There is a great T-shirt in the gift shop at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art that is brown with simple white block letters which reads “Design will Save the World.”  Such is the feeling that is germinating the Web 2.0 app development world. 

This week at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco a number of key trends were highlighted for an industry that is beginning to show its maturity away from guys in garages and into a real business with real economics and revenue models. 

For me the most significant trend is who is being put in the driver’s seat for web application design.  Once the sole territory of the programmer, app development is going through a revolution.  Now it’s the graphic designers who are getting the tools they need to drive the internet.

This is largely being allowed by focussing on scripting, as opposed to pure coding, in the creation of applications.  It’s allowing those more comfortable with manipulating images to make their mark on the app world. Expect to see announcements coming from many of the major brands about evolutions in their products for development and design.

What does it mean?  Well to date applications created by programers have functioned well, but often lack image conciousness or feel.  This change will mean that apps in future will be as aesthetically pleasing as they are functional.  It is also putting more control of web development into the hands of brands and advertisers who want both a great look and functionality in their online presence.

Design will Save the World. And it will Save Silicon Valley.

There is nothing wrong with having the ambition to become a the next great media company.  This is especially the case if your online presence includes video, music and any other number of content features.  So it was not a huge surprise (more of an industry relief?) when MySpace today announced that it had formed partnerships with 3 major record labels: Universal, Sony BMG and Warner Music.

The terms of the deals are, of course, being kept tightly under wraps, but revenue sharing will come from DRM-free music downloads, an ad supported streaming music player, sales of concert tickets and merchandise, as well as mobile features such as ringtones.  As MySpace took pains to point out, they have one of the largest online communities interested in music with 30 million unique users per month for its various music sites, so that working with the labels makes complete sense.

And they are right.  Working with the labels is a natural evolution.  Already MySpace has artist profile pages from both independents and major acts.  Extending those relationships, and using their advertising technologies to help monetize this content, does make complete sense.

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So there is to be an OpenSocial Foundation…great! Earlier this week Google, Yahoo and MySpace all got together to tell the world about the importance of creating a Foundation to support Google’s already announced OpenSocial initiative.  OpenSocial (the initiative, not the Foundation) allows developers to use one source for code to create applications  that can be distributed across a number of social networks including MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, etc.

The Foundation announced on March 25 has been entrusted with ensuring that the original principles of OpenSocial would be enforced and “assure neutrality and longevity of specification for building social applications across the web.”  Neutrality and openness are becoming increasingly important for the developer community and for the internet companies themselves who are beginning to show dependence on external development to enhance internal innovation.

However, the announcement itself was far from groundbreaking.  We already knew about the principles of OpenSocial, so why bother with a big announcement?

Well if you are Google, this was a big deal indeed.  Remember a little story about a company called Microsoft trying to buy Yahoo?  Remember Google’s reaction to the news story, through its corporate blog that it hoped the deal would not go through because Yahoo had been an important partner in web development and openness?  Well, it looks as if that philosophical idea had become a reality - now Google and Yahoo are partners in ensuring open web development of the social variety. 

Moreover, Google and MySpace had been rumored to be breaking up over their partnership for advertising.  Again, Google has been able to squelch that rumor with this.

The story a lot of people missed wasn’t the announcement but the players - Yahoo, Google, MySpace all coming together and Google being the tie between them.

So the real winner in the OpenSocial Foundation release?  Yes, of course, the little guys (the developers) are winners.  Certainly the on-going development of the web, in theory at least, will enhance a consumer experience.  But congratulations Google on continuting to be the source of code and partnerships that are tying the world of the web together.

It seems to be my lot at parties, work, and even when I was in school, to inevitably end up sitting near the “young hot thing.” This makes for highly enlightening eavesdropping into coversations to say the least.  Hearing about their web of social contacts, their crazy weekends and their “plans” for the future (which usually does not include meeting their financial planner and investing in a 401K), certainly passes the time in an entertaining fashion.  But, as so many of us know, the young hot things of the world usually don’t stop the conversation there.  Often we get an earful of a whole lot of details we just don’t want to know. 

This familiar story becomes the refrain in my ear when I hear so many internet portals, wireless carriers and social networks talk to me about some of their product plans.  “Imagine being able to track your friends constantly!” is a phrase I hear quite often. But, like too many details from the young hot thing’s weekend party, how much is too much?

Social media (including the social networks) have lots of benefits for the consumer, but I’m not convinced seeing everything that is happening in my friend’s lives, at every moment, is what I want to know, or what they want me to know about.

The goal of programs like Beacon, LBS from the carriers and presence enabled tools from the portals should be providing me with the essentials of information when both myself and my friends want each other to know it.  It should not be constant contact.

Constant contact leads us inevitably from digitally enabled social awareness to virutal snooping.  And everyone has a private life of some sort - believe it or not even the young hot things.

The media is abuzz with the latest news from world of social networks: the hiring of Sheryl Sandberg away from Google as the new Chief Operating Officer for Facebook. Sandberg was well respected in her role at Google for building the company’s online sales and operations.

Undoubtedly her job at Facebook will include driving advertising revenue. As I stated when speaking to Ari Levy, from Bloomberg, one of Facebook’s advertising initiatives, Beacon, has ended up being a “bit of a bomb” - and it certainly has been from a media and user privacy point of view. Although the concept behind Beacon (using a consumer’s group of friends to be a focal point for distributing marketing information) is a powerful one, the execution of the concept by Facebook was sloppy.

Sandberg’s real challenge may be becoming a mentor to the young social network and its founder more than anything else. What social networks in general need is a guiding light that can cast a glow into the world of wise and ethical business practises while creating savvy business models that capitalize on the unique set of data that social networks can house. This is an idea that only experience can bring to a resolution, and a problem that any college dropout is unlikely to solve on their own.

The reality of the social networking industry is that too many of the large companies (and their smaller brethren) have become obsessed with the technology they have and the data they can collect to ever think about making money. I’ve talked to all too many social networks, and developers of applications for social networks, who tell me that their only real goal is to get an audience…and then figure out a way to make money.

Building audiences as well as behaviors among that audience has been essential for social networks to date, but building businesses around such functionality is an essential next step. Advertising (meaning free online services for consumers) has been the de facto method for building these businesses to date. The trick for real success will be inextricably linking users to intent and functionality as well as interaction to advertising and revenue. A feat, for now, most successfully accomplished only by Google in the online world.