I love my Moleskine. I use it daily to keep track of lots of randomness that I seldom refer to again, but are nonetheless things I want to pluck from my brain and save.

If you don’t know what Moleskine notebooks are, they’re those little black books (now available in multiple styles and sizes, because Americans like choices) that you’ll see artists, writers, tech geeks and other crafty folk carrying around to coffee shops. Or, more likely, you’ll see folks like me using them – not so famous or interesting artists, writers or tech geeks. Dare I say, wannabes.

As hailed in the brochure included with the thing when you buy it – tucked away in the neat little pocket in back (a pocket that’s perfect for storing your used Europass ticket stubs or other proofs of your worldly travels) – Hemingway and other artsy types sat scribbling in them at every cafe in post-WWI Europe, recording the great works of our generation while still unknown and untouched by fame. Exactly what modern-day Moleskiners want to do – when they have time between trips to Target and Starbucks.

I thought that my treasured Moleskine and my chosen profession of interwebs interlocutor were relatively unconnectable, exactly the way I liked it. Our world is so filled with technology advancing every pursuit at breakneck speed that a bit of real-world interaction keeps you grounded (old cars, bikes, fly-fishing, Moleskines are the ying to my techno-yang).

But alas, Moleskine (the company, not my notebook) is asking me to go beyond paper. It’s clear that Moleskine is no longer a tiny, niche product; but rather, it’s a big brand with venture capital behind them and a “circle R” behind every usage of the name. Those marketers have recruited a social media posse to reach out and take its community online, creating all kinds of “synergies” and “positive brand experiences” for Moleskine lovers.

I usually dig these efforts – because that’s what I do. But this one seems at odds with the brand, ironically asking users to you join the community so that they can upload and share scans of cool things recorded in their private Moleskines. It’s also a bit narcissistic to take all this time to journal away in your book, with the intention of posting it publicly. That may just tap into the dirty little truth that the unstated intention of the modern Moleskinista is to create something that just might give them fame when their scribblings are found years from now – whereas current readers might just see them as…well, doodles.

Would Hemingway do this? Of course not. But then again, he probably wouldn’t have a Facebook or a computer for that matter.

In any case, give it a shot. Share your Moleskine scribbles by creating a “MyMoleskine” account.

The announcement at CES this week that Yahoo TV will power the widgets for Samsung, Sony and Vizio (Toshiba was earlier announcement) moves the TV and Web experience closer to convergence. I have to admit, i’ve always doubted the theory that there would eventually be convergence, even when my work life centered around pursuing it (disclosure: I worked on a deal between Samsung and uclick to provide comics for Aquos TVs). It seemed a stretch not too long ago, when the Web was primarily populated by sites located at unique URL’s (remember the failure of WebTV?). No one wants to navigate large menus of stuff with a TV remote that, for the most part, doesn’t matter to you.

But, take all those services and content and reduce it to small, hyper-functional applications that a user can pick and choose to fit their needs and suddenly a path to convergence emerges. It works for the iPhone (I remember pundits saying, “who’d want to mix up a phone with email and an MP3 Player?!”), which is looking more and more like a small direct TV device that can use to voice-message or text to communicate with friends and family.

At this point, i just want a TV app for my iphone and a 50″ flatscreen monitor with an iphone doc. Add a remote to control the iphone and we can call convergence done – TV, Web, Phone, IM and SMS.

Read more about the announcement here: Yahoo unveils partners for Web TV push at CES | Technology | Internet | Reuters.

TechCrunch is reporting that sites registered with Google’s Friend Connect will soon be able to include AdSense-like advertising onto their sites and in Open Social widgets. Apparently Friend Connect is referred to as FriendSense within the Google mothership.

The question for me is whether this means there will be an integration of Adsense into the Open Social/Friend Connect platforms, not just making it possible. Our Gadget on iGoogle has been ad enabled (AdSense or any third party ad) since launch a couple of months ago and the Open Social version will be as well. The real advantage I see will be the segmentation opportunities that the integration may bring based upon that user’s specific data. This would give AdSense the edge over other ad networks delivered within the same gadget. At the moment, Casale outperforms Adsense on our gadgets, but the eCPM’s are very close.

On GoComics, we have our own registration system and budding niche social network. We also have a growing userbase on our Open Social gadget. It seems that we should connect them, and remove some of the barriers for registration and start churning those users around in our comics network mixer. But wait, what about all of those users on Facebook? Do they only play on Facebook or do they have Friend Connect/ Open Social accounts too?

This recent article in AdAge presents a nice outline to kick off some discussion for 2009.

I’ll post other links as I find them.