Google's I/O keynote is happening today. They announced that invite-only access to Google Wave has ended — now it's available for all.

Gist is looking to make email more social. By tracking down the Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles of other people copied on an email, as well as any blogs or news about them, Gist lets you make connections with those you might only know via CC.

It's easy to forget how heavily we rely on YouTube in our daily lives. Then a video comes along and puts everything in perspective.

The YouTube Five Year Channel is a collection of testimonials from the people who create those videos. The stories shared by Mehdi Saharkhiz and other active contributors serve as reminders that, for better or worse, we all belong to the YouTube community.

Yesterday Mike Jones, co-president of MySpace, wrote a blog post that kicked Facebook privacy issues squarely in the eye.

MySpace early on recognized the issues facing a website with a massive global population and we’ve taken our responsibilities seriously. We take a holistic approach to safety, security and privacy and align our product and practices around the needs of our users, while at the same time working closely with industry experts, law enforcement, regulators, and safety and privacy advocates.

He finishes up the post with a knockout punch line:

We want our users to know we are planning the launch of a simplified privacy setting for our user profiles.  While we’ve had these plans in the works for some time, given the recent outcry over privacy concerns in the media, we felt it was important to unveil those plans to our users now.

Do you think MySpace can do privacy right? Could this win MySpace new active users? I would love to hear what you think in the comments below.

Brian Solis just laid down 21 core principals about social networking today on Mashable. Each is pretty important and clarifies that having a social media presense and doing something with it are two different things. Take a look, it shouldn't take more than a minute.

1. Discover all relevant communities of interest and observe the choices, challenges, impressions, and wants of the people within each network.

2. Don’t just participate solely in your own domains (Facebook Fan Page, Twitter conversations related to your brand, etc.). Participate where your presence is advantageous and mandatory.

3. Determine the identity, character, and personality of the brand and match it to the persona of the individuals representing it online.

4. Establish a point of contact who is ultimately responsible for identifying, trafficking, or responding to all things that can affect brand perception.

5. As in customer service, representatives require training to learn how to proactively and reactively respond across multiple scenarios. Don’t just put the person familiar with social networking in front of the brand.

6. Embody the attributes you wish to portray and instill. Operate by a code of conduct.

7. Observe the behavioral cultures within each network and adjust your outreach accordingly.

8. Assess pain points, frustrations, and also those of contentment in order to establish meaningful connections.

9. Become a true participant in each community you wish to activate. Move beyond marketing and sales.

10. Don’t speak at audiences through canned messages. Introduce value, insight and direction with each engagement.

11. Empower your representatives to offer rewards and resolutions in times of need.

12. Don’t just listen and placate — act. Do something.

13. Ensure that any external activities are supported by a comprehensive infrastructure to address situations and adapt to market conditions and demands.

14. Learn from each engagement and provide a path within the company to adapt and improve products and services.

15. Consistently create, contribute, and reinforce service and value.

16. Earn connections through collaboration and empower advocacy.

17. Don’t get lost in translation. Ensure your communication and intent is clear and that your involvement maps to objectives created for the social web.

18. Establish and nurture beneficial relationships online and in the real world as long as doing so is important to your business.

19. “Un-campaign” and create ongoing programs that keep you connected to day-to-day engagement.

20. “Un-market” by becoming a resource to your communities.

21. Give back, reciprocate, and recognize notable contributions from participants in your communities.

The Washington Post has an interesting op ed that sums up the state of affairs with Facebook since the f8 conference. It spells out a lot of the current problems Facebook is facing, and says that a lot of them stem from simple arrogance.

The heart of the matter comes across in this quote:

Meanwhile, from what I can tell the leadership at Facebook sincerely believes that the company can and should become the Web's dominant source of identity and authentication, providing a feature left out of the Internet's original design. But they don't seem to accept the thought that becoming such a social utility might require changes in their behavior.

If social marketing has taught us anything, it's this: sometimes people just like your brand. Other times, they need a little extra "encouragement" before they'll embrace it.

To that end, NBC has launched Fan It this week. Fan It is an affinity program that uses game mechanics to rally fans around long-term engagements (Events) and time-sensitive activations (Challenges). The more positive chatter fans produce on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare (sorry, superfans — NBC message boards don't count yet) the more points they recieve, which they can accumulate or exchange for free NBC swag.

Despite the unfortunate name, Fan It is poised to cause a stir. To what degree may depend on how fully integrated it becomes with Hulu and how effectively it expands its reach beyond existing brand evangelists. After all, it'll take more than a Jay Leno bobblehead to get most people I know to post good things about the Tonight Show.

As one of the first companies to do a Facebook giveaway for fans (or people that Like them), Starbucks is back on the grind with a new social networking platform incentive. Foursquare users that become "the mayor" of their local Starbucks can get $1 off Frappuccinos. Nice choice for the summertime.

Openbook is a bit like Please Rob Me — it takes everything you don't want people to know, yet for some reason still put on a social media platform, and collects it into one spot. With a search function and some funny suggested searches to get you started, Openbook lets you tap into a ridiculous amount of Facebook updates and profiles.

If nothing else, Openbook shows that a lot of Facebook users don't know how to change their privacy settings.

Here's the thing about affiliate marketing: programs can still be implemented effectively (see Red Lemon Club), but they mainly attract profiteers. Most participants don't invest themselves socially, so no one's status is really on the line. And without that kind of accountability, trust issues begin to arise.