Posted: 12 Oct 2011 08:06 AM PDT

Congratulations graduate!

Google's Page Speed Online tool has been moved from what's left of Google Labs to make the cut and move into the real world. This means a few things.

1. Speed of your site is a serious consideration for website owners. Is it the highest priority? Probably not the highest but from a user experience point of view Google wants you to speed things up. Actually so do users so this works pretty well.

2. Google looks more transparent which doesn't hurt in the world they currently live in which is having the government looking for a reason to get more involved with Google's way of doing search. I don't know about you but just the thought of this creates nausea and more than a fair bit of "WTH?!".

But I digress. The tool is ridiculously easy to use. Drop in your URL to be tested in the box seen below.

Get your results, well, pretty fast.

So go have fun finding out how much work is going to be created when your site has a lower speed score than the competition!

Image Credit JAMCO Design / Shutterstock

Search Share: Google Up, Yahoo Down, Microsoft Flat

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 05:35 AM PDT

comScore has released their search engine market share reports for September of 2011. The real story seems to be that across every measurement, Yahoo lost share but Microsoft stayed flat while Google inched up. Are Yahoo users seeing something in Yahoo (search is powered by Bing) that they don't like thus moving to Google? Do regular Joe searchers now realize that Yahoo results are Bing results and they see no reason to jump from one brand to the next when the results are the same (I doubt it but it had to be asked).

Here are two of the measures from comScore. First explicit core search share

Next is total core search share

While this doesn't show much movement overall it is worth keeping an eye on the relationship between where Yahoo search users go to when they leave. Have we reached the point where Microsoft (Bing) has siphoned off all they can get from Yahoo search users? Will their "growth" no longer come from Yahoo defectors but have to come from (gulp!) another engine?

What's your take on the search engine wars? Is the idea of taking Google in front of the government the only way to chip away at their lead? If so, do you agree with that method?

Facebook Gets Friend.ly

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 03:54 AM PDT

Social Q&A company Friend.ly has been acquired by Facebook. Hooray?

Friend.ly refers to their app as a conversation starter that will help you find new friends and meaningful relationships on Facebook. The app is designed to offer you a list of thought provoking questions that you can either answer or simply approve of answers given by others. Friend.ly suggests that if you say someone's answer is cool, they'll probably say you're cool and there's no telling where it will go from there.

According to All Things Digital, the two-year old company had an impressive growth spurt earlier this year but the numbers don't tell the whole story. Like many Facebook apps, there's a big difference between those that signup and those that actively use it on a regular basis.

Even if it's not a top app, it has potential, which is why Facebook plunked down the cash to buy them. There's something about a meaningless question that makes us all want to stop what we're doing and write in an answer. Forget the meaning of life. How about the meaning of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida? The more trivial the question, the more answers you'll get.

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The company blog says that Friend.ly will continue to operate as is, even though the Friend.ly team will be focusing on creating new projects for Facebook. Which is code for, everything is going to change and soon.

Right now, there's no significant marketing value in the app since it doesn't allow you to participate as a Facebook Page and it doesn't look like you can't write your own questions. But it will be interesting to see what the company comes up with now that they have Facebook's backing and blessing.

Groupon Counters No Longer Add Up

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 03:48 AM PDT

As human beings, we like to follow the crowd. That's part of the reason group deal sites works as well as they do. If only five people jump on a deal, then maybe it's not as good as it sounds. But if 200 people buy in — well, then you know you're in on something great.

Groupon wants you to feel the satisfaction of knowing you're part of the popular crowd, but they've decided to be less specific about it.

Going forward, Groupon deals will no longer show the exact number of deals purchased. The wording on tipped deals has been changed to "Over INSERT NUMBER bought" and even that's not necessarily true.

According to Groupon's blog, they've been testing a variety of ways of covering the numbers including including this gem.

"Instead of showing the exact number of Groupons purchased, the counter is now reduced by a random percentage – sometimes 0.5%, sometimes 19.5%, or anything in between."

I'll be honest here and say, I don't even know what that means.

Why are they doing this? Groupon says that people have been using the number of deals sold in order to estimate their revenue and they don't like it. They say it's equal to someone trying to guess your weight all day. Really? There are people who troll through all of the Groupon city pages simply to pull the numbers so they can estimate the company's sales? Surely there are better things they could be doing with their time?

The best part of Groupon's explanation is this line: "We're blogging about it to be transparent about our lack of transparency."

Kudos to them for being honest.

Twitter Wins Trademark Battle Over Word Tweet

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 12:34 PM PDT

Tweety bird should have seen this one coming. According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter is about to gain possession of the word "Tweet" and birds all over the world are angry :-) .

Twitter has been trying to trademark the word for a while now but has consistently been blocked by the US Patent and Trademark Office because two other companies had already applied for variations of the term.

Back in September, Twitter filed a lawsuit against Twittad, a company that arranges for people to get paid to Tweet. But instead of a long drawn out battle, it turned into a short fight. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the two companies have come to an agreement. Twitter will withdraw their lawsuit and Twittad will give them the trademark on the word "Tweet."

Though neither party will admit it, we imagine there was a large cash sum that accompanied the offer from Twitter.

With this whole thing sounding as silly as it does we can only imagine what could be next.

Tweety, speaking from his office at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, said that he never took it from that puddy tat, and he's not going to take it from Twitter. He plans to file suit against Twitter, as soon as he's done raking Angry Birds through the legal coals.

I tawt I taw a chance to fleece someone. I did! I did!

We wish him luck.