Some of whom I met, and some who I observed. All were interesting in their own ways.

1. Mike Arrington doesn’t want to be thought of as a guru — he wants to be first to report things. Being outrageous helps him, but why are you paying attention to him or what he’s saying? He’s not a guru or anything.

2. Tom Williams and Austin Hill *are* inspiring.

3. Loren Feldman is a funny guy and has a uniquely sharp talent of cutting through the BS in a funny way. That’s valuable. And funny. But I mentioned that already, didn’t I?

4. Paul Sullivan is a smart guy who knows a lot about journalism — and who is as enthusiastic as hell about it for being in the business as long as he has.

5. Steve Herrman has never been to Toronto or Canada until Mesh. I hope he had a good time. ;)

6. Ethan Kaplan is wicked smart. The way that he talks so smartly and so abstractly about — let’s face it, pirated music — makes it sound like thesis material. And it probably is for someone somewhere.

7. Richard Edelman, in spite of the Wal-mart fiasco, seemed really genuine about a desire for transparency and authenticity in public relations — in a this-guy-isn’t-faking-it kind of way. I mean it.

8. Jim Buckmaster only had one thing to say: “we do what the users want”. In spite of the wonder that is Craigslist, there wasn’t a lot of sophistication to his message. On the other hand, is that any surprise from someone described as a social anarchist or a communist?

9. Jeff Howe seems like a cool dude, and whose message about crowdsourcing was interesting and important: crowdsourcing is good for filtering. Not so much for certain kinds of content creation — like journalism.

10. Will Pate, in spite of his youthful looks, knows a hella lot about creating and maintaining community. How old is this guy anyway? :)

11. Lionel Menchaca was so down-to-earth and self-effacing about Dell’s community initiatives its a wonder that he’s a face of Dell. But he is. Which is amazing.

12. Ted Murphy isn’t the most evil man in the world, and PayPerPost isn’t. Well, probably isn’t. But he’s actually a pretty personable dude who really believes in what he does.

13. Mike Masnick is also wicked smart. I’m not sure who would win in a face off between him and Ethan Kaplan, but one thing’s for sure: *my* brain would explode.

So earlier in the evening there was a sort of pre-Mesh get together that was organized by Thonley Fallis, a PR firm here in Canada. They, in fact, do a thing every month called “Third Tuesday“, where PR folks get together to discuss social media and its implications with public relations.

[aside: next month I will be guy on the proverbial hotseat, answering questions and yaking about social media and tools like Digg]

This month, because the third tuesday falls right before Mesh, they decided to get the five musketeer’s up on stage for an interesting night of questions and answers.

Anyway, I got to meet some interesting folks who I really never got a chance to meet before — or was meeting for the first time — including

• Jeremy Wright, who I never seemed to sit for 5 minutes before — and got the chance to chat for 10 minutes
• Aaron Brazell, who I missed the last time he was in TO
• Fred Ngo, of StandOut Jobs, who I may be separated by a single degree of separation, funnily enough
• Bargainista, part of the local fashion blogger scene who seems to also juggle family responsibilities and “real” work ;)
• Michael O’Connor Clark, who did a great job of MC’ing the evening
• Ed Lee, who I finally met in person!

Furthermore, in a shmooze thing for people going to Mesh, I also met Loren Feldman of 1938 media, who was suprisingly

1. was wearing a t-shirt (and jean jacket) rendering him almost unrecognizable to me (and others)
2. a genuinely funny guy
3. a genuinely nice guy

In a mildly abrasive, yet oddly endearing, New Yorker kind of way (hey — is there any other?) ;)

Anyway, Mesh, the Canadian Conference for social media, technology and much more, launches tomorrow. I will be liveblogging throughout if I can find a wi-fi connection, so stay tuned!

The WSJ has an interesting scoop over what Facebook plans to unleash in the upcoming days: something which almost sounds like a “reverse-API”. That is, rather than open up its programming and data structures so that others can access Facebook’s data to make its own mashups, Facebook is allowing other companies to make “special service” pages within its own network that take advantage of Facebook mashing up with *other* service’s API’s.

So, its a win-win situation — for Mark “I Turned Down A Billion Dollars From Yahoo” Zuckerburg, that is. Facebook keeps its traffic and pageviews within Facebook — and holds on to all the revenue, if the WSJ is to be believed, as they will not be sharing any monetary benefits of these kinds of interactions.

Is anyone else amazed at how ballsy this sounds? (I need to dig up my brass balls award!)

Usually companies are in a race to open up their data structures to allow mashups. Its, like, totally Web2.0, man! And there are advantages to this — whether it be cherry picking the right ideas, or purchasing other startups outright who have done a mashup “right”.

But, what is Facebook doing?

Its letting *other* companies build mashups *for* Facebook *within* Facebook, and then not sharing any revenues (if any are made) with that company.

Wow.

I think its one parts ballsiness on Mark Zuckerburg’s half, based on how much positive press its getting but also two parts reality. As the WSJ article points out — its also growing faster than any other social network out there (it pwns Toronto, btw), and in spite of creating a seemingly entirely one-sided proposition for Facebook (who basically will sit back and let others do the heavy lifting) these other companies ultimately *will* benefit … whether it be in referred traffic to their own sites (eventually), and eventual sales / subscriptions / downloads / whatever they’re metric is.

What I do wonder is if any of them will *also* try collect Facebook data as well for their own databases and lists; whether this could be done sneakily as part of some automated scripts, or old school squeeze page styles, it will really be hard to know. But what I do mean is, say, amongst people who are recommending books at a bookstore, if that bookstore, for example, could collect the profiles of people who are sharing and having that conversation.

Of course I don’t expect Facebook to allow this kind of privacy disaster — but on the other hand, stranger things have happened in social networks, and some businesses must be salivating at the thought of finding other benefits to this kind of business relationship.

Long and short of it is that we’ll have to wait for another few days to see exactly what Facebook has planned.  Or rather, what Facebook is planning to allow other companies to do for it.  Ballsiness or Genius?  I’m thinking a little bit of both.

Some interesting stats, courtesy of VentureBeat about Facebook’s usage.  As some of you may or may not, know I’m from Toronto, Canada, where Facebook’s penetration is unusually high.  Quoth Eric, via Venturebeat:

Particularly noteworthy is its traction in Canada, where it has more than 2 million active users, around 11 percent of the site’s total. A remarkable 20 to 25 percent of Toronto’s population is using Facebook, with more than 500,000 users. Ontario even banned the site in governmental workplaces because it was so distracting. Growth rates are several times higher outside the U.S. than in it.

It pulls the stats from Facebook’s very own blog over here.

Well, on a personal note this is something that is both awesome and peculiar at the same time.  I know for a fact that Facebook is spreading like wildfire in this town.  Everyone and their sister (and mother, and brother) seems to be on Facebook.  You know that something has just hit the mainstream when friends that usually have no interest in technology or web services pull you aside conspiratorially and ask you if you’ve heard of this “Facebook” thing, how awesome it is, and how “everyone seems to be on it these days”.

And I mean *everyone*!  Work, friends, relatives — it seems like no one has escaped it, here in Toronto.  Well, perhaps I happen to only know people in that 25% of the entire city.

I did mention “peculiar” in discussing the Facebook phenomenon only because its part of the social and new media scene, and of course I do read about it and cover it from that point of view (if only peripherally).  But to hear people who have no interest in the topic suddenly talking about it like its the best thing since the Macarena?

That’s the tipping point, baby.

Besides ranting about how remarkable this is, I did have a point to make — and that is how proliferative and important social networks have become in the evolution of internet and internet usage.

It is not some fad, and it is not some passing trend.  I used “Macarena” facetiously, because I really don’t think social networks are going away, like the rightly-maligned “dance” song from the early 90’s.  No, if done right, social networks provide a unified layer of integrated connectivity that doesn’t otherwise exist; and furthermore — and most importantly — once they have people have been locked into a network of familiar faces, some of whom they haven’t seen of or heard from in years, it becomes very, very, very difficult to switch.

Facebook and its ilk are here to stay.  And in Toronto anyway, they’ve gone far beyond early adopters to the mainstream, which is something not many web services can claim.

Mr. Zuckerburg turning down a billion dollars from Yahoo?

Seems like the smartest thing I’ve heard all year long.

[incidentally, if you want to “add” me as a “friend”, you’re welcome to do so over here]