 70 Wetpaint sites in 15 categories. Winners will be selected by a celebrity panel of judges, stats and a public vote. I always like to see companies show off their customers, it helps with goodwill with the current customer base and also helps potential customers see what’s possible with the application or service. Zlio does a good job of this - they feature one shop every day on their blog.

Wetpaint picked up $25 million in venture capital funding back in May and also released 10 tips on Web 2.0′ing your office.

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Nielsen is out with a new report which brings together TV, Internet and mobile usage together for U.S. households. They found that Americans are watching more than 127 hours a month of television programming. Could the higher gas prices and food prices be a factor in this increase?

Average Internet usage was up 9% to 26 hours a month. New metrics in the report include 2 hours of Internet video per month on average and 3 hours of mobile video for users who are subscribed to a mobile video plan.

The interesting chart is below - this is a breakdown of the above stats by age group. Teens who are subscribed to a mobile video plan are viewing over 5 hours of mobile video a month. For Internet users we see a bell curve with those in the 35-44 age bracket using the Internet the highest amount. But look at those 65+, they are using the Internet over 26 hours on average.

I’ve said many times that the 65+ market is one to consider as you think about creating a startup. I know it’s cool and hip to make a Twitter or FriendFeed, but there are other groups to consider - and many of those groups have money to spend and aren’t demanding free.

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Web site tracking service Compete has announced the launch of their "Pro" plan today. They are dropping their previous payment system which basically required you to buy credits and then each report you selected was some amount of credits. Going forward the plans will all be monthly - this should be easier for their current customers but also easier to market to new customers.

They have also added more reports which include: page views, visits per person and daily reach. They are keeping more data as well and you can now go back up to 25 months for report purposes.

The new plans start at $199 a month which includes 50 reports. Compete might lose some customers over this - sometimes you only need one report a month, other times 100, now you are stuck with a minimum of $200 a month. It seems like if you have any credits they are giving you a free month of the basic Pro package. Perfect for the large enterprise customers, not so for small customers, consultants or media outlets. My hope is that they will add a ppv report option as well for say $5-10/report.

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Web analytics service comScore is announcing their acquisition of mobile analytics provider M:Metrics. The transaction involves a cash payment of $44.3 million and the issuance of approximately 50,000 options to purchase shares of comScore common stock to certain M:Metrics unvested option holders. As mobile grows here in the U.S., the ability to measure will become more critical - especially for sites that monetize their mobile traffic.

M:Metrics describes their core mobile analytics services as:

MobiLensTM, a syndicated monthly online survey that captures overall mobile phone usage, including device information, data usage, media consumption and demographic characteristics of a representative sample of more than 40,000 mobile device users.  MobiLens is available in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.

MeterDirectTM, the industry’s first on-device meter that passively measures the mobile Internet behavior and media consumption of more than 4,000 existing Smartphone panelists. The M:Metrics metering technology is compatible with more than 280 device models. MeterDirect is currently available in the U.S. and U.K.

M:AdTM, the first competitive tracking service for mobile advertising that continuously monitors clickable display advertising from a broad representative set of mobile Web destinations to reveal leading advertisers across a variety of market segments.  M:Ad is currently available in the U.S. and U.K.

More details on the acquisition on Silicon Alley Insider and Techcrunch.

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LinkedIn community evangelist Mario Sundar has posted a chart from Nielsen showing the top social networks and their growth over the past year (March-March). I’ve embedded the chart below. The analysis is based on U.S. home and work traffic and does not include international traffic.

LinkedIn shows growth at 319% while Facebook only grew 98% and MySpace barely grew at 9%. I’d suggest that Facebook and MySpace have the market nearly tapped so their growth will be slower than LinkedIn. Buzznet also grew nicely at 49%.

A year ago