One thousand times each month, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum receives a request for information regarding a victim of the Holocaust. Each time they do, their researchers use accumulated historical knowledge and a bit of guesswork to comb through the 170 million documents that name over 17 million individuals targeted by Hitler?s regime. As a result, while some answers can come in weeks, many take years and some enquiries never get answered at all.</p> <p>To help make research more efficient and practical, the Holocaust Memorial Museum has turned to crowdsourcing, teaming with Ancestry.com to create the World Memorial Project, which allows users to tag content with names, locations, and other information. According to an article on Mashable, since 5 May, approximately 1,500 volunteers have used Ancestry.com to tag 124,000 records. That is compared to the 1,000 records per year the museum staff is able to process.</p> <p>The result is that, when a request is received, research is often more efficient. For example, using crowd sourced internet content, researchers were able find and retrieve a photograph of a man?s father ? the only image the man had seen in over 65 years.</p> <p>Of the crowdsourcing effort, Lisa Yavnai, director of the Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center said, ?I think people, when they hear about the Holocaust, they might feel like it?s something terrible, but they can?t really do anything about it. But you can still help victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution by helping them find information and answer questions they?ve had for more than 65 years.?<br />

Many businesses that use social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to share content have staff that tweet from both business and personal accounts. Therefore, it does not come as any surprise that, on occasion, tweeting wires are crossed and something meant to be personal gets published on the business account. This is what happened to the US Secret Service late last week on Twitter when one of their employees mistakenly wrote, ?Had to monitor Fox for a story. Can?t.Deal.With.The.Blathering.? on the official account. What might have been clever from a personal account did not seem clever at all coming from @SecretService.</p> <p>In a statement reported by NPR and issued by Secret Service spokesperson Edwin Donovan, it says, ?an employee with access to the Secret Service?s Twitter account, who mistakenly believed they were on their personal account, posted an unapproved and inappropriate tweet. [?] The tweet did not reflect the views of the US Secret Service and was immediately removed. We apologise for the mistake, and the user no longer has access to our official account.?</p> <p>Of course, this is not the first time that an employee has mistakenly tweeted something personal from the business account; a Red Cross employee accidentally tweeted about drinking and someone from Chrysler used the f-word in one of their tweets.</p> <p>So how do you prevent it from happening? Experts suggest using different browsers for personal and business accounts. HootSuite also has a ?secure profiles? feature to help eliminate these types of gaffs.</p> <p>

After an initial price of $45, popular social media site LinkedIn closed trading yesterday at $94.25, placing its worth at $8.9 billion and placing it in the top 500 biggest companies in the USA. LinkedIn has also become the first social networking company to sell stock on the public market, setting the precedence for other social networking companies to do the same.</p> <p>However, experts are concerned; according to them, the exuberance surrounding social media as a whole is knocking the company?s offering out of perspective.</p> <p>"It really is the sign of an irrational exuberance associated with anything that has social in it," said Forrester Research Senior VP and social media analyst Josh Bernoff. "What you're seeing here is enthusiasm that goes way beyond what the prospects are for the company itself."</p> <p>The day?s events are reminiscent of the 1990s, when it was common to see new internet companies hit stock prices that seemed far out of proportion. Consider Yahoo!, who in 1996 rose 154 per cent on its first day in trading and VA Software Corporation, whose first day stock offering went up 700 per cent in 1999.</p> <p>Could this be the start of a new technology bubble as some analysts fear? Matt Brischetto, Pacific Crest Securities VP for internet and digital media investment banking does not think so.</p> <p>"The difference in this from 2000 and 2001 is that these are real companies that are making money," Brischetto said. He also says the performance may not last, "IPOs over the past year or two generally perform very well on the first day, but you have to wait a few weeks or even a quarter in order to really see where the fair market value is.?<br />

A boon to the internet content providing crowd, Google has announced that is set to revamp Google Docs and Google Apps so that they can be used when not connected to the internet. The change is expected to happen this summer.</p> <p>"We will make them available this summer?, Chrome?s senior vice present Sundar Pichaitold CNET recently during the Google I/O conference. "We've all been using it internally. It's imminent. We want to make sure they're good."</p> <p>Before the advent of Chrome, the idea of putting more effort into Google Docs might not have taken priority; but now, with Acer and Samsung Chromebooks gearing up for their debut, addressing one of the application?s biggest flaws seems like a wise move.</p> <p>For those not familiar with Chromebooks, they are the next step in Google?s plan to give the world a browser-based operating system. Those working with content from an office have no problem with Google Docs and Apps current set-up; getting online from a Chrome OS unit is simple and consistent. However, Chromebooks is portable and it is probable that users will find themselves without access from time to time. </p> <p>With this step, Google is also acknowledging that not everyone lives in their perceived future. They see a world that is saturated with Wi-Fi and Ethernet ports are readily available. Their own company campuses illustrate this ? Pichai told CNET that he has to actively remember to disconnect; that is how prevalent access is. However, most of us do not live that way; we have those moments when a connection just does not happen. For us, offline is still important.<br />

</p> <p>Last week, Facebook owned up to authorising an effort to heighten privacy concerns about Google Social Search.</p>

A privacy hearing is set to take place in Washington tomorrow at 10am ET, with executives from Apple, Google, and Facebook listed as witnesses set to appear.</p> <p>Called by US Senator John Rockefeller, chairman of the Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance subcommittee, the hearing is the follow-up to one held on May 9th.</p>

Kraft, known for its wide variety of food brands, has hired Soleil Moon Frye, a well-known mommy blogger and former start of the US situation comedy Punky Brewster, to host their new online talk showHerSay.</p>

Google?s recent algorithm change, designed to combat internet content farms, has upset some of the UK?s higher-profile websites by downgrading their listings.</p>

</p> <p>Google and Apple may be about to do battle as a potential patent war looks set to explode into action.</p> <p>The two technology giants could clash over GPS-based advertising after it emerged that Apple are preparing what they call the ?iAd? mobile-ad serving platform.</p> <p>?Preparing? may be a little misleading as Apple have already submitted the patent and are awaiting approval.</p> <p>And, if their application is successful, Google could take Apple to the courtroom if they feel that the iPod developers have infringed on their existing location-specific ad system.</p> <p>Google?s ?location information in an ad system? patent was granted in February, just weeks after Apple had banned developers from inserting location-based ads into their iPod, iPad and iPhone apps.</p> <p>Was this a pre-emptive move on Apple?s part ? knowing that they had their own location-based technology in the pipeline and that Google were about to be granted their patent?</p> <p>You?d have to ask Steve Jobs for an ?honest? answer, but it would be fair to assume that those were the possible reasons behind such a move.</p> <p>If Apple?s patent is approved, you can fully expect Google to be less than pleased with their rivals, potentially leading to one of Apple?s most expensive courtroom payouts to date should Google?s hypothetical case prove successful.</p> <p>

In the USA, Google is the focus of an investigation surrounding what are being referred to as ?rogue pharmaceutical? advertisements; that is, online pharmacies who deal in fraudulent practices ? a problem faced by the US because of their often high prescription drug prices.</p> <p>According to Google, the recent influx of online pharmacies claiming to sell prescription drugs for lower costs has created an insurmountable task in trying to sort out which are legitimate and which are scams.</p>