Yahoo has published its top trends for 2007 based on what has appeared most on its search engine. Google announced its trends a day later (as reported by Techcrunch.)

Technorati Tags: trends, search

Search marketer Andrew Miller reports that Google may be about to launch a wiki-style collaboration platform. Google acquired popular wiki platform Jotspot earlier this year, fuelling speculation that a wiki was on the way. Andrew attended a presentation given by Scott Johnston, the former VP of Product Development at JotSpot and new Googler (Noogler). This is the gist on what he had to say, courtesy of Andrew:

• Google Sites: Scheduled to be launched sometime next year (2008), Google Sites will expand upon the Google Page Creator already offered within Apps. Based on JotSpot collaboration tools, Sites will allow business to set up intranets, project management tracking, customer extranets, and any number of custom sites based on multi-user collaboration. [UPDATE] I don’t recall wikis being mentioned specifically but I assume they are part of the plan.

• Will users be able to edit docs, spreadsheets and presentation offline? Scott’s answer was yes, and that the Google Gears plugin would handle the offline work. In addition, Google Gears support is in the works for Gmail and Google Calendar.

• What happens when somebody edits a document offline at the same time another user is editing the online version? The same algorithm that reconciles simultaneous editing will apply here when the offline version is merged back into the online version. Changes will be versioned the same way, so basically in chronological order.

Technorati Tags: Google, productivity, tools

Technorati Tags: humour, bubble, video, web2

paidContent reports that O2 is running a trial of a new mobile payments system in London. Nokia 6131 handsets using Near Field Communications technology will allow 500 lucky people to use their mobiles to pay for up to £10 worth of tube, bus or tram travel, coffees at Coffe Republic, booze at Threshers and a number of other things. The trial ends in May 2008.

Jeff Jarvis reports that he has changed his mind about separation of editorial teams.

I was on the side of separation at the beginning of the web and for good reasons. At Advance, where I used to work, we set up separate online operations to make sure that what was made for the web was appropriate to the web (not just a PDF of a newspaper) and to assure that the web gained its own value (and wasn’t just given away to advertisers as value-added). That worked.

However, pointing to the work that the BBC has done consolidating its newsroom to produce radio, TV and web content, he says now he’s converted. “It’s inevitable”.

There’s a debate brewing on Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch blog about the merits or otherwise of networks rather and websites.

But Glam isn’t really the largest women’s site on the Internet – not by a long stretch. Rather, it’s a collection of a few sites that they own that generate some page views, plus a big ad sales team that sells ads for 600 or so other blogs and websites. In August the company claimed 19 million monthly visitors, but just 3.4% of them (654,000) actually visited Glam.com. The company will lose about $3.7 million this year on $21 million in revenue….says Arrington.

Jeff Jarvis takes issue.

But I’ve been arguing to big media companies that they need to become networks themselves. Google is a network. Who cares how large its site is? What matters is its reach on sites all over the internet.

Google grew by building a network. So did Glam. I say that is a model for survival and growth among media companies. Local newspapers, for example, should be building hyperlocal networks of local blogs; with them, they can expand coverage and reach in ways that were never possible when they depended only on staff.

Food for thought.

Update: Jeff has posted a lot more detail on this argument here.

According to paidContent Google’s UK advertising surpassed ITV1, the largest commercial channel in Britain, in Q3.  

In response to the onslaught of free social networking sites MySpace and Facebook  Friends Reunited, bought by ITV for £120m in December 2005, is dropping its £5 subscription price, reports paidContent.

Interesting news from AOL (via Lifehacker) that it is introducing a do-not-track list for those people who do not want to be targeted by advertising.

AOL says it will direct consumer directly to the opt-out lists of the largest advertising networks, according to the New York Times.

Such lists will not reduce the number of ads that people see online, but they will prevent advertisers from using their online meanderings to deliver specific ad pitches to them.

AOL will try to persuade consumers that by parting with some personal data they will find more relevant, appealing ads than by remaining anonymous.

MSNBC, the news site jointly owned by Microsoft and US TV network NBC, has bought Web 2.0 news aggregator Newsvine. The company will continue to operate independently from its Seattle HQ, says the official annoucement.