Since the beginning of time, Google has grown accustomed to handily disposing of its search engine rivals and competitors, but are those days finally coming to an end? Has Google finally met its match?

Next up in the contenders’ corner – Microsoft’s Bing. Check out a few reviews of Bing and a short video that illustrates how it feels it may knock off the Champ.

http://www.reuters.com/article/bigMoney/idUS183638463920090529

http://www.decisionengine.com/Default.html

I’ve read this before from other big names in the social networking game.  Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, probably knows more about niche social networking than anyone.  Here’s what she said in a recent CNN interview:

Niche social networking sites are absolutely something people want to do. People clearly want to do this. . .[and] as people get more comfortable with social networking via Facebook, Twitter, they will look around and say, ‘I want a social network for this particular group.’

Read the whole interview…

I’ve just learned that a Twitter TV show is in development.

“The show would feature players using Twitter to follow their favorite celebrities while competing in an interactive challenge. Producer Noah Oppenheim said the show would be the first to bring immediacy of the site to TV.”

I would say more, but I just vomited on my keyboard.

There are several things that I’m seriously interested in. Two of the biggies are writing (obviously) and politics. Even if you’re not all that into either one of those things, this interview with political PR guru, Frank Luntz, is worth checking out for any business owner or marketing/brand manager who wants to know what really makes people tick (Hint: it’s all about the language). While technically he’s actually discussing “phrasing” vs. “writing,” the practical applications are the same.

Behold: The Wordsmith

Google has recently announced that they are trying to improve their search results for health-related searches, and collect data that will help them improve health-related tools such as Google Flu. In order to accomplish this, they are conducting an experiment, in which a small random selection of Google users will receive questions from Google when they conduct a health-related search. For instance, if you search for the word “headache” you might get a question that looks like this:

For privacy, Google claims that your answers to these questions are not tied to your Google account, even if you are logged in. However their servers will automatically record information including a cookie, ip address, browser type and language, and the date and time of your answer.

So it makes me wonder, why experiment only with health-related searches? In the future will they consider adding additional questions for other types of searches too, if they feel this will help improve their search results (and ad serving technology)?