There is something apt about a social networking website winning a popularity contest. According to industry data, Facebook overtook Google among US internet users last week, with more visits to its pages than to the search engine. It is a moment to consider the rapid growth of a site whose 400m-plus users outnumber the population of any single country except India and China.

Advertisers find Facebook appealing. It enables them to reach a mass audience, as television does, but with the extra benefit of much greater targeting. Consumer brands could easily extend their presence beyond the fan pages that already exist. Moreover, a social site provides consumers who visit for much longer than they would use a search engine. So increased advertising, and perhaps ways to allow users to shop through the site, should enable Facebook to move from positive cash flow to making profits.

There is something apt about a social networking website winning a popularity contest. According to industry data, Facebook overtook Google among US internet users last week, with more visits to its pages than to the search engine. It is a moment to consider the rapid growth of a site whose 400m-plus users outnumber the population of any single country except India and China.

Advertisers find Facebook appealing. It enables them to reach a mass audience, as television does, but with the extra benefit of much greater targeting. Consumer brands could easily extend their presence beyond the fan pages that already exist. Moreover, a social site provides consumers who visit for much longer than they would use a search engine. So increased advertising, and perhaps ways to allow users to shop through the site, should enable Facebook to move from positive cash flow to making profits.

Back when the Google Nexus One was announced, we were told it would be coming to Vodafone and Verizon Wireless. In a bit of a surprise move, Google announced that AT&T and Roger Wireless customers can now buy the SIM-unlocked Google Nexus One and get full 3G data functionality. This new model is only sold at the $529 unlocked price and there are no subsidized options available. With Motorola and AT&T rolling out the crippled Backflip device as the first Android device on AT&T I think this announcement comes at a perfect time and imagine many of my AT&T friends will be jumping on the Nexus One. I personally love my Nexus One and think Google selling 135,000 in 74 days is quite an achievement and believe these sales will now increase with a larger AT&T network supported.

It will be interesting to hear how many iPhone users will be picking up a Google Nexus One as they wait for a possible iPhone upgrade later this summer. This new model supports three 3G/UMTS bands (850/1900/2100 MHz) and four GSM radio frequencies (850/900/1800/1900 MHz).

Lokast allows you to discover, share music, videos,photos,contacts, and web links with others nearby. Extending on the notion of “Broadcast Networks”, Lokast turns devices into localized, high speed content servers that nearby users can “tune” into.

Finally an app that lets you transfer more than JUST your contact info and few images! LoKast lets you share just about everything on your iphone/iTouch!

- Search nearby for other users and media

-Share songs that other users can preview and then download

- Share Photos & Vidoes

- Share as many of your contacts as you desire

- Share web links

-Download featured content and share with other friends

Wow, and how about this one -

With Lokast Live, you can view Web links with others side-by-side, in real time – others just tune into your live LoKast and their browser follows the same web links that you are surfing.

* Broadcast music, images, vidoes, or your entire screen even when you are riding the subway

* At a stadium event/office building/out of service area and can’t get any reception? You can still send messages, photos,videos,and contact information to any active users nearby!

*Unlike other apps, you don’t have to worry about carrier networks to transfer content.

Twitter users can now add their current location to their tweets. The micro-blogging service on Thursday activated an optional new feature that appends geographical information to your posts.

Once you opt-in, Twitter adds your location to your tweets. Note the region circled in red:

Why the new feature? “A recent burst of interest in location sharing applications, games, and services has many Twitter users excited about appending geographic data to some of their tweets,” writes Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

He also provides a somewhat bizarre example of how location-sharing could help Twitter users. If you hear a loud boom outside, search Twitter for “boom,” and find a tweet in your area mentioning a fireworks show, you can safely assume the noise is nothing to be concerned about.

Google has made its big move as a local shopping inventory gatekeeper. The company said Thursday that it will offer mobile device users inventory checks on local stores, allowing them to see if products are available.The program has already enlisted some key retailers including Sears, Best buy, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm.

Here’s what the experience looks like on the Safari browser on the iPhone. It is also available for Palm’s WebOS and Android. It’s available from mobile Google.com results or via Google Shopping in mobile.

Google Maps for Biking:

Bike maps are currently available in 150 cities, including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Boston. As with the driving and publication transportation options on Google Maps, the bicycling layer is customizable – you can compare distances and estimated times, or use your mouse to drag and pull together your own custom route. IPhone and Android users should get the cycling map update soon, Google says.

The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is a major initiative between our companies to create a competitive choice in search for advertisers and consumers. The combined scale will assist both companies in speeding the pace of innovation to improve the search user experience, as well as help advertisers get better results and help improve monetization for partners.

Google PowerMeter is a free software tool that allows you to view your home’s energy consumption from your personalized iGoogle homepage.

This is an effort by various large and small companies to launch better and smarter home energy monitoring services. Today, Google took the next step in its efforts to make PowerMeter a ubiquitous service by launching an API for PowerMeter that allows device manufacturers to create PowerMeter-compatible devices. This, according to Google, will allow hardware manufacturers to integrate “in-home/plug level energy monitoring devices with Google PowerMeter.” Thanks to this, you may soon be able to check how much power your lamp or TV is currently using by simply checking the PowerMeter gadget on iGoogle.

At a recent meeting at Yahoo, in which the company sought to correct the impression that it was “done” in search, Greg sterling asked about the status of Yahoo! Maps and Yahoo! Local.

Yahoo! was originally the innovator in these areas but eventually ceded them to Google and Microsoft amid internal turmoil and budget decisions. During that meeting Yahoo! said it recognized the importance of these areas and would be reinvesting (especially given their importance in mobile).

At SMX West yesterday, Greg moderated the “Ask the Local Search Engines” panel. That panel was supposed to feature Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. But Yahoo! pulled its speaker citing scheduling conflicts. It was totally amazing to see that the company didn’t provide a substitute speaker. At the very last minute Yelp came in.

The session was great — the Q&A was 45 minutes — and Yelp’s presence gave the conversation some interesting new energy and direction,  about reviews and the challenges on the SMB side as well as the publisher side of managing the process.  It was noticed that there was an unexpected change that was symbolic of Yelp’s rise and Yahoo!’s unfortunate decline in the local space.

Yelp is now more important than Yahoo! Local to businesses and consumers.