Doing contract work for a hosting company, I realize the difficulties in targeting quality traffic. It’s a competitive market, meaning companies are not only able to outspend each other, they are constantly looking to get an edge or advantage. With something like dedicated servers and managed hosting, this is especially true. An article on targeting social networks for sales was recently released on Website Magazine, and it provides some interesting points, demographics, and general info about leveraging social platforms for sales.

I was reading an article on Google Watch about trusting Google, and there are some interesting points in the article.

That Google lives and dies on trust is why I trust the search engine with my data. Here’s why. I happily use Gmail and Google Reader, not to mention Google search. I harbor no illusions about what data Google can collect on me and I freely grant it that right. It doesn’t bother me a lick that Google may collect the data and use it to forge more targeted ads on my behalf.

I think Clint Boulton’s statement on why he trusts Google is exactly why people shouldn’t trust Google. While Clint (am I allowed to call him by his first name?) understands the symbiotic relationship between provider and end-user, most people don’t. They are oblivious to the fact that they are being profiled.

I’m not one of the privacy paranoiacs, and I agree that when it comes to data theft that banks and retailers are a much bigger concern. While I trust Google now, at least as much as I trust any other such Enterprise or Corporation, will I be able to say the same thing in 1-year? 2-years? 5 or 10-years? I’m not sure I will be able to, and I’d rather be proactive rather than reactive.

With Google taking a near strangle-hold on the access of information, squeezing more and more ad revenue out of its network, and having what seems to be less and less accountability for their actions (examples here and here), isn’t it only a matter of time before the search giant becomes corrupted?

Facebook Connect Launches - There has been a lot of work done with Identity, and up until now, it seemed like OpenID was slowly becoming the leading candidate, but as Om Malik points out in the article, the number and quality of launch partner sites is one reason why Facebook is going to get more traction compared to its rivals. Another article on the topic is Why Facebook Connect Matter & Why It Will Win.

Top Stories & Searches for 2008 - In a year that seemed dominated (on both sides of the border) by the political landscape, it might be a bit surprising that Britney Spears and WWE both ranked higher than Obama on the list, however, there’s probably a reasonable explanation for the results.

2nd Annual Open Web Awards Final Voting - It might be a bit questionable to have the ‘open’ web awards being offered by a commercial entity instead of an organization of sorts, but if it really is the only multilingual international online voting competition that covers major innovations in web technology, it’s definitely got clout. Final round of voting can be found here.

Browser wars continue - As mentioned in a post earlier this week, browser market share had some interesting numbers; Firefox has passed the 20% mark, IE is below the 70% mark, and Chrome and Safari are slowly clawing out their own niche in the market.

Hirings and Firings - Maybe the specific hires like Microsoft adding former Yahoo! Exec Dr. Qi Lu as President of Online Services Group aren’t the real story. With AT&T announcing 12,000 jobs will be cut (4% of its workforce) and Google looking to eliminate projects, the tech industry is definitely being affected by the slowing of the economy.

Microsoft continues to find its way into the news, but there rarely seems to be much good said about poor old Redmond. On the browser front, Firefox has moved over the 20% market share mark for the first time since November 2004, while Internet Explorer has dropped below 70% market share. Safari, Chrome, and Firefox are all winners in IE’s loss, but keep in mind, there are a handful of alternative browsers.

On the same day, it was announced that Microsoft’s Windows has dropped to a 15-year low 90% market share. Again, this is another impressive number with respect to market share, but like IE, Windows has been steadily declining as the available alternatives increase.

Finally, Microsoft is yet again in talks with Yahoo! over some sort of purchase related to Yahoo!’s search property. There is tremendous pressure from the board, led by Carl Icahn, to make some sort of a deal to streamline the company, but a total purchase is said to be out of the question. This is all hot on the heels of Jerry Yang announcing his departure as CEO and the end to a proposed deal between Yahoo! and Google.

Some say the new Microsoft Yahoo $20 billion search deal is fiction, but who really knows at this point.

It has been almost a year since I last posted, and in the last year, what has really happened?

Facebook and Facebook apps continue to be popular, but I think the social network is close to (if hasn’t already) peaked; while people will still flock to the site because everyone is there, it doesn’t seem to have the same luster. I’m not sure if anyone else is getting fed up with the invites to save this or promote that, but it’s starting to feel a lot more like MySpace without the annoying personal customizations.

Yahoo! has finally admitted it cannot continue under its current leadership. For almost a year now we’ve all watched the former Internet heavyweight flounder in almost all areas and lost a majority of the brilliance it once had. During this downward spiral, a wealth of talent and knowledge has walked out the doors as has billions in stock market value.

Microsoft continues to battle everything and everyone, but relatively speaking, hasn’t done as badly as it might have. Apple is cutting production (but still has the iPod to fall back on), Sun is going to help with search, and Windows 7 is a big step in the right direction.

Google continues to dominate search, but there are questions as to how reliable Google’s cloud-based apps are. However, as long as Google remains almost the only pay-per-click option on the block, they can continue to bully their advertisers into keeping profits high.

Obviously a whole lot more has happened, but hopefully I can comment on that more as it happens instead.