Companies that need a little help with AdWords may now find it easier to receive some thanks to Google.  Only the help won’t come directly from Google, as the search giant’s in fact launched a search engine for Google Advertising Professionals.

It’s not necessary to look far for an explanation of this development.  On the new Google Professionals Search homepage, a blurb suggests that would-be users "[f]ind a Google certified professional or company to help you manage your AdWords campaign."

Then there are fields related to locations, budgets, and the type of assistance that’s needed.  (Note: it looks like Google Professionals Search will give U.S.-only results for as long as it’s in beta.)  Google spits out dozens or hundreds of suggestions when everything’s said and done.

All in all, this is a bit reminiscent of Facebook’s recent attempt to connect companies and celebrities with preferred developers.  It could stir up some arguments about implied endorsements and rankings, too.

Still, since the move should help floundering AdWords users, find new customers for Google Advertising Professionals, and probably increase the use of AdWords, too, it looks like a smart launch on Google’s part.  Hat tip goes to Tim Cohn.

Related Articles:

> Google Begins "Next Chapter" In Search Advertising

> Google Announces Details Of New Product Listing Ads

> Google Gives AdWords Users New Alert Options

Two consumer groups Monday asked the Federal Trade Commission to block Google’s $750 million deal to acquire mobile advertising firm, AdMob, on anti-trust grounds.

In a joint letter to the FTC, Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) said Google is simply buying its way to dominance in the mobile advertising market, reducing competition to the detriment of consumers.

"The mobile sector is the next frontier of the digital revolution. Without vigorous competition and strong privacy guarantees this vital and growing segment of the online economy will be stifled," wrote John M. Simpson, consumer advocate at Consumer Watchdog and CDD Executive Director Jeffery A. Chester.

"Consumers will face higher prices, less innovation and fewer choices. The FTC should conduct the appropriate investigation, block the proposed Google/AdMob deal, and also address the privacy issues."

Last week Google said the FTC had made a second request for additional information about the deal, a signal the commission is closely examining the proposal.

In addition to the anti-trust issues, the letter from the two non-partisan, non-profit groups, said a combined Google/AdMob raises privacy concerns. Both AdMob and Google gather large amounts of data about consumers’ online behavior, including their location.

"Permitting the expansion of mobile advertising through the combination of these two market leaders without requiring privacy guarantees poses a serious threat to consumers," the letter said.

Related Articles:

> Google Provides An Update On The AdMob Acquistion

> Mobile Advertising Guidelines Get An Update

> Best Buy Now Installing Google Mobile Apps On Smartphones

Believe it or not, the company that became IBM was founded in 1896, and at the moment, IBM has a market cap of around $172 billion.  So it’s not going anywhere.  And IBM’s CEO – who has been with the organization since 1973 – doesn’t think Google will become nearly the behemoth some people have predicted.

Sam Palmisano recently discussed a number of subjects in a wide-ranging interview with Leslie P. Norton.  He devoted little time to the search giant, however, rejecting the idea that Google’s tech will ever act as any sort of global backbone or even threaten his company.

Palmisano asked, "Is Google going to become the computing platform for the enterprise?  Is a bank going to run itself on Google?  Is an airline going to run itself on Google?  Is IBM going to run its supply chain on Google?"

He also said, "Is Bharti Wireless going to run themselves on Google?  Is the banking system of China that we’ve built going to be on Google?  Is the Russian Central Bank [network] that we’re building going to be on Google?"

IBM’s CEO then provided a very simple answer to all of the questions: "No."

Of course, there are those who believe differently, and Google itself might be among them.  Sherri Davidoff noticed not too long ago that an ad encouraging people to "Learn about Google at Work" bragged, "Over 60% of the U.S. state governments have gone Google."

It may also be worth noting that Google’s market cap of about $196 billion is about 14 percent larger than IBM’s.

Still, it’s hard to imagine how Palmisano could have made his position on the subject of Google’s potential dominance any clearer.

Related Articles:

> Google Provides An Update On The AdMob Acquisition

> Google’s Year In Custom Search

> Chrome Ad Campaign Nets Positive Results

As we did last year, we have gone back through our archives and picked out some of the most noteworthy social media items we have covered since 2009 began. Now that 2009 is almost over, it was worth going  back and seeing what all has happened.

If you come across missing items, please feel free to share them in the comments.

January

In January, Twitter announced that it hired Kevin Thau as Director of Mobile Business Development, and that he would be working on a variety of different fronts as Twitter’s "first official business development guru." LinkedIn introduced a new Polls feature, and launched a bookmarklet for IE. MySpace Music made deals with Nettwerk Music Group, INgrooves, IRIS Distribution, and RoyaltyShare to bolster its catalog by hundreds of thousands of songs. YouTube expanded its e-commerce platform and started letting people delete their own comments. Digg launched the "People who Dugg this also Dugg" feature.

February

In February, LinkedIn launched a set of HR Tools and launched a German version. MySpace launched a mobile redesign, and Digg updated its algorithm. Facebook introduced polling ads, changed its terms of service, made some design changes to profile pages for businesses, opened its corporate blog to comments, introduced the comments box widget, and launched the "like" button. Google introduced the Social Bar and launched Friend Connect integration with Blogger.

March

In March, Twitter brought its search box to most people’s Twitter home page, and changed the "replies" tab to the "@username" tab. Twitter also adjusted the title tags for member pages. Where they used to go "Twitter / username" they would now go "User’s Real Name (username) on Twitter". Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis offered to buy a spot on Twitter’s Suggested Users list.

Facebook launched a redesign, started including updates from Pages in the news feed, changed pages to operate like profiles, and changed the status box to the publisher box. They launched the ability to let users chat within apps, added ad spots to Pages, relaunched Facebook Marketplace to be powered by online classified service Oodle, launched Facebook Connect for the iPhone and iPod Touch, launched some new ad targeting options, and enabled Page owners to let people sign up to become fans via text message.

Google began implementing Portable Contacts, launched the Friend Connect API, blended user-generated content into search results on Google Maps, made Google Reader more social with commenting, allowed for richer Gmail messages, and started its own Twitter accounts.

YouTube changed the name of some video sections, LinkedIn did some redesigning of its own and enhanced Direct Ads, and MySpace was stamped on a credit card.

April

Google launched an event gadget for Google Friend Connect, the Digg-like "What’s Popular" gadget, and the "Get Answers" gadget for Friend Connect. Google also gave profiles vanity URLS and started putting profiles into search results.

Facebook made it easier to organize friends, opened its stream up to third-party developers, added electronic signatures for public pages, worked with the blind on accessibility, began making app recommendations, and readied its next steps in governance.

Twitter started integrating search into its interface more, and CNN showed that you can buy/sell a Twitter account. Scientists created a brain-Twitter interface.

StumbleUpon broke away from eBay and enhanced its "web stumbling." Digg launched the controversial DiggBar. Reddit launched a video site, AOL launched SocialThing, and Yahoo shifted its focus to social altogether. YouTube launched the beta version of YouTube RealTime. MySpace got some new management.

May

In May, Yahoo 360 went away, Digg dropped shouting, LinkedIn upped usability on the Action Bar, the Wall Street Journal gave its employees social media rules, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau released its social advertising best practices and social media ad metrics.

Google introduced Google Wave, launched a recommendation gadget for Friend Connect, launched comment translation for Friend Connect, and added more social features to Google Reader. Twitter launched full two-way SMS support for Telus, Virgin Moible, and Koodo Mobile, making it available on every major operator in Canda. Twitter also changed how users view replies.

Iran lifted its ban on Facebook, and Facebook rolled out real-time streams, announced an app directory overhaul, added pop-up notifications, and linked accounts with Gmail. YouTube launched a new way for brands to engage audiences, and began letting you log-in with your Google account.

June

In June, Facebook began offering keyword suggestions for advertisers, simplified the inbox, began letting users get friends’ updates via text message, and launched the Live Stream Box.

YouTube launched a page for movie trailers, FriendFeed added file sharing, LinkedIn got a new CEO and updated its search tool for recruiting, MySpace cut a big chunk of its staff, StumbleUpon launched a URL shortener, and Digg started showing Digg Ads.

July

In July, Google launched its Facebook page, MySpace launched its email service, and LinkedIn introduced custom profiles for companies. YouTube launched its 3D experiment, doubled the size limit of uploads, and gave users the ability to share YouTube Insights stats.

A Twitter documentary was announced, and Twitter itself gave businesses a new resource and started making hashtags link. Facebook addressed privacy and photo use for ads, gave businesses a way to increase their Facebook fans, and added the ability to create events from the publisher.

August

In August, Facebook was readying a new ads manager, made subtle changes to its design, announced plans for privacy improvement, started integrating directly with Twitter, launched its own real-time search, implemented restrictions on sponsored status updates, updated open stream APIs, acquired FriendFeed, and began letting developers sell physical merchandise for virtual currency.

Twitter quietly took a step toward security, and announced plans to launch a feature that makes the service location-aware. Izea launched "Sponsored Tweets," and Tweetmeme brought analytics to retweeting.

Google reader got more social features, YouTube placed more emphasis on search and launched its own AdSense-like promoted videos. Delicious showed off new features for sharing, search, and its homepage. StumbleUpon made some big changes to its toolbar.

September

In September, Google turned the whole web into an exclusive social network with SideWiki. Yahoo launched a new contacts API, Yahoo profiles became social media profiles, and the company launched the Twitter-like Yahoo Meme in English. Microsoft added MySpace activity updates to Windows Live, and Bing announced it was readying sharing features for search results.

A sick poll was discovered on and removed from Facebook, and Facebook announced its translation plans, and that it had roughly the same amount of people as the entire U.S. population. Facebook also added tagging from status updates, and launched Facebook Lite in the U.S. and India.

MySpace Music launched in Australia, and Myspace users started being able to sync updates with Twitter. LinkedIn made profile organization easier, a record label was launched for YouTube stars, and YouTube began readying a friend-finder feature.

Pizza Hut and other brands used Twitter to help feed the hungry, Digg made changes to its nofollow policy, the Washington Post’s leaked social media policy faced criticism, and real-time search engines Collecta and OneRiot launched APIs.

October

In October, Bing scored deals with Twitter and Facebook, while Google scored one with Twitter. Mozilla shared its plans for integrating social media and email into one inbox, and Twitter partnered with its first charity. LinkedIn announced that it surpassed 50 million users.

MySpace introduced new music features, StumbleUpon launched a new design with more of a search focus, YouTube got real-time search for comments, and the only known video footage of Anne Frank appeared on YouTube.

Facebook confirmed testing of a new design, made share buttons more useful, gave groups walls, tried harder to get page owners to verify, and presented new obstacles for application developers. They also launched the Create Application API.

November

In November, Google eased the retrieval of SideWiki entries for entire sites, Google Wave got a feature for following, and Google launched some new features for Google Friend Connect.

Facebook tested new design changes, and continued work on privacy changes. Facebook and Twitter both made their way into dictionaries and onto video game consoles.  Twitter made geotagging tweets possible, and talked about plans which would make its suggested usres list more like Twellow’s. Twitter also changed launched Twitter Lists, gave apps access to people search, rolled out the controversial retweet feature, and changed "What are you doing?" to "What’s Happening?".

LinkedIn opened up its platform to developers, Yahoo began showing tweets for news results, MySpace launched new music charts, Salesforce announced its "Facebook for the enterprise," YouTube connected news outlets with citizen reporters, PayPal launched new APIs to take over mobile and social apps, Microsoft launched a big redesign of MSN, Opera launched Opera Unite, Digg launched Digg Trends.

December

In December, Google, Facebook, and YouTube all got new URL shorteners. Twitter continued expansion into new languages, and announced plans for business features. Google launched real-time search in the search results.

LinkedIn began testing a new design, and launched faceted search, Facebook began giving translators awards, adjusted privacy controls, and formed a board for online safety, MySpace launched new APIs, upgraded users’ mobile experience, and acquired iMeem, Bing launched new maps with apps, and Yahoo deepened its integration with Facebook. Digg released a new version of its API. Also, the new FTC guidelines went into effect.

Wrapping Up

Of course, there has been much more that has happened over the year in social media. I think it might be close to impossible to cover every single thing. Were there things that happened that you think should have been included here? Add them in the comments. That will only serve to make the piece more comprehensive for future readers.

Google has issued a statement regarding the company’s pending acquisition of AdMob. Google’s intent to acquire the company was announced back in early November. The deal was for $750 million in stock.

Since then, the Federal Trade Commission has vowed to closely scrutinize the deal. Google had this to say today:

As we said when we announced the deal, we don’t see any regulatory issues with this deal, because the rapidly growing mobile advertising space is highly competitive with more than a dozen mobile ad networks.

While this means we won’t be closing right away, we’re confident that the FTC will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile advertising space will remain highly competitive after this deal closes. And we’ll be working closely and cooperatively with them as they continue their review.

Upon announcement Google highlighted these things about the deal:

- The deal will bring new innovation and competition to mobile advertising, and will lead to more effective tools for creating, serving, and analyzing emerging mobile ads formats.

- This deal will benefit developers, publishers, and advertisers by improving the performance of mobile advertising, and will provide users with more free or low-cost mobile apps.

- The mobile advertising space will remain highly competitive, with more than a dozen mobile ad networks. The deal is similar to mobile advertising acquisitions that AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo have made in the past two years

"Mobile advertising has enormous potential as a marketing medium and while this industry is still in the early stages of development, AdMob has already made exceptional progress in a very short time," said Susan Wojcicki, Vice President of Product Management at Google upon the announcement.

Google says since the announcement, they have seen a quite positive reaction from advertisers and publishers, who are "enthusiastic" about the possibilities the deal might bring. It’s hard to say how long the regulatory process will take, but we’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

Related Articles:

> Usage Of Mobile Web And Apps Doubles In 2 Years

> Mobile Advertising Guidelines Get An Update

> Best Buy Now Installing Google Mobile Apps On Smartphones

Google has shared the top retail searches for the 2009 holiday season. These results are based on the company’s Insights for Search tool.

"Using Google Insights for Search, we can see that the hottest toys over the last seven days include stalwarts like Pikachu and Legos, as well as newcomers, such as the Nerf Marshmellow Shooter and the surprise hit of the holiday season, a blanket-with-sleeves known as the Snuggie," says Eric Lopez of the Google Retail Team.

"In the shopping category, we’ve seen Black Friday reach new heights, toping the rising search term list over the last 30 days as consumers continue to seek out the best prices," adds Lopez. "Consumers too continue to turn to familiar, top retailers such as Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon and Macy’s."

Google has been encouraging retailers to start looking ahead to the rest of the Winter season with regards to what people will be searching for: things like Valentine’s Day gifts, Prom dresses, wedding planning, ski equipment, etc.

On a positive note for retailers, new research from Market Force Info finds that a good percentage of consumers intend to "splurge" on at least one item over the next few months.
 

Related Articles:

> Site Usability Issues Matter During the Holidays

> Google Earmarks $20M For Charities As Holiday Gift To Everyone

> Going Home For The Holidays? Google Wants To Tag Along

Online retail websites experienced significant growth in November as the holiday season officially kicked off, according to a new report from comScore.

Among the top gaining retail sub-categories were toys, consumer electronics, and department stores, each growing more than 30 percent compared to October. Toys sites attracted 27.4 million Americans during the month, representing a 33-percent increase from the previous month. Toysrus led the category with more than 14.8 million visitors (up 82%), ranking as the fourth top-gaining property in November. The LEGO Group landed in the second spot in the toys category wit 3.8 million visitors (up12%), followed by Disney Shopping with 2.6 million (up29%) and AmericanGirl.com with 1.9 million (up 44%).

"November marks the official start of the holiday shopping season as millions of Americans search for gifts and deals both online and in stores," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix.

"With nearly 4 out of 5 Americans online visiting a retail site during November, the Internet clearly represents an increasingly important channel for retailers during the holiday season and beyond."

Consumer electronics sites grew to 52.8 million visitors during the month, a 32 percent increase over October, led by Best Buy with nearly 25 million visitors and Walmart Electronics with 9.9 million visitors (up 139%). Radio Shack ranked third with 5.1 million visitors, followed closely by eBay Electronics with 4.8 million visitors (up 12 %) and Buy.com with 4.4 million visitors (up 11%).

Online department stores saw a 33 percent gain, reaching nearly 81 million unique visitors in November. Walmart led the category with 46.2 million visitors (up 62%), followed by Target with 38.8 million (up 43%), Sears with more than 19 million (up 36%), JCPenney with 15.4 million (up 34%), and Macy’s with 12.7 million (up 38%).

Online shoppers flocked to coupon sites, making it the #3 gaining category in November, growing 33 percent to 37.5 million visitors. Coupons, Inc. landed in the top spot with more than 8 million visitors (up 9%), followed by EverSave.com with 5.3 million visitors and RetailMeNot with 5.1 million (up43%). BlackFriday.Info experienced a huge surge in activity, increasing more than 1,000 percent to 5 million visitors. GottaDeal.com saw traffic increase 955 percent to 1.8 million.

The month of November saw online spending increase 10 percent versus a year ago to reach nearly $12.3 billion in sales. comScore noted that the comparison is against a very weak November 2008, due to the economic crisis. Black Friday hit $595 million in online sales, an 11 percent increase over Black Friday 2008. Cyber Monday reached $887 million in online spending, up 5 percent compared to a year ago.

Google sites led the U.S. search market in November with 65.6 percent of the search queries conducted, up slightly from October. Yahoo trailed with 17.5 percent share (down 0.5 points from October), and Microsoft at 10.3 percent (an increase of 0.4 points from October). Ask grabbed 3.8 percent of the search market, followed by AOL with 2.8 percent.

Related Articles:

>Cyber Monday Deals Attract Online Shoppers

>Walmart Wins Thanksgiving, Amazon Wins Black Friday

>Online Retailers See Strong Cyber Monday Sales

The National Venture Capital Association released its annual survey of VC predicitons for next year this morning and it doesn’t look good for small startup companies. Though most VCs said they expected more money to be invested next year, most predicted a contraction in the number of firms available to invest, a decrease in seed and early-stage funding and an emphasis on large sums invested in more established companies seeking further growth.

That’s not good for early-stage innovation, something the Association acknowledges in its published report.

Sponsor

The survey was based on responses from more than 325 venture capitalists across the United States. 45 percent of respondents predicting growth in Early and Seed stage investments.

“Of all the predictions put forth this year, a collective lack of enthusiasm for seed and early stage investing is the most concerning,” said Mark Heesen, president of the NVCA. “The weak exit market combined with proposed tax policy which would discourage long term investment puts tremendous pressure on our industry to move towards later stage investing. Yet, seed and early stage companies represent a pipeline that must be supported if our country is to continue building new and innovative companies. We need the environment to improve for these early stage investors.”

If you’re one of those cynics that thinks the VC industry funds too many crazy pointless ideas, then perhaps this reads like good news. If you’re a small startup hoping to break into the Silicon Valley insider’s club that is VC funding, then this probably isn’t good news for you. And if you’re an early adopter of new technologies, hungry to see all kinds of innovation change the world and indifferent to the fortunes of investors – then this risk aversion probably isn’t good news for you either.

Discuss

YouTube posted its year in review stats this morning and Susan Boyle’s singing performance was listed as the most popular video of the year. That video was, in fact, almost four times as popular as numbers two through five – videos including David After the Dentist, that insipid wedding dance and the trailer for the vampire movie New Moon.

With more than 120 million views, Boyle’s video demonstrates a lot of things about YouTube, now one of the world’s largest search engines. It’s an inspiring video that challenges expectations about gender and age with a story of personal triumph. It’s also something that traditional media pulled off better than user generated content probably could have.

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The video has had embedding turned off on YouTube but it’s really quite compelling. It’s embarrassing to see how people talk down to an older woman, whose appearance falls outside of television’s definition of beauty. It’s moving to see her triumph in the performance. It’s bittersweet to consider that the television franchise souped up the video of her performance, turning a woman worthy of respect into a freak because of her beautiful, youthful voice and profiting handsomely while she went on to have psychological issues because of the resulting public pressure.

That’s what people on the Internet watched this year, though. That and a small child speaking under the influence of dental medication.

Discuss

In one of ReadWriteWeb’s longest-running traditions, every year we review the top Internet companies and their impact over the past 12 months. Today we’re announcing the 6th annual Best BigCo, a.k.a. big Internet company. Next week we’ll announce Best LittleCo and Most Promising Company.

In 2008 the Best BigCo went to Apple, due largely to the iPhone and App Store. Facebook won in 2007, Google in 2006 and 2004, and Yahoo! in 2005. Who will be Best BigCo of 2009? Will Apple be the first company to win it two years running? Will Google win the honor for a 3rd year? How about Facebook, which grew significantly this year. Let’s find out…

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Best BigCo of 2009

The ReadWriteWeb team has chosen Google as our Best BigCo of 2009! Google last won it in 2006 and this is the third time we’ve honored the Mountain View company.

Google is without question the predominant Internet company of our time; in large part because it continues to innovate and stay one step ahead of its competition.

In our top 100 products list for 2009, seven Google products made the cut:

• Android platform
• Google App Engine
• Google Apps
• Google Chrome
• Google Maps
• Google Search Options and Rich Snippets
• Google Voice

And we didn’t even include Google Wave, its biggest launch of the year. We think Wave has a lot of potential, but it’s clearly at the experimental stage still.

The web browser Chrome was probably the Google product that had the biggest impact this year. Launched in late 2008, Chrome still only holds a small share of the browser market and doesn’t offer a stable version for OSX or Linux yet. However it has already changed the browser market. As we wrote in our Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2009 review, Chrome’s relentless focus on speed helped to reignite the browser wars, and is changing the way developers and Google’s competitors think about browsers.

Chrome is also the basis for Google’s upcoming Chrome OS, designed for netbooks – a growing fad in computers. So expect to see a lot more of Chrome in 2010.

Runners-Up: Apple, Facebook

It’s been another good year for Apple and its iPhone platform. The iPhone is the leading smartphone in the market and the App Store now features over 100,000 applications. This year, as we mentioned in our Top 10 Web Platforms of 2009 review, Apple extended the SDK with version 3.0 of the iPhone OS. The updates included better support for 3D gaming, augmented reality apps, easier access to maps, in-app purchases and support for push notifications.

With these kinds of improvements, we expect Apple to continue its success on the mobile Web in 2010 – despite increasing competition from Google’s Android platform.

Facebook had a stellar year too, passing the 300 million active user mark in September. It also continued to add features to the site, ranging from vanity URLs to a new sharing widget and a focus on real-time updates of its users’ news streams.

Facebook’s user base is increasingly diverse, and it is now clearly the number one social network in the world, leaving MySpace in its dust. What’s more, Facebook’s user base is now bigger than the population of all but three countries in the world.

Next Page: Honorable Mentions & Also Rans

Morgan Stanley has released a couple of bulky documents about the mobile Internet: ‘The Mobile Internet Report,’ a 424-page report which explores eight major themes; and ‘The Mobile Internet Report Key Themes,’ a 659-slide presentation that drills down on thoughts covered in the report. We’ve embedded both documents below.

Perhaps the most remarkable statement in the report is that the Mobile Internet market will be "at least 2x size of Desktop Internet," which Morgan Stanley bases on analysis comparing Internet users with mobile subscribers.

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The report starts out by saying that Apple’s iPhone/iTouch/iTunes ecosystem "may prove to be the fastest ramping and most disruptive technology product / service launch the world
has ever seen." It goes on to state that "a handful of incumbents (like Apple, Google, Amazon.com and Skype) appear especially well positioned for mobile changes."

Growth in the Mobile Internet is being driven by 3G adoption and the increasing popularity of smartphones, of which the iPhone is the leader in terms of Web traffic. Morgan Stanley predicts that smartphones "will out-ship the global notebook + netbook market in 2010E and out-ship the global PC market (notebook + netbook + desktop) by 2012E."

The firm has always been bullish on mobile Internet, as Mary Meeker’s Web 2.0 conference presentations over the years show. See also our analysis of Meeker’s 2009 Web 2.0 presentation.

The reports are far too big to summarize here, so we recommend you read them below – or download from Morgan Stanley’s website.

See also: Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: Mobile Web & Augmented Reality and Top 10 Mobile Web Products of 2009

Via Scribd

Via Scribd

Discuss

If all your interests and skills were reduced to a scannable set of tags and thumbnails, what would your ego look like?

That’s the question startup YouTego attempts to answer with its Web-based app that asks users to spend a few minutes in navel-gazing self-definition to create a snappy page of terms and related images. It’s simple, social and actually quite fun once you get the hang of it.

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The thing that impressed us about YouTego is that it’s part of a growing trend of simple self-tagging systems such as Glue that allow users to claim mastery of, or affinity for, concepts, objects, groups, places and people. With relatively little profile information, users are able to identify themselves within the context of the universe around them.

In YouTego, the UI isn’t quite as intuitive yet, but the results are pretty slick. Users have the option of telling the app a little bit about themselves. Then they can identify “tegos” (tags for the ego, according to the site) to show what they can do, where they work, where they go/went to school, what they love and more.

For the visual component, the user is asked to select a thumbnail for each tego. These images are found through a lightbox-type feature in the app, and can come from any number of sources, including Google search or a specific Flickr account.

Once tegos are created and elaborated upon through expressions and impressions, the user can be matched to others on YouTego or other users’ content, and then can star other users’ tegos and add TegoMates or friends.

It would be cool to see the service integrated with Facebook and Twitter, which it doesn’t appear to do currently. And the app is very young and has its bugs. For example, it doesn’t play well with Chrome at all.

Still, it’s gathering a lot of good data about related tags, tags related to images and how people connect over expressions of their own personalities.

Discuss

Our mission at ReadWriteWeb is to explore the latest Web technology products and trends. We’re fortunate to have a great group of sponsors who support this goal. So, once a week, we write a post about them — about who they are, what they do, and what they’ve been up to lately. Pay them a visit or tweet them a “Thank you” (see link below each sponsor) to show your appreciation for their sponsorship of this site. Or you can follow all of our sponsors at once using our Twitter list.

Interested in being a ReadWriteWeb sponsor? ReadWriteWeb is one of the most popular blogs in the world and is read by a sophisticated audience of thought leaders and decision-makers. We have several innovative new features in our sponsor packages that we’d love to tell you about. Email our COO for all the details.

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Ready to learn more about the smart companies that support this site you love to read? Read on…

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Rackspace: Cloud computing experts |
Aplus.net: Web hosting |
Crowd Science: Demographic data |
Codero: Managed hosting |
Groupsite: Social collaboration |
Faroo: Real-time search |
MyDomain.com: Domain registrar |
litl: Webbook |
Conduit: Customized components |
Web 3.0 Conference in Santa Clara|
Media Temple and SixApart: Our hosts and blogging software

Crowd Science

Crowd Science gives online publishers reports on the demographics and attitudes of their audience. We at ReadWriteWeb have signed up to this new service, because demographic data is something we’ve struggled to get in the past. It’s important for any online business to know their audience, so Crowd Science is a welcome addition to the stats armory that most of us in the Internet biz use.

Sign up to get demographic data from Crowd Science.

Thank Crowd Science on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Mashery

Mashery is a platform for Web services, allowing companies to manage their APIs using Mashery’s expertise. At the “Business of APIs” conference, Mashery CEO Oren Michels explained to the audience that while APIs are a technology, their use is a business decision. He went on to say that Mashery has helped customers such as WhitePages.com, Thumbplay, Compete.com, and Calais. Check out the white paper “Five steps to scaling your business development using Web services” to discover how you can use APIs for your business.

You can find out more about APIs and their business use at www.mashery.com.

Thank Mashery on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Rackspace

Rackspace is one of the world’s largest hosting providers, but it’s also competing in the cloud computing arena. Rackspace Cloud Hosting offers a suite of services which combines a scalable web and application hosting platform (Cloud Sites) with a cloud storage solution (Cloud Files) and on demand server instances (Cloud Servers). The addition of SliceHost a popular cloud computing and hosting provider and JungleDisk, a favorite online backup service that supports Cloud files, makes the Rackspace Cloud a powerful cloud hosting solution.

Explore Rackspace‘s hosting and cloud computing solutions.

Thank Rackspace on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Aplus.net

Aplus.net offers a variety of services relating to Web hosting, including shared hosting, Web design, marketing and online advertising services, search engine optimization, e-commerce solutions, and domain registration.

You can register for Aplus.net here.

Thank Aplus.net on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Codero

Codero is a former division of Aplus.net. Codero became a separate entity focusing on dedicated and managed hosting solutions after the acquisition of Aplus.net’s shared hosting, web design, and domain registration services by Hostopia. “Codero” stands for collaboration, engagement, focus, reliability, and flexibility. It means a more secure computing experience for email, shopping, and data transfer.

Codero is a dedicated and managed hosting company focused on the real needs of today’s small and mid-sized businesses. The company believes in supporting robust websites, storefronts and online communities that will grow and adapt.

Groupsite

Groupsite.com is a self-serve platform for creating social collaboration communities called Groupsites. Groupsites combine the most useful features of social networking and collaboration tools enabling groups large and small to communicate, share and network. Groupsites are currently in use by more than 30,000 groups as user communities, intranets, member communities, team workgroups and social networks. Each Groupsite can be branded and customized and includes discussion forums, calendaring, file sharing, member profiles (professional or social), activity feeds and full-featured sub-groups among other group-centric features.

Sign up and create a free Groupsite in minutes.

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Faroo

Faroo is a peer-to-peer Web search engine that has no centralized index and crawler. Each web page visited by users is automatically included into the distributed index. Search results are ranked based on distributed usage statistics of Web pages visited by Faroo users, which leads to more democratic, user-centric ranking.

Faroo protects the privacy of users by encrypting search queries and anonymizing its distributed architecture. The decentralized peer-to-peer architecture scales with Internet growth and requires no infrastructure or operational cost.

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MyDomain.com

MyDomain is a leading ICANN-accredited provider of domain name registration and online business solutions. For over 10 years, MyDomain has offered low-cost domain names and free domain services including complete DNS management. Today, sub-$10 domains without the constant upsells you’ll find at some competitors are the norm at MyDomain. MyDomain’s complete range of solutions include Web hosting and VPS hosting, email, SSL Certificates and more.

Web 3.0 Conference

The emergence of a new era of technologies, collectively known as Web 3.0, provides a strategically significant opportunity to make media and business run better. Also known as the semantic web or linked data, web 3.0 is a web in which data is linked to allow for more meaningful, actionable insight to be extracted. At the conference, we will explore how companies are using these technologies today, and should be using them tomorrow, for significant bottom line impact in areas like marketing, corporate information management, publishing, customer service, and personal productivity.

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litl

Give the all new litl webbook this holiday season and avoid family help desk duties in the new year.

• Operating System as a Service. Litl handles all upgrades, viruses, and backups for free for the life of the machine.
• Intuitive web UI without menus, icons, folders.
• No hard drive – storage/backup not user task.
• Best photo frame. Connected, aggregates flickr, shutterfly, 178 degree viewing angle.
• “A stone-cold brilliant design” – Fast Company.

Learn how litl’s fresh design and modern OS makes computing simple.

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Conduit

The Conduit on-demand Marketing Platform enables web publishers of all sizes to create and publish a customized, branded components. The platform is easy-to-use and very powerful. Anything you can put on a website can also be deployed through these components and offered to your users wherever they are on the web including: applications, content, toolbars, gadgets, feeds, social media tools, personal account data, games, services, links, desktop alerts, and more.

Our platform is a complete marketing solution that supports the entire deployment lifecycle from creation and promotion to analytics for measuring your success and optimizing your offering. To learn more about how you can Conduit your website, go to www.conduit.com.

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Our Gracious Hosts and Blogging Software

ReadWriteWeb is hosted by Media Temple and is published using SixApart’s Movable Type.

If you’ve ever wondered what ReadWriteWeb looks like behind the scenes, or if you’ve never seen the Movable Type publishing interface – that’s it on the left. We recently upgraded to MT 4.23, which is the latest version. We got onto this release as soon as it was available – in fact our contacts at Six Apart emailed the actual code to us before it was up on their website. That’s customer service for you!

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Discuss

The U.S. Supreme Court is planning to hear a case that will determine if an employer may view those text messages you post from your mobile.

The ruling could have huge implications for workers and the use of applications in the enterprise.

Sponsor

The case stems from a decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that ruled the city of Ontario, California did not have the right to view text messages between city police officers.

Privacy in the workplace is always a touchy subject. In this case, Judge Kim Wardlaw said the police officers have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Corporations pretty much have access to your email. Companies argue that liability falls on its shoulders when it comes to employee communications. It is the business that is required to archive emails and fall in line with regulatory requirements. But employees don’t want to feel like they are working in some kind of corporate police state.

What are the implications of a Supreme Court ruling such as this? We are seeing a rush of enterprise applications that will fuel communications in the enterprise to a fiery roar. Application that use real-time streams may actually help matters as the dialogue is pretty much transparent. But when it comes to hosted applications, the issues are at best murky, and at worst a minefield of problems.

According to news reports a decision is expected by next June.

Discuss