Wow. I feel like Google really hears me. First, they make Gmail's contact system less invasive , and now they add walking directions to Google Maps ! I do a small dance of happiness! Now, I know there are those of you wondering why this even matters, what difference walking directions makes. Or, as one commenter put it : Walking directions? Whatever happened to just showing up, facing your body in the direction you wanted to go, and walking? Of course,

Oh my goodness, it's . . . you know. At OMMA Behavioral yesterday, Ignited's David Martin struck upon the perfect slogan for the behavioral advertising industry, and I quote: "It's Only Going To Get Creepier." Excellent. Government regulatory agencies, consumers and advertising clients alike flock to behavioral. Is it just me, or does the question " Are Google Maps good or evil? " seem kind of . . . stupid? There were maps before, people.

Sign in on the subdomain www.new.facebook.com and you're greeted "Welcome to the new Facebook." And indeed it is. Facebook is unveiling a new redesign, and the long-tested tabbed profile pages aren't the only changes. If you don't feel like signing in yourself, here's a screenshot and explanation. Home: Very obviously, the layout of the Facebook site is changing. As promised, the left navigation is gone, moved up into the top nav.

Happy anniversary to me! To help you celebrate, I've collected awesome links, of course. Janet 's not the only one appreciating the usefulness of the Google Content Network: How To Use The Google Content Network To Invest In Domains And more news on Google's tools: Matt Cutts clarifies that the toolbar doesn't index or queue sites for indexing and other myths. And one last bit of Google news: American Airlines And Google Settle Keyword Lawsuit Um,

Yahoo's letter to shareholders yesterday was just the first step in their latest defense against Carl Icahn's attempts to elect a proxy board at the shareholder meeting in two weeks. Today, Yahoo and its allies strike two more blows. First, Yahoo has begun leveraging one of its biggest assestsone of )if not the ( most popular home pages on the Internet. Yahoo has put a notice about the pending board election below the fold. TechCrunch spotted this earlier today,

In case you haven't noticed, it's Friday. Woot. German Google Webmaster Central blog has a fun interview with Matt Cutts on porn, big feet and spam . The post has a German translation of the transcript, but the video itself is in English. Need help with Google Webmaster Toots, Google Analytics and/or Google Website Optimizer? An hour-long YouTube webinar covering all three is now live ) via (.

[Something snappy!] Ooh, shiny! Google Enables Local Reviews From Mobile Phones . Too bad when I last "upgraded" my phone, it downgraded my mobile browser )and my battery life, and my T9 and my . . . anyway( and I can't do jack anymore. ) via ( Google confirms the new contact-adding system for Gmail , but not everyone is happyor less creeped out. Plus, it's confusing, apparently. Yeah,

I think I've made a terrible mistake. Somehow, by using every cliché in the book, I think I just guaranteed that I'll always have get to be the one covering Microsoft/Yahoo/Google deal news. Well, today we'll go with mixed sport metaphors. Mixing metaphors is even more fun than just using them! Okay, so let's hit one out of the park, shall we? There's a new letter to Yahoo shareholders todayfrom Yahoo itself. It's quite long,

A very Googly goodness for today! The followup on Amit Singhal's basic post on Google ranking : Technologies behind Google ranking FINALLY. I've only complained about this all the time herenow Gmail will give you the ability to opt out of automatically adding every person you've ever emailed to your contacts . I didn't mind having them in my contacts so much, but having all their addresses pop up when I type in an email address,

Sigh. Andy, Andy, Andy. Always taking the good stories and leaving me to cover Yahoo/Google/Microsoft and their latest flings. Well, let's get to it, shall we? Let's spin the wheel of metaphors and see what we'll use today . . . Mixed sportsno, sailing! Sailing it is! )Apologies in advance if I go a little overboard. Oops, I think I already have.( Back on the Eastern front )oops, sorry, yesterday's metaphor(in the capital,

Oh, it's the ides of July! How ominous. Do you think it'll bode poorly for any of these headlines? Twitter says it's official: they've acquired Summize , the Twitter search tool. Not everyone wants to tell Yahoo they're doin it wrong. BusinessWeek has found people taht actually think Yahoo's doin it AWESOME . Or at least somewhat right. We love to tell you about what a difference testimonials and user reviews can make to your visitors.

Yahoo is in the midst of a three-front warand yet not one of these fights is for dominance in any field of operations business. The Eastern Front Dateline Washington, DC. Yahoo is facing a Senate hearing on the Yahoo/Google search ads deal today. paidContent reports : Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond will point out . . . that the agreement does not expand Google's share of the search market, and that the alternative outcome, Yahoo selling to Microsoft,

Google announces a new program today to work with web hosts to integrate Google Webmaster Tools for their users. The Google Webmaster Tools Access Provider program features APIs to enable web hosts to offer their subscribers access to Webmaster Tools. Subscribers will be able to create Webmaster Tools accounts and submit sitemaps without leaving hosts' control panels. In all, this is a boon to web hosts, since they'll be able to add value for their subscribers.

I knew you were wondering, since none of us are sure these days, but Yahoo is still giving it the old college try. Here's the latest from the Yahoo battlefront. Although a few of our commentators insist that the Yahoo/Microsoft deal is all but inevitable, Rupert Murdoch disagrees. And I think he might knowafter all, his properties, especially News Corp, have been courted by both sides almost since the beginning for support in brokering and/or funding a deal.

The US Senate is holding a series of hearings on online advertising, behavioral targeting and privacy to determine whether they should consider legislation protecting consumers online in these areas. The Senate has turned to Google, Microsoft, the FTC, Facebook, privacy watchdogs and others for their opinions in the matter. Some, like Google, welcomed a "comprehensive privacy law that would establish a uniform framework for privacy and procedures to punish bad actors.

Oh my goodness, it's Linky Goodness! Though we mentioned this morning that YouTube's overhauling its advertising system , another important point in the WSJ article is that YouTube will be running both preroll and postroll ads soon . More on the Yahoo/Microsoft Saga. )I'm so tired of this. I've had to resort to creative writing at work to make myself report the news.( Today, Jerry Yang is saying that Microsoft is intentionally trying to destabilizing Yahoo ,

Today, Google Fellow Amit Singhal posts on the Official Google blog explaining Google's ranking system. But before you all start salivating and clicking, note that this is a very "high level" overviewno secrets given away. Still, it's a good reminder of the basics of Google's ranking system. Singhal writes that Google's ranking system is based on three guiding principles: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction,

Either my connection is suffering, or it's just a slow news day. But here are the best news items I couldn't write more than 100 words about! Erm, the best news items that were so well-written by their original authors that I couldn't say it better myself! Arteworks has been fighting against would-be SEO trademarker Jason Gambert for a while now and shows Gambert's latest stunts: after citing Wikipedia in his trademark application, Gambert Edits Wikipedia,

If you're not too busy celebrating los sanfermines )you know, running with the bulls, etc.(, you might enjoy this linky goodness! Disgruntled Googlers talk to the New York Times about Day care at Google and it's not all the rosy report that usually comes out of Mountain View. Somebody still has an eye on Ask: Ask.com's New Strategy in Search: Focus on Answers )also, Ask completed the Lexico acquisition including Dictionary.com .

Capitulate. Bow. Buckle, fold, submit, succumb, surrender, yield. However you want to put it, Google blinked first in the battle over a link to the privacy policyand has also found the magic number of words on a page ! Google had been taken to task recently by several organizationsfrom membership organizations it was trying to join to privacy advocate groupsfor not linking to their privacy policy from their homepage. Google founders refused on principle,