A good example of a pointless app that uses social networking features to go viral, and to get people to actually pay to use it.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/26/what-is-the-deal-with-this-stupid-lighter-iphone-app/

http://www.google.com/friendconnect/

This is a pretty cool opportunity for website owners who don’t have the budget or the technical expertise to build social features into their site. It’s a free gadget/widget based way to implement social features such as rating systems, user community, comments, photo sharing, etc onto a site. It helps a site grow virally by allowing you to invite friends from other social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. As with other open source projects, independent developers are contributing new social gadgets all the time, so the library is growing.

It’s still in beta invite only mode, but I’d expect to see heavy use of these gadgets in the near future.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s Google’s 10th anniversary site. http://www.google.com/tenthbirthday

Even if you’re a google-hater there’s some interesting history in there.

http://cli.gs/Hm12bV

Some interesting facts in here. I was kind of surprised that Yahoo Mail is the most popular mobile website in the US and that the Motorola Razrs (curse them) are the most owned devices among mobile internet users in the US.

Pretty cool list: http://www.redux.com/playlist/15_most_artistically_awesome_advertisements

The Growth Partnership may be interested in checking out Yammer. Yammer functions like Twitter but it’s geared towards businesses. Any company can create it’s own Yammer network for free, and they also offer an inexpensive paid version that gives a business/firm admin controls. It’s getting some pretty decent reviews so far. There’s a video demo here:

http://www.yammer.com/

They also offer Yammer iphone, blackberry and desktop apps

I thought this was a particularly useful and interesting post on business blogging. Be sure to follow the link for a list of 50 companies making good use of “social marketing.”

How to Blog for Your Business – the Good and the Bad.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/risky-business/2008/9/10/how-to-blog-for-your-business–the-good-and-the-bad.html

Okay, now this is creepy:

“Picasa users will be able to label their photos with names. Google will then start to automatically suggest other photos that look similar to the ones you already named.”

http://searchengineland.com/080902-105517.php