1-800-Flowers.com has opened the first retail store within Facebook, according to the Associated Press (don't worry AP, I won't quote you).

This is what the Facebook shopping experience looks like:

Seems like you're shopping in a widget, right? You are. And that's awesome.

Shopping within a widget or ad is nothing new. The 1-800-Flowers.com move is notable because a major retailer offering its products through a massive audience platform is evidence the big companies are starting to get it: They need to sell their goods where audiences already gather.

Creating a retail experience within a popular social networking service is an important acknowledgement that online audiences are empowered to go where they want, when they want. Companies need to work with audience behavior, not bend it to their will.

Hand-Picked Related Links

• When It Comes to Community Building, Go Where They're Already At (MacSlocum.com)
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• Politico expands content-sharing deal (Editors Weblog)

Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek just landed a future customer (me) with this comment in the New York Times:

"Piracy is essentially the consumer's wish to have everything on demand. It's not like people want to necessarily have it for free," Mr. Ek said. The problem is that there have not been commercial services "that allowed people to discover new music and easily share music with friends," he said.

Well put.

ReadWriteWeb looks at the increasing popularity of Breaking News Online, a news aggregator that's harnessing the power of Twitter and other Web platforms (and it just happens to be run by a 19-year-old). Within the piece, ReadWriteWeb hits on the central issue of aggregators: can they use original content created by other outlets to turn popularity into profit?

All of this is fascinating, but isn't BNO still just an aggregator? In traditional media outlets "aggregator" is a dirty word (unless they are the ones doing the aggregation). In fact, Breaking News Online does very little original reporting. The company is going to monetize its research flow, editorial judgment, distribution channels...and links to other peoples' content. If BNO is successful, there is a real risk of original content publishers objecting to the fact that someone else has found a way to make money off of (links sending traffic to) their content.

This aggregator antagonism needs to end. Like it or not, content creators ultimately benefit from the increased exposure and traffic aggregators supply. Creators are generally lousy at Web distribution because they can't shake the allure of lock in (you need to read my content on my site), but aggregators -- unencumbered by oldthink -- know the value of broad and diffuse distribution. Compare Breaking News Online's Twitter presence with that of most mainstream outlets and you can see the stark difference: BNO understands you have to serve the audience through the platforms where it's already congregating. Repurposing RSS feeds as tweets isn't enough.

What kills me about all this content creator chest pounding is that these organizations are missing the central point: As long as aggregators point traffic back to source sites, both sides benefit in this relationship.

Update, 7/17, 9:36PM: Ars Technica gets to the bottom of the Orwell deletions. The ebooks weren't legitimate and Amazon's system automatically deleted the copies, which is even more unsettling than a manual kill command. According to Ars, Amazon is changing the system to prevent future auto-deletion.

We already knew Amazon could reach into Kindles and disable text-to-speech functionality, but now comes word that Amazon invoked the kill switch on copies of "1984" and "Animal Farm" (irony unintended, but appreciated):

... apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people's Kindles and credited their accounts for the price.

Remote wipes / kill switches are fine if they're controlled by the consumer (e.g. MobileMe's remote iPhone wipe is an excellent feature), but this manufacturer overlord business is foolishness. If I buy a product -- digital or otherwise -- you do not have the right to dispatch your deletion ninjas on my file on my device.

In a mild reprimand of New York Times social media editor Jennifer Preston's inactivity on Twitter, Mashable's Stan Schroeder hits on a key difference between the beat coverage of traditional journalism and the passion coverage seen on the Web:

... you can't write for a gadget blog if the thought of a new iPhone doesn't send shivers down your spine, you can't write about cars if you couldn't care less what hunk of metal you're driving, and you cannot be a social media editor if you're not interested in sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

There are no pre-requisites of passion or even interest for traditional reporters assigned to beats, but on the Web, where opinion and energy are the norm, a half-hearted attempt simply won't do. You've got to want it.

I learned this a long time ago when I dabbled in coverage I only found mildly interesting. I executed on the assignments and I cared in a basic sense, but the creativity and desire were absent. I eventually concluded that, in situations where I have a choice and extenuating circumstances aren't paramount, dispassionate work isn't worth the effort. That's why I could never bring myself to cash in with an SEO-friendly blog about mortgages or finance. Higher CPC revenue couldn't eclipse my indifference.

Jon Bernstein wisely questions the relationship between current economic woes and the advertising slump, particularly as it applies to knee-jerk revenue ideas:

Maybe this rush to find other ways to monetise will be a passing phase and when the economy picks up so too will online advertising revenues.

After all, what's the alternative?

There's no doubt the economy gathered advertising in its arms as it dropped off the cliff, but are we now witnessing advertising's inevitable destruction, or are old-guard publishers mixing all their worries about the Internet, free distribution, audience dispersion and reduced ad margins into a cocktail of fear? My bet is that a rebound in digital advertising -- something that feels inevitable as confidence grows -- will quell talk of paywalls, subscriptions and other counterintuitive schemes.

Via Mindy McAdams' Twitter stream

Maira Kalman elevates storytelling with a beautiful collection of illustrations, photos, thoughts and history, all describing a trip she took to Monticello. The mix of simple imagery, breezy artistry and a nonchalant attention to detail is, to me, deeply impressive. This is excellent stuff.