+ Facebook to speak Chinese with .cn domain name0
Presently, the domain redirects to Facebook’s home page.

+ Ask.com Helps IAC Earn 40% Increase In Q3 2007 Media Revenue (via SEL)
From a DJ article:

The media and advertising unit – which includes Ask.com, Citysearch and Evite – showed a 40% rise in revenue. Ask.com, which Diller has described as the glue in the company’s overall strategy, had an increase in the number of queries and revenue per query.

* Gary is Director of Online Info Resources at Ask.com

+ OpenSocial: Led By Google, Social Networks Band To Take On Facebook (via Search Engine Land)
Key Points In Our View from Danny’s SEL Article:
+ Launch of Common API’s on Thursday

+ Companies Involved So Far include: Friendster, Ning, Linked In, etc.

+ Why? Combat Developers Who Are Only Developing for Facebook

+ Why? Danny discusses back in September that some were worried that Facebook is too closed with its data. Getting other networks to jooin Google and have a common language (coding, API’s), “can make a play that all social networks should spill their data, thus robbing Facebook of its most important asset.”

+ Google Working to Make Orkut (the social network they launched several years ago), more “attractive.” It’s been during this time that we’ve seen the rise of both MySpace and Facebook

ResourceShelf Comment: What happens if/when more and more people decide to make their profiles and other info private or available only to a selected group of users and not available for public view? What does this mean for the mass amount of data a social network could produce? Also, what about gaming of the system? Fake/manipulated profiles are another issue in social search. Creating profiles for people to generate page views for the author and also advertisers. This, of course, is far from a new concern but comes to mind as social search continues to expand. From a researcher perspective, where does accuracy, currency, etc. of data come into play? While no bio database or book is 100% you can sometimes judge its over all quality by the reputation of the publisher over a period of time. In some cases, info in the database might be reviewed, spot-checked, or something close for quality, currency (often very important) and overall accuracy.

See Also: Details Revealed: Google OpenSocial To Launch Thursday
See Also: Google Launches Open Social (via Searchblog)
See Also: Look for More Info Here Tomorrow

UPDATE from Greg Sterling at SEL
MySpace, Bebo, and SixApart will also be part of OpenSocial.

+ Sprint in talks with Google on mobile apps, says source (via News.com)
Process still in early stage, according to source; news follows reports that Verizon might also team up with search giant. More here.

+ Springer titles to be preserved by Portico