All this is thanks to Steven Lehrburger and he Google App engine.

The two hottest spots are (predictably) McClatchy Hall where I work/attend classes, and Escondido Village, where I live (and of which I am currently Foursquare Mayor). Below is a zoomed-in version

You can also see my occasional check in at the Palo Alto Caltrain Station where I make my commutes up to AllThingsD where I Intern, my occasional checkin at the Aregalla Gym, and even a couple checkins at Facebook HQ.

Weird, yes. The good news is I had to login and authorize this thing eight ways from Sunday to get the map to populate, and event then, no one entity has enough of the info to create a new map- so not too bad.

This is the data marketing companies are starting to salivate over, especially if the data can be logged in real time. We already are offered deals and coupons based on Foursquare locations, but look out for similar offerings in Google maps, NYT.com and wherever else money can be made.

They’ve even timed the release for the moment when all the world’s nerds-bloggers and nerd-journalists are distracted by the bright lights of Vegas and CES 2010.

This tweet from @hreingold sums it up pretty well I think:
@WithDrake Every time Facebook hamhandedly changes privacy settings, I have to consult EFF to figure out exactly how I am being screwed

For a little background: Facebook now treats your list of friends— along with your name, profile picture, current city, gender, networks, and the pages that you are a “fan” of — as “publicly available information”. Maybe more importantly, the user can no longer throttle the privacy settings on that info. But that was last week’s problem.

I love upgrading apps. I get a little warm, fuzzy, “I’m getting something for free” feeling. However, the needle on my crap detector jumped to 11 today when I downloaded the iPhone Facebook App ver. 3.1.  These screens, which appeared after the new Facebook 3.1 install, caught my eye.

Syncing grants Facebook full access to your address book. If you already sync your Gmail contacts with your iPhone address book, that means you will also be handing over the email addresses and names of everyone you have ever emailed.

I especially like the Last sentence on the second screen. Facebook may have no liability here (god knows we’ve all clicked “yes” to enough user agreements), but they seem to be trying to release themselves from an ethical dilemma of their own creation by asking if you could go around to your umpteen hundred friends and ask if its cool if you expose all of the data you store on the min your address book, to Facebook.

They don’t tell you what they might be doing with all this new data, just that you should make sure its cool with your friends. That’s like asking your friend to lend someone they don’t know their car. But don’t worry, this guy is cool. He’ll either wash it for you or sell it.

For LOTS more on Facebook and privacy, I recommend the EFF.

Update 03.04.2010 Found out today that this post was cited as supporting evidence in a motion filed by epic.org before the FTC. Its buried in part 37, but its there. Have a look at the original documents.

EPIC Facebook Supp-1

A new feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

You can see the original post at AllThingsD HERE.

This week: A video visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Chris Wetherell and his creation, Brizzly, a Web-based social media reader, one of many in the hot status update arena.

Who: Chris Wetherell

What: VP of Technology, Thing Labs, creator of Brizzly.

Why: Brizzly is a Web-based social media software client, for microblogging sites like Twitter or Facebook, expands attachments automatically and allows users to describe and define the trending topics for all its users to see. It’s in invite-only beta.

Where: @cw (Twitter); massless.org (Wetherell’s personal blog); San Francisco (HQ for Thing Labs and Brizzly)

Who else: TweetDeck, Seesmic, TwitIQ

Five Stats You Won’t Find in his Facebook Profile

Worst Job: Assembly line at Fujitsu, making rack servers

Has a Geek Crush on: Mihai Parparita, Google developer in Boston

Gadget of the Moment: Roku’s digital video box. “It’s got Netflix, You Tube and TV. Damn.”

Wishes There Was an App for: The legal arena. “They need to, like, use a computer.”

Fails at: Anything related to email

Bio in 140 Characters

From Beaverton, Ore. Dropped out of Berkeley. Got hungry as an indie rock drummer. @Google Reader. Left Google, invented Brizzly.

The Five Questions

Why should I care about Brizzly?

It depends on what you’re looking for. If one of the things that interests you is how a large community is experiencing life–I mean really interested in the community and not just the idea of your friends–then Brizzly does that a little more easily than other things. [Brizzly's assets are] no small difference for those who are interested in it.

Why are all Twitter-related logos, including yours, so darn cute?

Yeah, we’re a little cheeky, right? I think it’s probably just because of a pendulum swing. I mean, the last thing [Thing Labs' CEO Jason Shellen] and I worked on was the exact opposite. Google Reader is not cuddly. It’s friendly, but cuddly it isn’t. The other thing is, we were hoping to try what strong branding is like–in terms of anthropomorphic animals. The bear design [was drawn by] both Jason and [Twitter Co-founder] Biz Stone.

What can we expect from Thing Labs and Brizzly three months out?

We will have at least three richer sets of experiences, some of which include entirely different products all connected through our letsbetrends.com API.

Every geek has a memory where they saw something new and had to say to themselves, “Dang, I love living in the future.” What’s yours?

One big one for me was at Google–it was my first day and someone says, “Hey, have they taken you to see the robots yet?” I was like, “Hahaha… No.” They took me to this building where there was a room filled with these Rube Goldbergesque mechanical devices. Large cages with metal bars and wires, culminating in this ball in the center. This girl climbed into the thing. She put her feet in these stirrups and sat in this weird chair, and then this book slides out. The girl started tapping her feet on this base drum pedal and doing this thing with her hands, and then the book slides away [they were scanning the books]. I was like, “What is this?” and they said, “Well, this is Ocean [the internal name for Google Books].” What struck me was the scale. It was clear to me that they were going to scan ridiculous amounts of information very, very quickly, and I realized: Whoa, THIS is very different.”

Are you really competitive with rivals?

I just don’t have that kind of fight in me. I mean, I want to kick my own ass. I know there are lots of guys out there who can totally drop the names of someone they want to just crush. I just don’t have it. I get more frustrated with me, more than anyone else. I’m like Jim Carrey in “Liar Liar”: “I’m kicking my ass.”