Amid ongoing debates over the hazards of excessive digital exposure through such Web 2.0 social networking platforms as Facebook and Twitter, a new book by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger extols the virtues of forgetfulness.

Since the emergence of digital technology and global networks, forgetting has become an exception, Mayer-Schonberger writes in "Delete".

"Forgetting plays a central role in human decision-making," he argues. "It lets us act in time, cognizant of, but not shackled by, past events."

Mayer-Schonberger shared his theory on how to fight back against the digital panopticon with Reuters before giving a lecture at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London.

Twitter’s been making a lot of changes lately. They’ve introduced new technologies like lists — which is kind of like a friend filter on Facebook — and a new way to share one another’s Tweets.

Usage on the company’s website has taken off like a rocket, up 1,703 percent year-over-year in September, and that doesn’t even count people who access the service through text messaging or specialized applications on their smartphones or computers.

But today was perhaps the most radical change of all. Twitter changed its cosmically deep and evocative signature query, “What are you doing?”

Now, Twitter wants to know, “What’s happening?”

No, it’s not an homage to the ’70s TV show by the same name.

Instead, as company co-founder Biz Stone explained in a post on the company’s blog on Thursday, Twitter wanted to re-invoke its vision of a “mobile status update.” And while this all may seem silly to some, Stone wrote that it is an attempt to recognize the larger importance of the Tweeters and their interactions.

Sure, someone in San Francisco may be answering “What are you doing?” with “Enjoying an excellent cup of coffee,” at this very moment. However, a birds-eye view of Twitter reveals that it’s not exclusively about these personal musings. Between those cups of coffee, people are witnessing accidents, organizing events, sharing links, breaking news, reporting stuff their dad says, and so much more.

It probably won’t change Twitter, Stone says, but at the very least it might make the service easier to explain to your parents.

Before this week’s dueling Google and Microsoft search licensing deals with Twitter, a recurring rumor in Silicon Valley had Google trying to buy Twitter outright.

So when Google co-founder Sergey Brin made a surprise appearance at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco on Thursday, the stage was set to finally put the record straight.

Showing that ten years in the media spotlight have not been wasted on him however, Brin displayed a deft command of language to duck the question.

Web 2.0 organizer John Battelle: Did you try to buy Twitter?

Brin: I did not try to buy Twitter.

Brin then added, “But if companies approach us we definitely consider any opportunities to buy.” But the resultant ambiguity about whether Brin was speaking about himself personally, or Google, effectively left the question unanswered. Nicely played.

Meanwhile, the list of Internet giants partnering with Twitter came close to growing to three companies, after AOL CEO Tim Armstrong opined about the role of real time data at AOL during his talk.

“I think those guys have done something very impactful,” Armstrong said of Twitter. “And if it works with our platforms and we can leverage it, I think we would be happy to do that.”

Armstrong offered a couple of other interesting tidbits, saying that AOL was in a good position to proceed with its plan to eject from the Time Warner mothership and saying that a guaranteed AOL spin-off was not a precondition of him taking the job at AOL.

He also hinted at a mysterious new content technology platform that he said AOL has been developing internally since this summer, and which would provide a “secret sauce” to the company’s variety of media properties.

“It’s a broader platform with more information around content and the creation of content,” Armstrong said.

Another answer with plenty of ambiguity, but in this case, more details will likely come soon.

Microsoft may be the only company with the wherewithal to challenge Google’s Internet search dominance head on, but a number of firms are trying to outflank Google with services that handle aspects of search not covered by Google’s index of Web pages.

Aardvark - a firm whose cofounders include two ex-Googlers - is pushing something it calls “social search.”

Instead of looking at Web pages to find answers to search queries, Aardvark’s service taps a person’s network of social contacts. Ask Aardvark for anything from restaurant recommendations to home improvement tips, and the service will relay the question to Facebook and Twitter friends who have identified themselves as “experts” on various topics.

The service, which has earned praise from the New York Times’ David Pogue and other tech bloggers, was launched as a beta version earlier this year but accessing Aardvark required using instant messaging software or an iPhone app.

On Wednesday, the company put the search box directly on a website - vark.com - making its social search service more accessible to a larger pool of people.

Like the so-called real time search engines popularized by Twitter, Collecta and OneRiot, Aardvark represents a still small, but potentially dangerous trend for Google: Much of the content that flows through these new types of search services is not necessarily accessible by Google’s search engine.

Google is trying to address the situation by reportedly licensing the Twitter data feed. As more newfangled forms of search emerge, Google may find itself having more such talks.

For two of the Web’s newest sensations, September was not a good month.

The robust growth that Twitter and Microsoft’s Bing search engine enjoyed in recent months appeared to come to an abrupt halt last month.

Twitter, the microblogging service cherished by everyone from Shaq to Al Gore, saw its growth stall in September — at least in terms of U.S. visitors to its Web site.

The number of unique visitors to Twitter’s site in the U.S. reached 20.89 million in September - virtually flat compared to the 20.83 million visitors the month before, according to the latest comScore data.

As the blog TechCrunch pointed out on Tuesday, Twitter’s flat September came as Facebook, the world’s No.1 Internet social network, lured more than 3 million additional unique visitors to its site that month.

Of course, Twitter’s growth is still up a whopping 1,703 percent on a year-over-year basis. And the comScore numbers don’t tell the whole story, since many Twitter users access the service through third-party applications and thus would not be counted as unique visitors to the Twitter site.

But in the wake of the $100 million funding that Twitter recently secured at a $1 billion valuation, the new data is sure to raise questions about whether the service has peaked.

Questions are also probably in the air at Microsoft, as the software giant’s efforts to take on Google in search appear to be losing steam.

After picking up decent market share every month since its June launch, Bing grew its share by a meagre 10 basis points last month. According to comScore, Bing’s share of the U.S. search market grew to 9.4 percent, versus 9.3 percent the month before.

Google widened its lead to 64.9 percent share, from 64.6 percent in August, while Yahoo fell to 18.8 percent from 19.3 percent the month before.

For Bing, gaining 10 basis points is better than losing ground, which is what StatCounter, another Web measurement service had claimed happened to Bing in September.

But after spending a reported $100 million to market Bing, Microsoft may now need to find new ways to pump up interest in its search engine.

- Padraig Reidy is news editor at Index on Censorship. The opinions expressed are his own.-

Solicitors Carter-Ruck have withdrawn the terms of an injunction preventing the Guardian from reporting a parliamentary question by Newcastle-under-Lyme Labour MP and former journalist Paul Farrelly.

This has been seen - rightly -  as a victory for free expression, and a demonstration of the amazing power of the web in the face of attempted censorship.

Once the Guardian had published its slightly cryptic story on its website last night, containing such tantalising phrases as: “Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret”, it was inevitable that people would go searching.

Within hours, the Internet was alive with speculation, links to leaked documents, and republication of cached articles. At one point on Tuesday morning, phrases relating to the case constituted four of Twitter’s top ten “trending topics” --- a scarcely believable profile for a story that, technically, no one was supposed to be talking about.

Carter-Ruck seem not to have noticed the mindset of an increasing number of web users: once we are told we can’t know something, modern web users will set about finding out about it with a gleeful determination --- and more often than not with neither the cautiousness nor the proprietary attitude to information that can slow down “traditional” reporting.

The Streisand Effect -- whereby attempts to censor information end up ensuring the information is only spread more widely, is something that lawyers and judges are going to have to figure out.

The strong libertarian culture of the Internet quite simply means that you cannot get away with telling people what to do, and what to read, while surfing. Today’s Twitter triumph is more a victory for the culture of online social networking than it is for the technology.

And an important victory it is. What was at stake here was not merely a newspaper’s right to tell a story, but the very principal of open democracy: if newspapers and other media cannot report everyday parliamentary proceedings without fear of the courts, it is not just the journalism industry that suffers: it is the common citizen’s ability to participate in, and scrutinise, politics.

Let the second-guessing, the mock horror, the disbelief, the crowing begin.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has acknowledged he realized upfront that he was overpaying to acquire YouTube, to the tune of $1 billion, judged by any conventional measures.

The many critics of Google's $1.65 billion deal to acquire the video-sharing site three years ago will claim this confirms everything they have always said about the deal. Not quite.

In fact, not really at all.

Schmidt came clean in a deposition by lawyers in the Viacom copyright lawsuit that there was very little revenue coming into YouTube to justify the price his company paid.

No surprises here. There were intangibles to consider:

1. YouTube's popularity was sky-rocketing, making it the runaway market leader among video-sharing sites.
2. It was crushing his company's own site, Google Video.
3. YouTube was up for auction and would be sold to a competitor unless Google jumped first.
4. Google overbid to ensure YouTube didn't fall into rival hands.

The Google CEO said he told his company's board of directors that the 18-month-old video-sharing site was worth $600 million to $700 million, according to CNet, which obtained a transcript of his testimony. Of course, he fails to mention the potential costs of copyright lawsuits that already loomed for YouTube.

"In the deal dynamics, the price, remember, is not set by my judgment or by financial model or discounted cash flow. It's set by what people are willing to pay," Schmidt says.

So the real justification for the 150 percent premium Google paid was in derailing, or at least delaying, the rise of a potential competitor. Of course, Google has faced a long struggle to find ways to make advertising work on the site in order to pay the costs of free video. Only last quarter could Google say YouTube would be profitable in the "not long, not-too-distant future."

Of course, all the fuss over YouTube's valuation is not really Google's problem. The real issue is the extrapolation of valuations of all the Web 2.0 companies since then which have used the YouTube price as the benchmark for all the other-worldly valuations of their unproven business models.

Here are the relevant excerpts from Schmidt's deposition by Viacom lawyers, via CNet:

Viacom attorney Stuart Jay Baskin: And what was management's valuation?

Eric Schmidt: Much lower than we paid for it.

Baskin: And how was that communicated to the board?

Schmidt: I told them.

Baskin: So why don't you tell us what you remember telling the board in connection with the valuation?

Schmidt: I believe YouTube was worth somewhere around $600 million to $700 million.

...
Baskin: What methodology did you use to come up with that number?

John P. Mancini, an attorney working for Google, objects.

Schmidt: My judgment.

Baskin: Was it based on cash flow analysis? Comparable companies? What were you using as the basis for your judgment?

Mancini objects.

Schmidt: It's just my judgment. I've been doing this a long time.

...
Baskin: I'm not very good at math, but I think that would be $1 billion or so more than you thought the company was, in fact, worth.

Mancini objects.

Schmidt: That is correct.

(Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

Google has yet to outline a gameplan to respond to the search world’s latest phenomenon: real time search.

But the Internet company clearly recognizes the importance of fresh search results.

On Thursday Google announced a new feature that lets Web surfers view only search results that have been indexed by its Web crawlers within the past hour.

The update was one of several new features that Google has unveiled over the past week as it seeks to refine the tool used by two out of every three people searching the Web.

Google also introduced a feature that lets users specify whether they want results that are heavier on shopping-oriented Web pages, such as retail sites with products and pricing information, or results that are less commercial in nature.

The shopping option comes as Microsoft tries to lure people to its revamped Bing search engine by highlighting Bing’s strength in shopping and travel searches.

Meanwhile, Twitter’s real time search engine is becoming the Internet’s go-to place for finding the most current information on world events, from earthquakes to political protests.

Google officials said the new search features are not responses to the competition.

Previously, Google let users narrow search results to items posted in the past week or 24 hours.

According to Google officials, the introduction of up-to-the-hour searches doesn’t represent a change in the way Google crawls the Web - the same results were previously available in Google’s index, there just wasn’t a way for someone to only view the really fresh stuff.

Of course serving up results from the past hour is hardly the same as the up-to-the-minute information provided by real time search.

But until Google figures out how it wants to play the real time search game, the company is moving to make its flagship search engine more au courrant.

It may be the hottest ticket in cyberspace.

On Wednesday, Google will invite more than 100,000 people to begin using Wave, its new hybrid messaging-social networking-online collaboration tool.

The version that will be available on Wednesday is a preview version that Google acknowledges is still not ready for prime time.

But scarcity is a powerful marketing tool (remember the prized Gmail invitations a few years ago?)

Google Wave was the third most popular topic of discussion on Twitter on Tuesday, with many Twitter users pleading for an invitation to become a Wave tester.

The initial 100,000 invites will go to developers, “select” paying customers of Google Apps and individuals who signed up early to test Wave.

But each Wave preview user will also get the privilege of “nominating” 8 other people to use Wave, since like any network-based service, Wave’s value and usefulness increases the more friends, family and colleagues are on-board.

A Google representative said the nominations are effectively the same as invitations - Google won’t actually render verdicts about which nominees are eligible or notto receive a Wave invitation. But it will “control the flow” of when nominees can begin using Wave to ensure that the service doesn’t get overloaded.

“We have to make sure the system will scale for the volume of people,” said Google spokeswoman Sara Jew-Lim.

How much are 1,000 Facebook friends worth?

According to Leon Hill, $177.30.

That’s the price that Hill’s online marketing firm uSocial.net is selling Facebook friends for, through a new service that has already raised alarms within Facebook.

Hill’s reputation as a notorious peddler of online souls precedes him, having launched a similar service selling Twitter followers to clients earlier this year.

Another endeavor, in which he sought to “game” social bookmarking site Digg by letting advertisers buy votes to push certain stories to the top of the site, earned him a cease-and-desist letter from Digg’s attorneys, he says. (A Digg representative said the company could not comment).

Now, uSocial has set it sights on Facebook, which Hill believes will be the greatest opportunity yet.

“It’s going to be massive. There are about 20 times more people on Facebook” than on Twitter, said Hill in a telephone interview from his home-base in Brisbane, Australia on Wednesday.

The idea is to provide a company with a giant pool of Facebook friends, which Hill’s clients can then market to. Hill said that he befriends Facebook users on behalf of his corporate client, approaching users who are fans of Ferraris, for example, if a client of his wants an audience that’s interested in sports cars.

“With Facebook it’s always up to the person whether they want to be a friend or not. They can always remove them later,” said Hill.

Facebook doesn’t see it that way.

“We’re just beginning an investigation now, but it’s clear to us that potential customers of their service should be cautious,” Facebook said in a statement.

“The value of a person that is tricked, coerced or bribed into being a Facebook friend or fan is extremely limited and may actually work against whatever goals the customer is attempting to achieve,” the statement continued.

Facebook also warned that its terms of service prohibit people from using their profile for commercial gain and that users found violating the policy could have their accounts permanently disabled.

Hill says he’s gotten better at covering his tracks since his Twitter and Digg days. He no longer uses any automated software to find users, and he routinely changes his servers’ IP addresses.

So long as a client doesn’t admit that they’ve paid for friends, there’s no way for Facebook to find out, Hill contended.

According to Hill, he’s already signed up 30 clients in the first six hours that his Facebook service has been available. Demand is so strong that Hill believes he’ll easily double the $60,000 a month in sales that he claims his company currently generates.

“The one thing about this business, people either love what I do or hate what I do,” said Hill.