I'm a fan of Facebook and the concept of social networking and their particular slant on things. I'm also really intrigued what's going to happen as their platform continues to evolve over time.

One thing I'm a little wary of however is invasive advertising and accidental leakage of personal data.

I was initially quite surprised when I logged into my wifes Blockbuster account today and had it offer to send my data to my Facebook profile.

Luckily I managed to hit the "no thanks" button before it did (not that I have any credibility in my taste in movies, but my daughters SpongeBob wish list wouldn't help!)

I did a little bit of searching on the web to see what was going on and discovered I was behind the curve on the outrage that had accompanied this which meant I was able to look at it with less vehemence than some had visited upon Facebook and their partners.

My biggest concern I guess it having Blockbuster and others sharing data without giving me obvious and timely control over the process, especially when the data it's about to share is wrong!

I elect to share my twitter posts, or Last.FM data publicly because there's nothing private and personal. But I do consider my movie and TV viewing or Amazon purchases to be private - not just because I don't see value in sharing them simply to help someone (be it Facebook, Google or Amazon) track data about me but also because I don't like the potential inferences they may make because they don't have context surrounding the decisions. I don't watch SpongeBob, my daughter does. I didn't rent Forever Young with Mel Gibson, my wife did. I didn't buy a book on Renaissance painters for me, it was a gift for my Mum.

If I can control what is shared and when (so I can give it context or filter the irrelevant) then I'd be happy to share data with them. If Blockbuster or Amazon included something like the MadKast "ShareThis" widget or AdaptiveBlue Smartlinks on every line (ideally with a multi-select option for my Blockbuster queue).

If it makes the advertising and personalization more appropriate, just in the same way I love the idea of fine-tuned TV advertising, I'd be happy to share.

For now though, I've added a new AD Blocker filter rule to IE7Pro - all calls to *.facebook.com/beacon/* get blocked ... when I get a bit more granular control I'll be happy to turn the rule off again.

FWIW I don't think Facebook did it to be sneaky or "evil", they simply didn't look at it quite as carefully as they could have and think about the unintended consequences.

I used to work a lot with folks in the advertising industry. With small independent producers, big name agencies and really smart digital delivery companies (and of course that has continued since joined Microsoft as projects need). In that game you try to be as clever as you can, create a buzz, deliver a message, do good for a brand, sell some product or whatever.

The worst case outcome is when you drive a customer away. Not leave them apathetic^* or unmoved (heck, most marketing can do that) or reaching for the "skip" button on their media center.

I never thought two of the biggest marketing brands out there would succeed. Especially through such a well meaning campaign that rewarded me, the consumer, for my loyalty, required no change of behavior on my part or had any obvious downside.

As folks who know me will testify I drink quite a lot of coffee (I don't have a problem... I can admit my addiction!) and these days most of it comes from Starbucks thanks to their sheer convenience and weight of number (ah, I miss Zaraffas from Australia).

Despite working for the folks who brought you the much improved Zune 2.0 I still have my old iPod (4G ClickWheel) and despite having some issues with iTunes I still have it running on one machine for synching.

So, you'd think a campaign that gives away a free tune every day just for buying a cup of coffee has to be a winning combination wouldn't you?

At first I thought so. I continued my daily ritual and picked up the added bonus of the card and put them aside meaning to have a frenzy of downloading when the promotion finished.

That was when it hit me. Not how generous Starbucks had been. Not what a great online store iTunes was. Just how much I was spending on over-priced, variable quality coffee in jumped up fast food outlets (that keep tempting me with fattening treats).

The result of the campaign. No more loyalty to iTunes (the moment my iPod finally dies I'll get a Zune. maybe). No more loyalty to Starbucks. But I did pick up a Keurig coffee machine that delivers 10 cups for the price we were paying a day for a morning pick-me-up, so the cost of the machine should be covered pretty quickly.

Oooops! I guess that campaign didn't quite go as planned. Starbucks haven't lost me as a customer, and I don't think any less of them, but I am now more aware in a tangible fashion just how much I spend there! Ironically, thought their rival, Tullys, is one of many suppliers of the Keurig pods... Starbucks aren't. I don't know if it's a deliberate choice on their part or Keurig failing to market the product to them. Luckily we have a "pack your own" attachment so if we miss a particualr Starbucks blend we don't have to miss out - just buy the grind

* I had hoped Hugh would have a witty cartoon on the subject of apathetic marketing. I guess I'll have to ask him nicely.

So, you already know that we're giving copies of Vista Ultimate to MIX07 attendees, and of course you'll get a chance to hear from both Microsoft folks and people from the real world about how the UX game is hotting up and delivering real benefits to developers, users and everyone else in the ecosystem.

What you might not be aware of is the other half of the equation.... while we support developers with WPF/E, Ajax.asp.net and (of course) Visual Studio we also have tools aimed at designers

Expression Studio includes Expression Web, Expression Blend™, Expression Design and Expression Media. Whether you are designing standards-based web sites, creating rich user experiences on the desktop, or managing digital assets and content, the professional design tools and innovative technologies in Expression give you the flexibility and freedom to bring your vision to reality.

To reflect Microsoft's belief that Design is an essential part of the development process, all MIX07 attendees will receive a Commemorative Edition of Expression Studio, complete with the first version of Expression Studio and one-of-a-kind artwork (in addition to a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate!).

Check out  www.visitmix.com for more details right now... tickets are going fast.

I hope to see you there....

Now, I'm not a huge fan of advertising when it's intrusive or detracts from the experience. I do however have a lot of respect for intelligent targeting and inventive engaging campaigns.

In this day and age we're faced with product and brand placement everywhere - billboards, TV, radio, online and even coming to cellphones and all that happens is people tune out.

I've got Google ads running on the side of this page - how many folks actually look at them, and of those how many click (actually, despite my cynicism it's not bad - this site is revenue neutral... advertising just about pays my hosting costs each year).

Anyway, I'm always on the look out for cool new technology that's going to make advertising more effective without it becoming more offensive at the same time. Luckily there's a group here at Microsoft tasked with pretty much fulfilling that niche and they're showcasing some of their cooler ideas on the adLab site so you can check out some of their thinking.

I can't wait for some of these things to start filtering down to live.com as they help improve not only the suggested results and delivered advertising but might even improve the quality of the organic search results based on observed behaviors.

So, imagine the scenario. You're walking down a busy street and you see a poster for a band, movie or an event that catches your eye. You don't have time to stop and write down details. Even if you do you've got to remember to look it up on the web when you get home.

Now imagine being able to take a picture of the poster with your camera-phone, click a button and get information there and then.

Well, it's not imagination any more thanks to a new Microsoft Research project called Lincoln.

Thanks to some very powerful image libraries and clever server side technology doing the heavy lifting they now have the ability to do pretty fast image recognition with some pretty average comparison images - my phone has a 1.3mp camera with a pretty dirty lens. No zoom, no flash etc, but I was able to take a snap of a poster on the wall at work and seconds later have details of the even available to me. It even worked when I downloaded the image to my machine and took the picture of what was displayed on my screen!

The lookup works on images uploaded and made public by anyone, so it's not limited by what Microsoft choose to upload but anyone can put up an image of their event poster, CD release, DVD cover along with relevant information and when a user searches for it in the real world they can find out about your event or see Amazon reviews of your DVD.

I know there have been efforts like this before to connect the real world to the interweb, but most have relied on QR Codes or invisible (to the naked eye) printing - but they require on specific printing techniques or compromises on the artwork, whereas this can be used retrospectively to webify existing material.

I'd love to see magazine advertisers do this as well - so rather than having to look for and remember their URL when I read the magazine in a reception area I can simply snap a quick photo and look up all the details when I have a moment.

Microsoft, Apple, Nokia (Symbian), Palm, Sony and a myriad of others are in a race to make the cellphone smarter, more capable and more vital to our lives.

Carriers rush to make the network more reliable and far reaching (though I get no coverage in my office on the Microsoft Redmond Campus - thank you T-Mobile, not!) and support better bandwidth.

Converged voice and data applications, smart phones, unified messengers, location aware devices all help make our lives easier.

And the advertisers view it as virgin territory just waiting to be sullied in their fight for captive eyeballs.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't object too strongly to some unobtrusive advertising especially if it's well executed and relevant and beneficial (ie helps to subsidize better/cheaper service) but the day it makes it harder to make a call or view a web page on my phone I'm going back to dumb handset that they can't target. If it means I have a device that just makes and receives phone calls... that's fine by me.

In the TV and magazine world adverts are a neccasary evil as they help support the medium. In the cinema they are a pernicious invasion (I've paid a premium to see the movie in a noisy, cold, uncomfortable warehouse with stale nachos - don't force-feed me pap for products I've no interest in).

I currently pay a hefty whack each month for my cellphone and data connection... Advertisers and carriers need to be careful they don't abuse their already tolerant (rather than happy) user base. Loyalty only lasts as long as the current contract.

The third little challenge in my self-set WPF/E niche was to see if it was possible to deliver an all-singing all-dancing WPF/E experience from an ad server to a page that had no WPF/E code in it at all.

Well, this turned out to be a little harder than the earlier video re-sizer and overlay samples but again like both it turns out that WPF/E is really fun to work with - doesn't matter if you're hacking code in Notepad or working in a full Visual Studio environment (and don't forget the free Visual Studio Express) it's quick and easy.

Remember, this is only the first technology preview of WPF/E with a lot more goodness to come! More functionality, performance, stability will only make these things easier.

If you want to see this (and the other samples) full screen you can open them in their own window.

Fred Wilson is a pretty smart VC. He's got to be - he's been at it for a long time and he can still afford to eat! I was however interested to read that he believes the pre-roll is dead (or at least dying) and that content sites need to be compelling (even though their content may be ripped and set free on the Internet)

While I agree with Fred on the premise that pre-rolls are a distraction, they're annoying and can spoil a good UX I don't understand how they're just going to magically die because of that.

Essentially what the article says is that you've got to come up with a business model that works even if people rip off your content, post it on their blog/site and never link back to you or give you any traffic - because if the content is viral and re-postable and can be consumed where the consumers are it doesn't matter how shiny your site is... the vast majority of users want to stay where they're comfortable (Myspace, Spokeo or their live.com homepage for instance) not add another destination site to their busy day.

Sadly the only way that people are going to produce content like that is either for the love of it (but they still need to eat), underwritten by an old-skool business model that's actually making money or through product placement...

I hate pre-rolls, interstitial and pop-up advertising but I also worked with enough production companies and agencies to know that somehow somewhere someone has to pay for this stuff - and it's working in a fairly cost effective way (and don't get me started on why Spam won't die!) - how many of the mainstream news sites to you go to where they still have pop-up (or floating) ads that obscure the content that you've actually gone there to see?

In order for the pre-roll to die I think we're probably going to see a whole bunch of ugly intrusive alternatives first... the current crop of sidebar/split-screen and overlay advertising on TV is a good example of how annoying and invasive it can be (especially when the animate the darn promo over the opening scene of the show I actually want to watch).

Personally I think I'm in favor of relevant, targeted advertising in small un-intrusive chunks. A 5 second "brought to you by" before the 30 second clip is okay. A 10 second pre-roll probably isn't. And if I see if 10 times a day it's just going to annoy me so make sure there's a pool of creatives.

If the content was engaging I'll probably stay and watch a 10-15 second post-roll while I think about what I've just seen and what I want to do next. That however depends on whether the content has been soiled for me by mid-rolls and overlays (hint - if you do that I won't watch your post-roll)

Silent (at least while the content I want to watch is playing) and static (again at least until I'm done watching) sidebar advertising is something that's not going to bug me too much (as long as it's smart - scale properly if I stretch the viewport, disappear while I'm watching content full-screen etc).

Advertisers and the sites/producers who are supported by the advertising dollars have to walk a very fine line between respecting their audience and getting bankrolled. Go too far in either direction and you risk the whole edifice tumbling down.

Predicting the death of the pre-roll may be prescient but I still have my pop-up blocker set to stun and expect to be seeing pre-rolls for quite a while yet...

Update: Maybe Microsoft with this patent and the Media Center platform may be heading in the right direction (but I hate to think how it's going to decided between me and my wife what adverts to show!)

Update: Looks like some more of the advertising industry is starting to wake up. Hopefully they will smell the coffee and actually focus on making the message more entertaining rather than loud and/or irritating!