WebProWorld

Never mind swine flu – it may in fact be time to start watching out for flying oinkers.  Social networking archrivals Facebook and MySpace are discussing the idea of sharing content, according to people at the highest levels of both organizations.

Online town hall meetings with a member of congress has significant and positive impact on a voter’s view of a lawmaker and increases the likelihood that they will become more politically engaged, according to research form the Congressional Management Foundation.

The experimental feature that Marissa Mayer announced last week is becoming available today for everyone to try.  Google Social Search promises to help users "find more relevant public content from your broader social circle."
The premise is simple: people value their acquaintances’ content more than that of random strangers.  So Google Social Search brings content from your social circle to the forefront, perhaps showing a friend’s or coworker’s take on a restaurant rather than (or in addition to) whatever the local newspaper reviewer had to say.

The U.S. Census Bureau has launched a new website as part of its effort to communicate with Americans about the 2010 census.

The website called 2010CENSUS.GOV features an animated marquee that allows users to click on images representative of the population and view video clips aimed at easing fears about the census and encourage participation.

"2010CENSUS.GOV puts the census in the hands of the public," said U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert M. Groves.

With Halloween looming in the very near future one wonders if the ‘reconnect’ feature’s algorithm doesn’t have a little bit of ‘All Hallow’s Eve’ mischief in it or is programmed for the macabre. Either way it is managing to upset more than a few Facebook users with suggestions that border on the, well, bizarre.

As announced last month, Facebook is finally ending its unpopular advertising program, Beacon, through a court settlement. The class action lawsuit settlement only needed judicial approval to make it final. And last week we they got that preliminary approval.

Welcome to part two of this three part series on SEO tools and resources. In the last article we discussed the variety of Firefox extensions used for SEO. In this article we’ll discuss some of the free and affordable tools you can use to better your organic optimization efforts. To make sure that when I say affordable I mean for virtually everyone I’m going to set the bar at $100/yr or ownership. Admittedly, we use tools that cost more than this but many of those tools will be out of some people’s price range.
 

Every SEO uses different tools and resources. Some tools are paid, some are free and some are internally developed tools that we use for ourselves and our clients – but we all use them. Very often I get asked what tools people should use if they’re looking to optimize their own sites and what resources they should use to keep up with the latest going’s on. While telling people how to optimize their own sites and what the tools we use isn’t generally the best of business practices – I just can’t help myself.

If you’ve had a friend or loved-one die during the Facebook age, you may or may not have known that Facebook will memorialize their profile if you let them know about it. Facebook’s Max Kelly reminded us of the fact in a post on the company’s blog today.

In about two weeks’ time, the two-year anniversary of YouTube Germany’s launch will roll around.  The site’s set to receive more legal documents than birthday presents, however, as it’s facing some formal complaints.
The distribution of copyrighted material is at issue, of course, and so is the (lack of) distribution of royalties.  What sets this situation a little bit apart from other ones is that a number of individuals -rather than just a money-grubbing organization or two – are involved.