Last week, Facebook launched a new registration tool for site owners. With this, users can quickly sign up for new sites with their Facebook profiles. The tool goes beyond the simple log-in feature of Facebook Connect, and lets users more easily fill out forms based on the information that they’ve already shared with Facebook (such as email address, name, birthday, phone number, etc.)

Sometimes one has to state the obvious: You’re in business to make money. You make money by convincing lots of people to give you some of their money. Success depends on making this process as painless as possible*.

But many online businesses may be making it too difficult for customers to hand over the cash, which is a bad business practice by any account.

Here’s what people (especially men) are used to:

A trademark registration filed on behalf of Fark.com’s owner Drew Curtis generated plenty of attention when news of it hit social media sites.

There are four posts at Resource Shelf, chock full of domains registered by or transferred to Microsoft, that you might be interested in.

Yahoo Sports is starting off the 2007 fantasy football season with a user generated contest searching for the most inventive touchdown celebration.

A surprising turn of events could mean the Chinese government will not require bloggers to provide their real names to a central registry.

In America, Google’s SafeSearch can be disabled with two simple clicks of the mouse.  Not so in Korea – the search engine giant will, starting in August, require that users enter their name and a national resident registration number in order to conduct “searches of an adult nature.”

The Utah State Legislature has passed a Trademark Protection Act that creates a new type of mark called an electronic registration mark; it probably will not survive a Constitutional test according to the state’s own general counsel.

A recent article posted on Slashdot looked at various website design points of the top 6 Presidential Candidates.

It’s always satisfying to learn something new about an industry, and today brings to light a marketing practice, I never knew existed.

AP explores a loophole with domain registration, which allows anyone to return a registered domain name within 5 days and get a full refund. This has led to hundreds of thousands of domain speculators and search arbitragers registering domain names, testing which ones do well for type-in traffic, and getting a full refund on any duds.

MyFeedz.com launched quietly in ‘technology preview’ mode from Adobe Labs recently, offering a web-based application that learns from the visitor’s reading habits to continually improve the information it presents.

As more and more of the world logs on to Web, we know that now is not the time to experiment with design, or to assume what works in the real world works in the virtual world. It’s time to apply what we know works, and what works is entirely dependent upon the end-user.

SEO Question: Is a Yahoo! Directory registration worth it? How do I know what directories are worthwhile? What directories should I submit to? Do you have any good site submission tips?

I hear that CES this year is going to sign up bloggers as press for the first time.

So, you are going to PubCon next week, right?

A marketing rep from AnalyticsTool.com sent me an email this past week wanting me to check out their free analytics product.

Facebook may have its eyes on the prize – the social networking site, which was at one time open only to college students, intends to open its doors to everyone else, as well. This move could help Facebook reach MySpace-like levels of popularity, but many bloggers think that current users will resent the change.

You can create an irresistible offer by humanizing the registration process. Help your potential registrants know that you are real, caring people behind the scenes.

Google has once again launched another Code Jam contest and registration is now open — Registration for Google Code Jam closes September 5, and the qualifying round begins on the same day.

The Houston Chronicle had required users trying to visit its pages to provide demographic information before proceeding, but has tossed that process in an effort to build traffic.

The honeymoon’s over, the free lunch is now an empty plate, and the online version of the New York Times will cost you $49.95 as of Monday.

Search engine marketing gurus Eric Ward and Debra Mastaler put together a two-day link building seminar for October in Charlotte. Their PowerHouse Seminar is designed to help folks get the most out of link building and in the process take websites up to another level.