PayPal Mobile 2.0 [iTunes link] appeared in the App Store on March 15 with an array of new features, including the ability to “bump” money to friends. PayPal worked with the developers from Bump Technologies, the company that makes the Bump iPhone app, to make the process of sending money faster and more fun.

PayPal Mobile 2.0 for iPhone is just part of PayPal’s growing focus on mobile technologies. Last November, PayPal launched the PayPal X Developer Network to help developers integrate the company’s backend technology with mobile and web applications. Some of the early fruits of the program were on display at DEMO last month, with the announcement of the first winners of the PayPal X Developer Challenge.

In addition to the new iPhone app for consumers, PayPal also has an iPhone software development kit (SDK) in private beta, which allows developers to plug into the PayPal ecosystem with their own apps. PayPal also has plans to bring an SDK to the Android and BlackBerry platforms.

Have you used the new PayPal iPhone app? What do you think?

Many personal tools have business applicability. For instance,Facebook enables you to connect and share with the people in your life. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with others. People can add friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. However, in a Business 2.0 context large organizations can connect all of their employees, or members, with Facebook. Some are finding an added advantage of using an internal, secure version of Facebook.. This has helped organizations to dramatically increase their internal networking and collaboration. Ask yourself, “Could we use Facebook, or our own internal version, to get people to collaborate at a higher level?”

Twitter is a bit different, as a micro-blogging service that allows friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of short, quick answers using no more than 140 characters per message. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or co-workers. Users can receive updates via the Twitter website or other social networking sights such as Facebook. Many young people use Twitter for answering the question: What are you doing? Business users could change that question to: What problem are you trying to solve? Several companies have used this as a fast way to solve problems. Hotels, airlines, and airports are using Twitter to pitch services, travel updates, and respond to travelers needs. Business users should ask themselves, “Could we use Twitter to solve problems faster with our organization or our customers?”

Wikipedia has been around for a while. A free online encyclopedia, anyone can use Wikipedia to find information on virtually any topic. Anyone can edit the content as well. A large manufacturing company with engineers in locations around the world increased problem solving and collaboration by creating an internal, secure version of Wikipedia for sharing information on parts and service offerings as well as repair and maintenance instructions. Retailers and suppliers could create a version of Wikipedia to foster education and training as well as enhanced information sharing.
YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view, and share video clips. Businesses are posting humorous commercial videos to generate interest in their products with great success. The more entertaining it is, the more people watch it. Business partners could create a YouTube like channel for the purpose of educating and training.

Digg is a social news website made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the internet, by submitting and accessing links and stories. Voting stories thumbs up or a thumb down is the site’s cornerstone function, respectively called digging and burying. Many organizations have found this to be a good way to track the most interesting advances in technology or the most useful business news. Large organizations can create their own internal version for sharing what employees consider the most useful information. Similarly, Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. It uses a non-hierarchical classification system in which users can tag each of their bookmarks with freely chosen index terms. Business users can share their most useful websites with co-workers or business partners. If a customer purchases a product, sellers could share relevant bookmarks that keep the customer coming back for more information and hopefully more products.

Still, there are some tools built for exclusively Business 2.0 purpose, such a Wiki-a collaborative web page or collection of web pages designed to enable anyone to create a quick web page that allows visitors to search the Wiki’s content and edit the content in real time, as well as view updates since their last visit. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. On a moderated Wiki, owners review comments before additions to the main body of the topic. Additional features include calendar sharing, live AV conferencing, RSS feeds, and more.

LinkedIn is a business-oriented professional networking website for exchanging information, ideas, and opportunities. There are over 35 million registered users spanning 170 industries actively networking with each other. For example, large insurance companies use LinkedIn to foster networking with their independent sales representatives. HR professionals from all over the world could use LinkedIn to share best practices. Could you use LinkedIn to expand your organizational network for enhanced knowledge sharing?

Cloud Computing is a sometimes confusing term referring to, where some or all of the storage, software, IT processes, and data center facilities you use can exist on your provider’s server, which is maintained and cared for by your provider, giving you 24/7 access from any device anywhere. The cost of upgrading hardware and software, maintenance, and associated IT labor costs can be dramatically reduced or eliminated. Currently, the ideal organization would be any size company that’s facing big investments in computing and communications infrastructure. For example, Amazon.com can give you an entire e-commerce back end. Software as a Service (SaaS) such as SalesForce.com has a CRM package, SciQuest has a spend management package, and Google, Microsoft and others have a suite of offerings. It’s possible your business could use cloud computing and SaaS to streamline your IT needs.

By reframing the use of social networking technology, companies can increase communication, collaboration, problem solving, and competitive advantage with little cost. Remember, many of these tools are free or nearly free, making them accessible to even the smallest of businesses. Therefore, the sooner you embrace Business 2.0 and put it to work for you, the faster you can penetrate new markets and win the lion’s share of business.

Google has started coming down hard on affiliate advertisers using PPC. Lets understand why? It’s because (in the eyes of google) affiliates offer little or no value on their sites. The users experience is degraded and therefore Google is degraded. Something that is against the Google philosophy obviously.

And it’s not only limited to affiliates, some niche’s such as “Acai berry”, “Weight loss” and Home Business are also being heavily scrutinized and slapped at slightest lack of credibility.

Now this is an interesting twist from the “Big G”, as the initial success PPC also known as Adwords was largely brought about by affiliate marketers and this would still form a large portion of Goggle’s revenue today. However Google is prepared to ‘clean up’ these areas even at its own cost, because its mission first and foremost, is to serve relevant valuable content to it users.

What does this mean if PPC is your only, primary or secondary forms of marketing and Google no longer permits your ads? Your traffic is going down, W A Y D O W N !

Consider this little statement (a favorite of mine) .

“Adwords are temporary, Website Search Engine Optimization is forever.”

Bottom-line If you want to protect your targeted website traffic and ultimately your livelihood from the whims of Google you need to know how the search engines work and how to take advantage of them with good set of Internet Search Engine Optimization techniques.

You need to have your site(s) optimized for organic traffic, not even Google can control all of that. Whilst it may be able to exert a significant influence on this it’s true, but not at the flick of the switch like it can with its own Adwords program.

The knowledge of any policy adjustment is regard to organic search will circulate the community in advance and it will also take time to take effect. So if your site’s prepared and setup for SEO you will be able to adjust where required, well in advance – creating a nice competitive advantage over those that aren’t. If it’s not, well… don’t say I didn’t warn you!

We are pleased to announce that WordPress has won the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. WordPress has won this Award for the first time in the past four years, earning itself a place in the Hall of Fame category for the Award next year.

While WordPress occupied the top spot in the Overall Award, the other two extremely popular finalists MODx and SilverStripe tied for the first runner up position. After Pixie and Pligg sharing a similar result for the Most Promising CMS category, this is the second time the combined opinion of judges and the public was evenly divided for two CMSes, awarding each of them a first runner up spot.

Here’s the distribution of the prize fund for this category:

WordPress: $4,000

MODx: $2,000

SilverStripe: $2,000

This final announcement marks the end of the 2009 Open Source CMS Award. The Award continued to be a great success with over 12,000 nominations and over 23,000 votes received across its five categories.

In addition to winning in the Overall Best Open Source CMS category, WordPress was named first runner-up in the Best Open Source PHP CMS category. This is significant because wordpress was not even in the top 5 last year, and now wordpress is #2, ahead of Joomla! As is stated on the Award site, “WordPress made its way into the top five for the first time. The fact that it was outranked by Drupal by a very slight margin indicates how popular it has become with users as well as developers over the past year.”

Every day thousands of new people are embracing WordPress to power not just their blogs but entire sites and communities without compromising on usability or scalability (as would be the case with a legacy CMS). Every member of the WordPress community, from core developer to beginning user, should be proud to be part of this momentum: congratulations to us all!

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although TechCrunch—which first reported that Google had purchased the startup—put the purchase price at $30 million. Gizmo5 had raised $6 million in a round of funding three years ago.

In September, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company was once again on the acquisition trail. He obviously was not kidding. After a streak of eleven months without a single purchase, Google has now bought up four companies in the last four months: video compression firm On2, “captcha” startup reCaptcha, mobile ad network adMob, and Gizmo5.

So, why might Google want Gizmo5? TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington suggested earlier this week that Google made the buy because Gizmo5’s VoIP service allows voice call connections between computers and real phones, something Google Talk doesn’t. The acquisition and Gizmo5 integration could also serve as a tidy way to transform Google Voice and Google Talk into a unified VoIP communications service—and true Skype rival.

Facebook Lite Beta

There’s also no feed filters included in this more simple version. While I’m not sure about how this new version appears on mobile devices, there are numerous features which are absent from this new version. One interesting aspect of the Lite version of the homepage is that Facebook opted to display “People You May Know” over friends’ birthdays. While it doesn’t appear that Facebook will be promoting this new service domestically for now, it’s available for anybody that wants to use it.

For those that don’t like a ton of features, Facebook Lite will be a much welcomed alternative. Another interesting aspect is the simpler version of Facebook Pages, which now have no custom tabs. Instead, Pages are limited to photos, videos, the wall, and fans. For now, Facebook Lite is in beta but we currently have access and there is a promotional ad that says we can send out two beta invites. Hopefully they’ll increase the level of invites in the near future.

Are you able to access Facebook Lite now?

Facebook Lite

Visit Facebook Lite page

DePaul University is now offering a course in its journalism department called “Digital Editing: From Breaking News to Tweets.” According to WBBM 770, “It will focus on how to confirm and evaluate reports by citizen journalists, particularly in cases of breaking news. The class will also help students learn how to sort through information on the Web for story tips and context.”

According to the university, the course, taught by DePaul alumnus and Chicago Tribune “digital intern” Craig Kanalley, “is believed to be the first college-level journalism course focused solely on Twitter and its applications.”

Frivolous? Twitter may not be the second coming that its proponents often profess it to be, but the site has definitely become the de facto medium by which most big news is broken. Eagle-eyed Twitter followers are often the first to hear about current events as they’re happening. Of course, Twitter is also legendary for spreading misinformation and lots of it. Just ask Jeff Goldblum, who is not dead.

And despite Twitter’s notorious unreliability, many over-eager reporters are more than happy to repeat anything published there as fact. Maybe a class on how to use a little common sense in evaluating a tweet isn’t such a bad idea.

Still, I for one can’t wait to see what the final exam questions are like. #twitterfinal

The focus is on tweets containing links, with the goal of giving you a window into content being shared on your watched topics by people you don’t necessarily follow. Next to each tweet is a short preview from the link it contains, giving you a bit of insight about whether or not it’s worth following the link.

tweetmixx.com

A service from the folks at social news site Mixx , TweetMixx lets you log in with your Twitter account via OAuth and add a set of your interests to follow on Twitter. It’s more intelligent than simply a saved search though — it’s unclear what algorithm they use to identify what falls into “tech” or “gaming” for example, but so far the results seem quite accurate for the topics we’ve followed.

You can also get a view of the links being shared by just the people you follow (and a toggle to view all tweets regardless of whether or not they contain links), with the same link preview service displayed in the middle column. Like Facebook and Twitter Search behave, as new updates come in the site will notify you with a message at the top saying “There are more tweets to be read!” and a link to refresh the page.

In the far right column is a textbox for updating your own Twitter status which is standard throughout the “your interests” and “your friends” sections, creating a nice all-in-one dashboard for finding relevant content and sending it back out to your network if you wish.

Top Content and Trends on Twitter

Have you had a chance to check out TweetMixx? Do you think following topics is a valuable approach to lowering the Twitter signal to noise ratio? Let us know in the comments.

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From German

http://www.wamadu.de

http://www.frazr.com

http://www.faybl.de/

http://www.partnr.de/

http://www.texteln.de/

http://www.familyone.de/

http://www.1you.de

http://www.sloggen.de/

http://www.slogr.de/

http://www.dasbeep.de/

http://www.baluuu.net/

http://mambler.de

http://www.brabblr.com/

http://www.dukudu.de/

http://www.plappadu.com/

http://www.pownce.com

http://mambler.net

http://boomloop.de

http://www.yoyolog.de

http://www.pacmee.com

http://www.was-geht-bei-dir.de

From Japan

http://timelog.jp

http://mogo2.jp

http://haru.fm/

http://www.nowa.jp/

http://www.feecle.jp/

http://gree.jp/

http://chat.doovii.com/

http://tsublog.excite.co.jp/

http://wassr.jp

http://piyo.fc2.com/

http://frepa.jp/

http://weime.jp

http://cotobaco.com/

http://himatch.net/

http://c2.koukokukaigisitsu.com/

http://iddy.jp/

http://www.excite.co.jp/

http://aboutme.jp

http://h.hatena.com/

http://imachu.jp/

http://offy.jp/

From China

http://komoo.cn/

http://byuu.com

http://jiwai.de/

http://www.fanfou.com

http://wulog.com

http://buboo.tw/

http://www.ingbus.com

http://fish.sh

http://www.laigula.com

http://www.zuosa.com

http://ilaodao.cn

http://www.9fav.com/

http://vikooo.com/

http://www.taotao.com/

http://www.mangfou.com

http://laodao8.com

http://5uie.com/

http://17xw.com

http://www.redekuai.com

http://www.ingzzz.com

http://shuo.in/

http://www.ilaosao.cn/

http://ledao.in/

http://www.missui.com

http://www.shuoxiu.com/

http://www.jigugu.cn/

http://www.iliaoke.com

http://www.shetou.com

http://www.digu.com/

http://www.fexion.com/

Chinese Twitter-like sites:

http://weazone.com/

http://popwu.com/

http://www.v2ex.com/ing

http://bulo.hjenglish.com/ing

http://www.atnote.com/

http://www.rizuo.com/

http://www.life365.com/

http://video.qq.com

http://www.qianne.cn

http://ondream.org

http://www.qooqer.com

http://www.qianne.cn/

http://www.3user.com

http://show.msn.com.cn/

http://www.9fav.com/

http://phottor.com/

http://goofy2.com

From English,Italiano and Francais speaking countries

http://www.hictu.com (English,Italiano,Francais)

From Spain

http://www.twilove.com

http://www.trikir.com/

http://khaces.com/

http://fritsi.com/

http://miniblog.20minutos.es

From Poland

http://www.robisz.pl/

http://moblo.pl/

http://pinger.pl/

http://blip.pl/

http://plom.pl/

http://flaker.pl/

From France

http://noumba.net/

http://www.iratemyday.com/

http://oseflol.com/

http://www.blogitexpress.com/

From Korea

http://me2day.net

http://playtalk.net

From USA

http://www.bebo.com/

http://skittr.com/

http://www.moodmill.com/

From Dutch

http://www.kwid.nl/

http://numpa.nl

http://zezz.nl

http://babl.nl/

http://qmsg.nl/

from Indian

http://webaroo.com/

http://snockles.com/

http://www.kwippy.com

http://www.gtalkbots.com

from Hungary

http://pzn.csacsa.hu/

http://www.chatter.hu/

http://tothbenedek.hu/turultwitter/

http://www.mitcsinalsz.hu/

http://mitcsinalsz.hu/

http://turulcsirip.hu/

http://turulcsirip.hu

from Russian

http://www.mmm-tasty.ru

http://smspr.ru/

from Bulgaria

http://edno23.com/

http://www.clix.bg/

http://www.160.bg/

from Indonesia

http://www.kronologger.com

from Rumania

http://www.cirip.ro

http://www.logoree.ro

from Portuguese

http://www.gozub.com

from Turkey

http://nolyo.com/

from Mexico

http://mexicodiario.com

From Singapore

http://tiish.com/

From Czech

http://drbz.cz/

From Lithuania

http://vibe.lt/

http://blake.lt/

and more……

http://www.jaiku.com/

http://www.moodmill.com

http://blogthot.com

http://pulse.xanga.com/

http://www.blogthot.com

http://yelago.com

http://www.viwio.com/

http://www.jaxblog.com/

http://yappd.com/

http://fritsi.com/

http://www.blabto.com/

http://www.wowwao.com

http://zaxino.com

http://niimo.com

http://www.zannel.com

http://noumba.mcm.net/

http://www.emotionr.com

http://www.reise.tk/

http://miniblog.20minutos.es/

http://www.intuuch.com

http://twoggle.com/

http://www.zwitti.com/

http://www.yurbo.com

http://www.sweetter.net/

http://www.bloggino.com

http://www.chittr.com

http://boobik.com

http://foodlily.com

http://www.mobicue.com

http://www.blogynet.com/

http://www.snappler.com/

http://www.yonkly.com

http://www.fyreball.com/

http://yootag.com/

http://microblogr.com/

http://cromple.com/

http://watwet.com/

http://www.anywr.com/

http://www.plurk.com/

http://adocu.com/

http://twoorl.com/

http://cliqck.com/

http://talkaboutadate.com/

http://www.yousaytoo.com/

http://www.peyghamak.com

http://www.rememble.com

http://www.talk.org

http://zobzee.com/

http://www.enqando.com/

http://bynotes.com/

http://www.ingamenow.com/

http://blip.fm/

http://fazkut.com

http://www.mytalk.at

http://dandelife.com

http://jisko.net

http://identi.ca/

http://rejaw.com/

http://plerb.com/

http://www.koornk.com

http://www.bimbl.com

http://fidj.it/

http://gospelr.com

https://www.yammer.com

http://bloggy.se/

http://edmodo.com/

http://xmensaje.com

http://www.twingr.com

http://www.shoutem.com/

http://www.minixr.com/

http://twoorl.com/

http://miniblog.limao.com.br/

http://schmownce.com

http://telog.com.br

http://fillus.in

http://www.yazzem.com

http://bleibonline.com/

http://mozillaca.com/

http://zajet.com

Other sites that use Laconica (alphabetical order):

http://analyti.cc/

http://www.aoortic.com/

http://army.twit.tv/

http://auttr.com/

http://babbeln.ch/

http://bartle.doomicile.de/

http://beat.typo3.org/

http://bleeper.de/

http://cupmycoffee.com/

http://decafbad.com/

http://foaf2foaf.org/

http://www.gargargar.info/

http://georgology.com/

http://gnii.org/

http://grupr.us/

http://hap.pi.ly/

http://io3.ch/

http://www.it-fabrik.at/

http://janene.de/

http://kvitre.no/

http://korvmedbrod.se/

http://laconica.kamleitner.com/

http://laconica.linuxinfusion.com/

http://laconica.superuser.com.au/

http://laconica.svenbilt.com/

http://lareta.net/

http://linuxninjas.tv/

http://linuxoutlaws.net/

http://lallus.net/

http://mb.0nl1ne.at/

http://mb.byzero.de/

http://microdeo.de/

http://micro.ciarang.com/

http://micro.bherville.com/

http://micro.dajobe.org/

http://micro.fit-factor.net/

http://micro.weloveit.info/

http://micro.notsopc.com/

http://micro.orient-lodge.com/

http://mikro.mensch.coop/

http://mikroblog.cz/

http://www.myrote.com/

http://naijapulse.com/

http://netppl.de/

http://ngeSHOUT.com/

http://ningo.de/

http://nylsd.com/mublog/

http://onair.kapook.com/

http://omniblab.dogphilosophy.net/

http://plasr.com/

http://portvangelists.org/

http://www.sclero.it/

http://smid.gen.nz/

http://sourceforge.net/

http://tweet.ie/

http://ublog.davromaniak.eu/

http://waka.me/

http://wikyl.com/

http://wowtweet.net/

http://www.wiewatenwaar.nl/

http://www.yakru.com/

http://zeitgeisty.net/

http://zwitscher.at/

http://p2p.at

http://www.tribehq.com/

http://jive.ly

http://www.diggshout.com

http://www.gmicroblog.com/

Twitter-like sites

http://www.shopalize.com/

http://gatsb.com/

http://www.radar.net/

http://www.yelp.com/

http://www.meshly.com

http://www.kyte.tv

http://www.phonetagit.net/tstart.aspx

http://www.spinvox.com/

http://panraven.com/

http://www.letmeparty.com/

http://www.mysay.com

http://jott.com/

http://hahlo.com

http://www.nowthen.com

http://www.gluenow.com/

http://www.feedxs.com

http://loopnote.com

http://plusmo.com

http://www.tiggdo.com/

http://www.seesmic.com/

http://zaptxt.com

http://www.blogarithm.com/

http://immedi.at/

http://www.anothr.com

http://www.yatam.com

http://kotonoha.cc

http://bravetrail.com/

http://www.groovr.com

http://personalinfocloud.com/

http://atara.cc/

http://www.frengo.com

http://www.cubevoice.com/

http://www.beemood.com/

http://www.poodz.com/

http://www.funpiper.com

http://beta.vooeasy.com/

http://www.controlc.com

http://www.twitxr.com/

http://www.blogozavr.com/

http://hakatter.com/

http://www.thingfo.com

http://placeshout.com/

http://www.poodz.com/

http://liveshouts.com/

http://keepdream.com

http://foodfeed.us/

http://www.podobo.com/

http://www.ventbox.com/

http://floort.com/

http://www.suggerus.com/

http://www.wazzupnow.com/

http://help.com/

http://www.kazivu.com

http://www.fuzz.com/blip

http://www.locify.com/

http://sweetter.net/

http://brightkite.com/

http://tapioka.ca/

http://ticketapp.com/

http://p0pulist.com/

http://moonri.se/

http://www.mojipage.com/

http://www.globme.com/

http://www.mixin.com/

http://www.blippr.com/

http://www.kweech.com/

http://www.twitita.com/

http://phandy.com

http://flokio.com/

http://www.vakow.com/

https://www.presentlyapp.com/

http://www.qaiku.com/

http://onhandblog.com/

http://www.fmylife.com/

http://www.mylifeisg.com/

http://mylifeisaverage.com/

http://www.dipity.com/

http://diary.com/

multiple posting

http://hellotxt.com/

http://www.presencr.com/

http://www.brabblr.com/

http://twitku.com/

http://www.feedlr.com

http://ping.fm

http://shoutoo.com/

http://vibstars.com/

http://www.syncbus.net/

http://updating.me/

http://pikchur.com/

http://pingvine.com/

open source microbloging services

http://www.revou.com/

http://www.folkstr.com/

http://www.gelatocms.com/

http://chyrp.net/

http://twoorl.com/ an open source Twitter clone,Get the source code

http://smob.sioc-project.org/

http://sweetter.net/

http://laconi.ca/

http://jisko.net

http://identi.ca

Well, we’ve come to the source to get the answers to those questions We are LIVE from Facebook Headquarters in Palo Alto, California with the Facebook team as they launch Facebook Usernames into the wild. But while we await the main event, here are some things you should know about Facebook Usernames to assure a smooth experience:

Well, because even though search is a pretty amazing thing, the current state of [wikipop]search engines[/wikipop] has some equally amazing statistics.

So far in 2009, there are four and a half websites created EVERY SECOND as the web continues to expand. While more searchable information is cool, nearly half of all searches don’t result in the answer that people are seeking.

At the same time, the way the world searches is changing. You want more than just information. You want knowledge that leads to action.

The truth is you’ve evolved. It’s time search caught up.

So we had an idea. Start over. And we did.

We took a new approach to go beyond search to build what we call a decision engine. With a powerful set of intuitive tools on top of a world class search service, Bing will help you make smarter, faster decisions. We included features that deliver the best results, presented in a more organized way to simplify key tasks and help you make important decisions faster.

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* Added Humsurfer easy submit button
* Added Surfider easy submit button
* Added More Pligg Sites

And I’ve added, amongst other ones, the following social network buttons:

* Humsurfer
* Surfider

Download PostIT Now

note , Its just a Updated Version of Sociable Plugin

First Day of Spring

Hidden behind the inconspicuous link “Show options…” on the Google search engine result pages, lie a large number of new tools for refining search results.

Some two years ago Google (GOOG) introduced Universal Search, which essentially means that the search results combine various types of content: web, images, video, news and blogs.

The good thing about this is that inexperienced searchers may, at once glance, see results of all these types.

Universal Search also fulfills the Google credo of keeping search engine result pages simple and uncluttered.

However, it does make it harder for searchers to focus their search on one type of information.

Search options

If you click on the “Show options” link (which you find right under the Google logo on the English language versions of Google), Google will add a left hand column to the result page.

It looks a little bit like the one Ask had before they decided to become more like Google.

The column presents four sections with tools for refining your search. The first bullet point on each section is the default choice for a regular search.

When you click on one of the options, Google will filter the results accordingly, adding new options to the menu according to what kind of information you are looking for. If you click on video, Google will — for instance — add options for different durations.

Types of sources

• All results
• Video
  (restricts results to videos indexed by Google Video Search, including YouTube)
• Forums
  (restricts results to information found in discussion forums)
• Reviews
  (restricts results to pages that Google believe contain reviews of products, sites or services. These are most likely identified by Google finding the word “review” on the page.

Note that Google does not include options for News or Images, probably because these are options listed at the very top of the pages.

Why Google has singled out Videos for the option list, in spite of the fact that Videos are listed at the top of the page as well is unclear. The results are not identical!

Moreover, we find it baffling that Blogs are not included as a separate options. To restrict results to blogs you have to click on the “more” link at the top of the page, which is far from intuitive.

This section also presents the most glaring omission, namely real time search from social media.

We would have liked to see an option that mixed results from Twitter and other microblogs with the latest blog search results, which is why we believe Google acquiring Twitter would be a good thing.

Restrict result by time

The next section focuses on the timeline:

• Any time
  (i.e. default search results)
• Recent results
  (restricts results to information found in the last few hours)
• Past 24 hours
• Past week
• Past year

Bullet point two and three could be considered some kind of news search function, but while the Google News Search only includes results from hand picked sites, these results seem to give you data from various Google indexes, at least when you have selected “All results” in section 1.

More info on each hit

The next section is basically an option that lets you decide how Google is presenting the results. That being said, the ranking of results may be different for the different options.

• Standard results
  (gives you a mix of results from different Google indexes in the traditional way: headline, snippet and URL)
• Images from the page
  (presents one or two images from each web page listed)
• More text
  (is identical to Standard results, but adds longer snippets from the page)

Especially the last option might be helpful, as it might save you from visiting a large number of web pages in order to identify the most relevant ones.

We would love to have thumbnail viwe of the search results as an option as well.

Refining the search query

The final section gives you ways of exploring the web by helping you rephrase the query.

• Standard view
• Related searches
  (adds a list of alternative search queries at the top)
• Wonder Wheel
  (adds a “wheel” with subtopics at the end of the spokes. Click on one of the subtopics and Google will narrow your search accordingly)
• Timeline
  (lets you restrict your search result to a certain publication date or a date in history. A search for “Chinese Art” may, for instance, gives you pages about art from 3000BC, while you may narrow a search for “search engine marketing” to the year of 2004.)

All in all we think Google has done great job with developing these options.

Rich snippets

Google has also added so called “Rich Snippets” to some search results.

As Google puts it:

“Rich Snippets provide summary information, including important page-specific attributes, to help you quickly identify the relevance of your results.”

The rich snippets appear, like the old fashioned text snippets, below the title of the search result and may include review information, prices, information that helps you distinguish between people and more.

To display Rich Snippets, Google looks for markup formats (microformats and RDFa) that you can add to your own web pages. The Google Blog has more on how you can do that.

Google Squared

Google is also planning another new alternative way of presenting search results called Google Squared.

Google Squared will present results in a spreadsheet format that can be edited and saved. In other words: You may use the search results as you would a database.