WebProWorld

In a recent article, we discussed ways the local search landscape is changing. Add another one to the list, because now Google is sending brick and mortar businesses decals to put on their windows, with barcodes that people can scan with their phones to bring up business listings on Google.

At this point, Twitter may not gain much from the backing of any more "celebrity" members; we’ve already seen lots of politicians, media personalities, and Hollywood types join up.  Just the same, it seems noteworthy that Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, apparently established an account last night.

Facebook has formed a Safety Advisory Board with five safety organizations from North America and Europe in an effort to better protect its 350 million global users.

The five organizations on the board are Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, WiredSafety, Childnet International and The Family Online Safety Institute.

Yahoo has launched a tool it’s calling "Ad Interest Manager" in beta. The tool is designed to provide transparency and let Yahoo users make decisions about how they want their information to be exposed to interest-based advertising from the Yahoo Ad Network.

Social networks such as Facebook are being used to express and communicate genuine personality, instead of an exaggerated identity, according to new research from psychologist Sam Gosling at The University of Texas at Austin.

"I was surprised by the findings because the widely held assumption is that people are using their profiles to promote an enhanced impression of themselves," said Gosling of the more than 700 million people worldwide who have online profiles.

With blogs, online news publications, aggregators, and social media, there is a lot of information being produced at a more rapid pace than ever before. User-generated content is flowing onto the web at a ridiculous pace. That comes in the form of blog posts, articles, status updates, tweets, forums, wikis, etc. That doesn’t even take into account personal messages in email, private messages, text messages, and on and on and on.

Some people tend to shrug their shoulders when presented with options.  Others know exactly what they want.  For this second set – or at least the members of the second set who work for advertising agencies – a new Video Targeting tool from YouTube promises to be of great use.

Opera is reporting that usage of its Opera Mini mobile browser has jumped 11% in just a month, around the world. In addition, they say data transfers have gained 16%.

Google Dictionary is in the spotlight because Google is now using it for its "definition" link on search results pages for word searches. Previously Google pointed users to Answers.com.

About three months ago, Google Russia lost its CTO to Mail.ru as she became the company’s deputy CTO.  Now, it looks like a reunion of sorts may take place, as reports indicate that Google Russia and Mail.ru have reached a search deal.