Google followed the addition of two new extensions for the Firefox browser with the announcement of two new features for the Gmail service.

Yahoo has appointed Dr. Ron Brachman as vice president of worldwide research operations and opened a research office in NYC.

So far only 4 percent of those polled say they use RSS (really simple syndication). Yahoo Senior Director of Personalization Products, Scott Gatz, says that number should be closer to 27 percent, as many use RSS and don’t know it. Yahoo began publishing RSS feeds via Yahoo News and Yahoo Buzz back in 2003.

Joint collaboration on a Reliable, Adaptive and Distributive Systems lab at UC-Berkeley has the three tech companies contributing $7.5 million toward the lab’s mission of creating freely-available web services.

One of the topics Shel and I discussed with Rick Klau of FeedBurner during our FIR podcast interview with him on Tuesday was about the challenges of helping ‘normal’ people understand what RSS is.

A lot has been made in the last couple days over Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz’s assertion that “intranets are going to die.”

On Tuesday, Menlo Park-based Sun announced they would bundle the Apache Derby embedded database into their Java Enterprise System. They’re also including an additional plug-in for support called NetBeans IDE 5.0.

If your company is not aggressively conducting efforts that will increase your search engine traffic, then it is time to get in the game!

Google has launched a new Blogger Web Comments Firefox extension that shows surfers what bloggers are saying about any page they’re viewing in their browser.

The newest aspect of Google’s massive searching entity has launched and it’s a music search. Basically, the jist is they’ve added more details for music-oriented searches. While the search right now is somewhat limited, they do plan on expanding the listings.

The pounds will melt away as AOL and the TV show ‘Good Morning America’ plan to launch a weight-loss challenge for their online and television audiences.

Doc Searls wrapped up his Syndicate Conference in a keynote that discussed the Live Web of content, and some strange elevators in New York’s Marriott Times Square property. Only in California.

Yahoo has released their look back at the top searches of 2005. Britney Spears appears to have had a great year (surprising to me).

Gmail has been adding features like crazy lately, and this one should come in handy for the holidays: autoresponders for when you are on vacation.

ClickZ reports that search volume rose 15 percent in the five months between June and October of this year, according to details from Nielsen//NetRatings. Ask Jeeves saw the biggest jump in market share.

ColdFusion is a rapid application development language for the web, developed by Macromedia.

Yahoo plans to create a third original web-only series; this one will be a reality show that embraces and extends the “home makeover” concept, called “Wow House.”

Cellphones using the latest T9 software from AOL’s Tegic Communications unit know about a whole bunch of new words that you may not know yourself.

ZDNet International contributing editor and AttentionTrust.org president Steve Gillmor spoke at San Francisco’s Syndicate Conference on attention and its worth online.

The latest version of Google Sitemaps provides more information for users of the service, as Google looks to drive more usage of the utility among site publishers.

At the Syndication Conference in San Francisco there are a lot of believers in RSS as a replacement for email marketing. I can’t disagree more and finally … I found two speakers yesterday who still believe in email. Now, I …

The Tribune Company’s online division, Tribune Interactive, plans to use GoFish technology for multimedia search on the Metromix websites.

I’m pretty sure I am not the first person to point this out, but I think blogging is in danger of causing its own demise. The problem? Too many damn ads!

At the Syndication Conference in San Francisco there are a lot of believers in RSS as a replacement for email marketing. I can’t disagree more and finally … I found two speakers yesterday who still believe in email. Now, I …