I'll admit, blogging is going to be a little light this week. Jordan's still taking a well-earned rest and I'm getting on a plane today for SES San Jose . Don't fret! I'll still blog, and will even post exclusive photos from the conference. You may also want to follow me on Twitter -for casual conference updates. In the meantime, here are today's Picks: Google wants the FCC to Free The Airwaves and needs your signature on its petition.

OK, pay attention! With many folks offline at various conferences this week, this is your chance to secure one of only 25 seats for a very exclusive conference: the Aloha Social Media Summit . Picture this: You, me, the Om Malik , Biz Stone )co-founder of Twitter(, Peter Shankman )the Help a Reporter genius(, Susan Bratton )social media diva(, Dave Taylor )the man, the legend( and other social media gurus, sitting in beautiful Boulder,

It's a new week, it's a new Google law suit. This time, it's GraphOn hoping to get a little publicity by suing Google for patent infringement . Software maker GraphOn has filed suit against search giant Google, alleging that Google's Base, AdWords, Blogger, Sites, and YouTube services violate GraphOn's patents GraphOn, based in Santa Cruz, Calif., acquired the patents through its acquisition of Network Engineering Software, a privately held network software company,

There's a new Viewpoint column about Twitter, over at BusinessWeek . Before I go on, it's important to note that Viewpoint's are guest columns, not written by normal BusinessWeek staffers. Anyway, "The Trouble with Twitter" takes an in-depth look at the money woes at Twitter, in particular its lack of business model. Now, when I say "in-depth," I mean it. In fact, you can safely skip the entire first page-unless you enjoy a little fluff with your morning coffee.

Today's Pilgrim's Picks are actually a Linky Goodness , because we all miss Jordan-and it's been far too long since we had some LG. AOL has acquired Socialthing , an aggregator of social media feeds. I'm guessing it couldn't afford the more popular FriendFeed. Speaking of defamation lawsuits , a journalist tried to sue Google for $50 million because he didn't like the comments written by a local college professor. Why did he sue Google?

Generally, the US is one of the most litigious countries in the world-like you needed me to tell you that. However, when it comes to defamation, it's often a tough argument to win simply because the constitution promises citizens the freedom of speech -you won't win, simply because you don't like someone's published opinion of you. So, it's interesting to see that Google has been sued by an Indian construction company ,

If you've been waiting for the much talked about Google AdSense for Feeds, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first? OK, the good news. If you log into your Google AdSense account, you'll see a new option to create AdSense for Feeds. Yay! You can customize whether to display text only ads, image only, or a mix of both. You can decide how often to display the ad; every blog post, every 2nd blog post, etc. And,

We've all heard how widgets are going to be a growth area for advertisers, but you've probably said to yourself "that's all very fine and dandy, but I don't have any content to actually put in a widget!' Fret no more, dear forward-thinking advertiser because Personal Life Media has just launched a new customizable widget-creator . With it, you create the branded widget, and Personal Life Media will fill it with great audio content.

I wasn't going to give Twitter's "we're stopping SMS text messages in most countries" announcement much real estate today, then a single comment gave me pause for thought. First, the background : Beginning today, Twitter is no longer delivering outbound SMS over our UK number. If you have been receiving SMS updates from Twitter via +44 762 480 1423,

Just days after we suggested that Google should perhaps hire financial guru Jim Cramer, who should turn up on Cramer's Mad Money show? None other than the Google CEO Eric Schmidt! No talk of a job offer for Cramer, but Schmidt did answer a bunch of questions. The VentureBeat guys have a great summary and transcript from the CNBC segment. Here are a few of my favorite Schmidt statements. "We will make more money from mobile advertising,

It appears Google does listen, it just takes them a few months to respond. Almost 9 months after it introduced feed sharing features to Google Reader, the team have announced new features to allow you to control said features. First, you can now select which friends see your shared items: Another needed feature, when someone shares their items with you, you'll get an alert and the option to subscribe to their shared items.

Lots of Picks today, so let's jump right to it! Spot Runner's innovative business model didn't work out. The company lays off 100 and refocuses its services. New look and new features for blog commenting system provider Disqus. Google is no longer allowing new accounts for Feedburner's Ad Network-I've still not seen AdSense for Feeds in my account, have you?

MarketingSherpa is moving offices and they don't want to move boxes and boxes of handbooks and guides. Instead, they're offering Marketing Pilgrim readers 30% off any of their reports! For the next 72 hours )clock started at 8am EST( you can pick up great reports at a huge discount.

It must be a least a week since we've had a juicy meme to sink out teeth into. Fortunately, one has surfaced over the past few days: Is there still a need for public relations? TechCrunch, RWW, and Steve Rubel are among those weighing in with their thoughts on the subject. Here are a few choice morsels: TechCrunch : First off, don't hire PR help until the volume of inbound requests by press are simply too much to handle without help. Until then,

Just a few days ago, Twitter warned that its new efforts to combat spam would become more noticable over the coming days. Recently, we've seen significant impact by introducing limits around how many accounts can be followed on Twitter under certain conditions. These limits are designed to not affect the vast majority of users. However, some people )who are not spammers( have )and will( run into them. Those days are here.

If you're not a Gmail user, you're probably not aware of this system-wide message: If Google keeps up with the outages, it will need to come up with its own one of these: What would be a good "fail whale" alternative for Google?

Tell me you watched it! The men's 4×100M swimming relay was the highlight of the Olympics thus far. If you're American, you must watch the video . If you're French, not so much. Today's Picks: IAC has announced it has started testing ads in its popular RSS reader Bloglines. If you're going to SES San Jose next week, here are 33 reasons why you should attend the Internet Marketer's Charity Party . Pete Blackshaw author of Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends,

If I'm not reading a MarketingSherpa report, you'll likely find my nose buried in a report from the equally great E-consultancy. E-consultancy is a UK based research company-so you'll find a lot of European bias in its reports-but they're always worth reading. The latest, Online Reputation and Buzz Monitoring Buyer's Guide 2008 , is no exception.

The New York Times asks-almost nonchalantly- Is Google a Media Company? I'd ask the NYT: Why? Are you scared of the competition? [Google's] Knol has been called a potential rival to Wikipedia and other sites whose content spans a broad range of topics, including Mahalo and About.com, a property of The New York Times Company that uses experts it calls "guides" to write articles on a variety of topics. Reading the article, and those quoted,

If you've signed up for Trackur's Enterprise level , you'll be pleased to know we've just added "Profiles" to your dashboard. With the new profiles, you can now create up to ten different keyword groups- giving you the option to segment your monitored keywords. So, who will benefit from the new profiles? Marketing agencies and PR firms - now you can create profiles for each client! Large companies - create profiles for each of your brands or product lines.