Last summer, Rounds (formerly 6rounds.com) launched an interactive video chat platform for Facebook.

When making a big decision, many people like to do some research on their own before meeting with a salesperson.  And sellers might prefer this arrangement, too, since it saves them from having to answer the same basic questions over and over.  So Google’s probably made a wise move by releasing a "Guide to Going Google" for schools and universities.

Matt Cutts from Google, Harry Shum from Bing, and Rich Skrenta from Blekko spoke on a panel today at the Farsight Summit. Much of the conversation was around the Bing/Google results copying ordeal, but part of the conversation was about search quality in general, and the impact content farms are having on it. 

The majority (80%) of U.S. Internet users look for health information, making it the third most popular online activity, following email and using a search engine, according to a new report by the Pew Internet Project.

The most likely groups to look online for health information include: caregivers, women, whites, younger adults, and adults with at least some college education. The groups least likely to look online for health information include: African Americans, Latinos, people living with disability, older adults, and adults with a high school education or less.

As previously reported, Danny Sullivan revealed a "sting operation" set up by Google, which appears to show that Bing has been copying some of their search results. Bing has now responded with more than the canned statement it previously gave to reporters. 

The Yellow Pages Association has introduced a new website that allows people to opt out of  receiving phone directories.

The new website, Yellowpagesoptout.com, allows people to select which phone directories they receive, or stop deliveries entirely.

eBay lost an important employee last week (the VP of product development at PayPal jumped to Google) but things are now looking up on the personnel front.  The company’s managed to poach one staff member each from Bing and Facebook, and both men have rather impressive resumes.

The Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky (UK) here in Lexington, has taken up an initiative to provide students with iPads for the duration of their degree cycle.

Google has partnered with some of the world’s most well known art museums to bring the works of more than 400 artists online.

Whether or not any of us realized it at the time, the first month of 2011 was an exciting one when it came to Microsoft, Google, and the ongoing browser wars.  New stats from Net Applications indicate that some big changes took place, with Chrome gaining ground and Internet Explorer taking a hit.

Chinese search company Baidu shows no signs of slowing down when it comes to making money.  Late yesterday, the company released its fourth quarter earnings report, and analysts’ expectations were surpassed in pretty much every respect.

To sort of cut to the chase: Baidu’s stock is up 6.69 percent in early morning trading, which shows the degree to which the company impressed investors.  Jumps like that don’t occur on an everyday basis.

How do web conferencing providers differentiate themselves from the pack and demonstrate their superiority in value and benefits to potential customers? The primary answer (as known by any commercial software product marketing manager) is to add features. “More features! I need to be able to put out a press release talking about new capabilities! I need to publish a product sheet showing that we can do something our competitors can’t do!”

Gogo Inflight Internet said today it would offer free access to Facebook for the month of February for passengers on seven major airlines.

In partnership with Ford, Gogo is offering free Facebook access on American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, AirTran Airways, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, US Airways and Virgin America.

It would appear that Yammer is not thrilled with Salesforce’s latest foray into social media-based productivity. Yesterday, Salesforce announced the launch of chatter.com, a free way for any business with its own email address to create a private social network for their company. 

Over the last few months, I’ve bookmarked and read hundreds of posts. And, like many of you, have catalogued the myriad of social media stats that come our way each day.

There’s almost too many social media stats–but a few of my favorite posts with aggregated stats are this one from B2B Social Media and this one from Danny Brown.

Google has devised a way for Egyptians to tweet by calling a phone number and leaving a voicemail. The voicemail will be automatically interpreted into text and tweeted in real-time. This is extremely important to the democracy movement in Egypt in light of an attempt by the Egyption government to close Internet communication. Here is Google’s blog post announcing the arrangement:

I write a fair amount about local search because it’s an important topic that’s only going to become more important as millions upon millions of folks move over to smart phones to do their browsing and shopping.

Last week, Demand Media launched its initial public offering. Today, the company announced the closing of the IPO of 10,235,000 shares of common stock at $17.00 per share. From the release:

The comments that people leave on blogs and news sites scattered across the Web might soon (and presumably with their permission) be tied their Facebook profiles.  A rumor’s indicated that Facebook will unveil a third-party commenting system in the near future.

Google fans may want to brace for another round of accusations about the company’s influence.  The Lobbying Disclosure Act Database, which is backed by the U.S. Senate itself, shows that the search giant spent $5.16 million to talk to politicians in 2010.

That’s up a significant amount – $1.13 billion or 28 percent – from the $4.03 billion Google spent in 2009.  Groups like Consumer Watchdog are sure to object as a result, and even Google’s supporters can’t argue that the company’s lobbying expenses are in step with its growth as a corporation.

We’ve all been on the phone frustrated with the customer service rep who we need to dictate all of our information to even though we just typed it in via our telephone key pad. We’ve all had problems with internet service providers or cable operators who can’t seem to fix our problems.

Nintendo of America said today it is launching a trivia contest on Twitter to promote its February 14 release of “Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation” video game for Nintendo DS.

Participants can visit “@NitendoAmerica” on Twitter to answer a series of trivia questions about the game, each one more difficult than the last, that will be posted throughout the week, for fans and followers to submit the correct answer.

Blekko has launched new mobile apps for iPhone and Android, which include the search engine’s /date functionality and the ability to mark search results as spam.

If you’re unfamiliar with Blekko, it launched late last year as a human-curated approach to search aimed at eliminating spam from search results by way of human editing. With the new app, users can also "slash in" what they want and "slash out" what they don’t want. 

Papa John’s said today that people who place orders online on Super Bowl Sunday will have the chance to win a $45 gift card.

Beginning at 10 a.m. ET on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 6, every customer who places an order online  will be eligible to win a free $45 Papa John’s gift card. The 45-Second Giveaway runs through Super Bowl XLV, ending at 9:59 p.m. ET. Papa John’s customers can also register for the 45 Second Giveaway.