Google social-tech evangelist leaving company
Kevin Marks, formerly of Google.
(Credit: Kevin Marks)Google's Kevin Marks, one of the most public faces of the company's work on social-networking technology, has decided to leave Google.
Marks informed the world of his news Monday morning in a blog post, later telling Techcrunch, "I am due for a small company phase." He was one of the primary voices evangelizing Google's work on technologies such as OpenSocial and a promoter of several open standards related to social networking, such as OpenAuth and OpenID.
Marks just might be one of those engineers that Google has grown worried about retaining in recent months, launching an algorithm designed to identify employees likely to leave and starting a program designed to get new ideas into the heads of senior management faster than before. He had been with Google since 2007, with previous stints at Technorati and Apple.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
