What is fair use? It’s a question that doesn’t seem to go away. Traditional media publications often throw blogs under the bus for borrowing quotes and spreading news to their own audiences. While there are certainly plenty of cases in which blogs do trample on the concept of fair use, to say that blogs in general follow this practice is simply absurd.

Google has introduced a new "Analyze Competition" feature for AdWords advertisers. It can be found in the "opportunities" tab.

The feature examines the account’s activity over two weeks, and lists categories that represent the products/services you’re advertising. These are based on search terms and are matched up against your keywords, ad text, and landing page text. For each category associated with the account, users will see a bar graph highlighting individual performance compared to the performance of other advertisers in the category.

Footnote.com, a website focused on original historical documents, has opened up access to its Civil War Collection for free to the public for the remainder of June.

Footnote says it has worked with the U.S. National Archives over the past three years to create the largest collection of Civil War documents on the Internet, featuring over 30 million documents, photos and maps.

Google Tags, the program meant to give local businesses a better way of standing out from other search results, is growing up.  Google announced late yesterday that it’s concocted a couple new features, and that it’s rolling out the program on a nationwide basis, too.

Update: As we reported months ago, Yahoo and Microsoft hope to get their search/advertising integration in place in time for the holidays. The Wall Street Journal has now confirmed that this is still the case.

Original Article (03/09): Yahoo’s line of thinking with regards to the big Microsoft/Yahoo search and advertising deal is that it will benefit both Microsoft and Yahoo’s advertisers, as well as consumers and publishers.

Google is apparently experimenting with a new Google News feature, which may or may not become widely available (hence the "experiment" label). The feature is called Editors’ Picks, and it’s being displayed for a small subset of Google News users.

Google may soon find out whether or not the Chinese government is at peace with its decision to redirect searchers to Google.com.hk, judging by a new report.  It turns out the company must soon receive official approval to keep its mapping services running in the country.

Today, Google launched Page Speed for Ads. This is an extension of the Page Speed web performance tool the company open sourced last year.

Google TV made something of a splash when it was first announced, earning bloggers’ approval and even some early commitments from would-be buyers.  Then everyone moved on to the next big news story.  But today, a Forrester analyst returned to the subject, claiming Google TV "is a bigger deal than you think."

Last week, a new open protocol called OExchange was released with the aim of simplifying sharing. Right out of the door, it had names like Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn signed on. WebProNews spoke with Google’s Open Web advocate, Chris Messina about how the protocol could benefit businesses and site owners.

More Americans are using online tools as a way to connect to their neighbors and local communities, according to a new report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Nearly a quarter  (22%) of all adults (representing 28% of Internet users) have singed up to receive alerts about local issues such as traffic, weather alerts, school events and crime alerts via email or text messaging.

Twenty percent of all adults (27% of Internet users) used digital tools to talk to their neighbors and keep informed about community issues.

Twitter announced that it has acquired Smallthought Systems, the creators of Dabble DB, an online database Twitter has used in the past to track and share information about projects internally.

"Every day millions of people use Twitter to create, share and discover information, and as we grow, analytics becomes an increasingly crucial part of improving our service," says Twitter Analytics Lead Kevin Weil.

Akamai has released a new Open Video Player for HTML5 <video> developer toolkit, aimed at simplifying the task of creating flexible HTML5-based video player applications for delivery of HTTP content.