VentureBeat has discovered that FriendFeed has quietly rolled out a new feature: support for geotagging and geoRSS.

This means that whenever you update a service that contains location information, FriendFeed will display a map with your location together with the update. Same goes for any geoRSS feed, which is a fairly new standard for RSS feeds that contains geo information. Click on the map, and you’ll go to Google Maps at that location.

The feature is nice, but is it relevant? Louis Gray asks in a recent update: “The map shows I posted from Sunnyvale, but it’s not relevant to the post. Hey FF, how do I pull that map?” In certain situations, these maps are just going to show the same location - work or home - over and over again, so being able to hide the maps might be a good idea.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Former Googlers Team Up to Launch FriendFeedMashable Rocks: Connect with us on FriendFeedFriendFeed Launches SearchFriendFeed Recommendations? Who Are You Likely to Like?FriendFeed Gets $5M, Launches to the PublicFriendFeed Brings Twitter BackFriendFeed Launches Rooms. Moving Towards Semantic Web?

Talk about a 180. Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang spoke at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco; him and his company are tired, battered and bruised. But his message is now - suddenly, and amazingly - clear: Yahoo wants to be bought by Microsoft.

His exact words?

“To this day, I have to say that the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo. I don’t think that is a bad idea at all…at the right price, whatever the price is, we are willing to sell the company. We were ready to negotiate, we wanted to negotiate a deal, and we felt that we weren’t that far apart. But at the end of the day, they withdrew and they since have been very clear about not wanting to buy the company.”

Perhaps I have a bad memory, but Yahoo did not want Microsoft to acquire them following their initial offer which, in the light of perhaps inevitable economic recession and current Yahoo share price, now seems generous.

In fact: they did everything in their power to block the deal from happening, including negotiating a search ad deal with Google - one that was doomed to fail because of anti-monopoly laws.

Now, they’re willing to be acquired at the “right price,” which, in light of recent events, will inevitably be lower than Microsoft’s initial offer. This is a huge win for Steve Ballmer, who showed he’s a tough negotiator, who knows when to walk away and stalk for a better opportunity, and that opportunity is now. Microsoft is now buying a much, much weaker Yahoo, and even if their price is low; severely lower than their initial offer, Yang will probably have to take it.

The stage is now set for the final chapter of Microsoft-Google-Yahoo saga. Yahoo definitely pulled the shortest straw here; Microsoft may be a winner, but whether they’re capable of doing something useful with a giant such as Yahoo remains questionable. The real winner is, once again, Google, who interfered just enough to weaken both Microsoft and Yahoo as much as possible with virtually no downsides. Well played.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:MASSIVE: Microsoft May Acquire Yahoo for $50 BillionYahoo and Microsoft Officially Call It Quits@Yahoo is Twittering: @Microsoft: Sure, We’ll Consider an AlternativeThe Daily Poll: What Should Microsoft Do Next?Google to Acquire SimplyHired?Battle On: Microsoft to Launch Proxy Fight at YahooChina’s Alibaba Wants a Voice in Microsoft-Yahoo Discussion

Source:Mashable!

Though voicemail has become a less cumbersome thing with the advent of so-called “visual voicemail,” in which the recipient can pick and choose which recordings to listen to at a given time, text-based messaging is a route preferred by many people today.

This is why a service like PhoneTag, formerly known as Simulscribe, has received the attention that it has in the past several months. It is also the reason for today’s launch of another transcription service, this time by consumer voicemail provider YouMail. The highlight here is users’ ability to choose between automated and human-powered voice-to-text transfers.

As with its competitors, YouMail’s transcription services, which involve SMS- or email-based deliveries, carry a cost, with price dependent on the quantity of messages provided for a set fee per month. For example, 50 messages transcribed to SMS are available for $3.99. Alternatively, the same number of messages transcribed to email are $6.99. Unlimited messaging for each approach is $9.99 and $17.99, respectively. YouMail also states that it offers a Read-it Free plan atop its basic voicemail service for no extra charge, though it requires users to specify only a single contact for message transcription or a “limited number of messages.”

Compared with PhoneTag, the options placed on the table by YouMail are not only less expensive, and, in the case of its two 50-message plans, 25% more voluminous, but that YouMail lists an option for human intervention, makes for a more accurate process overall. Of course, if you’d prefer that a machine do the hard work, which many users presumably would, the choice is there. But if you and/or your contact want to feel there is a pseudo on-demand secretarial assistant facilitating things between each party, YouMail has you covered.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:YouMail Adds Voice Transcription: Read Your VoicemailsYouMail Won’t Hang Up On This; $4.5M in FundingYouMail’s Custom Phone Service Gets Ads, TooYouMail Will Hang Up on Exes for YouYouMail Visual Voicemail App on Your SmartphonePodcast: A Conversation with YouMail’s Alex QuiliciRealNetworks Launches Multimedia Ringback Tones

Source:Mashable!

Although Google Maps and Google Earth are often getting all the attention, the truth is that Microsoft’s Live Maps is a great product as well. Now, it also has a completely unique feature to brag about: Photosynth.

The image-stitching technology which produces wonderful 3D imagery is available on Live Maps in the form of pushpins; click on one and you’ll get a fully 3D experience of the location in question.

Some examples can be seen in Seattle, Cairo, Vatican city, or at the Leaning tower of Pisa.

This is what Photosynth was born to do; being able to explore distant locations in a cool 3D environment is fantastic, and while it not may be a killer feature that’ll make people swarm from Google Maps to Live Maps, it’s definitely a nice advantage for Microsoft’s product. Unfortunately, Photosynth imagery isn’t directly embedded in the map; instead, you need to have Photosynth installed, and it opens in a separate window, which partly ruins the overall experience.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Microsoft Virtual Earth Team Takes Control of 3D Photosynth EngineMicrosoft Photosynth To Appear On CSI:New YorkMicrosoft’s Photosynth is Out of BetaLive Search Maps to Introduce New FeaturesLive Maps Latest Release: New FeaturesGoogle Maps Street ViewLive Search Maps Goes to China

Iterend is a new blog search engine (still in private beta) that hopes to steal Technorati’s lunch money, but first they have to beat Google’s Blog Search to the punch. In this showdown, we’ll perform a search test on all three services and compare the results. Checkout the screencast as well.

Technorati has been king of the hill for a long time when it comes to blog search but as happens with all monarchies, they’ve grown complacent and stopped innovating which has opened the door for other potential heirs to the throne.Enter iterend and Google Blog Search which recently hit the streets. The initial reviews of Google’s foray into the blog search arena has been mostly positive.

Before checking the results of the showdown, here’s a little bit about iterend which presents a busy home page with a flood of recent phrases as tags along with the top stories in the past twenty four hours. At the top of the page is their search bar which you can adjust to search for a different time frame such as the last hour, last week, anytime, etc. Here are some other features of note.

-  All articles are linked to structured wikipedia information, which makes it possible to search by categories.

- Search results are clustered and you can search on sentence level, post level or blog level.

- Next to the search results, relevant phrases and categories are displayed, so you are able to restrict your search or get an overview over the information you are looking for.

- You can search for related posts to a given topic, url or cluster

The Test Results

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As you’ll see in the screencast, the old dog Technorati still seemed to provide the best and fastest results when searching for the same exact keywords. We used a post from Mashable for this video just to show how different the search results were for all three search engines. In most cases, Technorati provided the most recent blog posts.

While Google’s Blog Search impressed with its sheer extensiveness, Technorati seemed to include far less unseemly characters in its search results. Both Google Blog Search and Iterend appeared to include far more spammers, sploggers and other things you usually find hiding under a rock. Over all, Technorati is still the top dog for blog search while Google’s Blog Search and Iterend are worthy challengers that will surely improve with time.

Source:Mashable!

Remember when we told you about Google’s new satellite, GeoEye-1, which should bring highest resolution commercial imagery available to Google Maps? Below, you can see the first image that the satellite captured. GeoEye-1 captures images at .41 meters in black and white and 1.65 meters in color; for real life reference, that means crisp enough to read license plates.

Google, however, will receive imagery in 50-centimeter resolution because of a government restriction and the fact that it’s not the only customer who benefits from GeoEye-1. They’re sharing it with National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; which collects and analyses geospatial data in support of national security. Translated, that means they get the really good stuff. Real spies probably have their own, even more advanced satellites, though. Speaking to Wired, Mark Brender, GeoEye’s vice president of communications and marketing, said that GeoEye-1 is

“the opposite of a spy satellite. Spies don’t put info on the internet and sell imagery. We’re an Earth-imaging satellite, and we can sell our imagery to customers around the world who have a need to map and measure and monitor things on the ground.”

The important fact is that GeoEye-1 is up and running, collecting imagery for Google Maps which will soon start looking like the image below. Time for a new round of mapspotting!

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Bumpy Map Mashups with Google TerrainGoogle Offers Easy Embed Code for MapsGoogle Maps in (Almost) 3DGoogle to Get New Satellite Imagery From GeoEyeGoogle Earth and NASA Complete ProjectGoogle Maps Hangs Up on Click-to-CallYahoo Maps: More Color, More Zoom

Rising gas prices have made mass transit an increasingly important mode of transportation. Though in the United States there isn’t a subway station every two feet. How do you find them? How do you know their schedules? When is your city going to finally get an updated public transit system? Here are 12 resources to help you answer these questions.

What sites do you use to navigate your local mass transit? Tell us more in the comments.

Bus & Train Services

BusMonster.com - A Google Maps mashup that will help you determine which bus stops are near a given intersection in Seattle, WA.

Google Transit - Google Transit is a part of Google Maps, which lets you plan step-by-step routes around numerous major cities such as Austin, Dallas, Miami, San Diego and several international cities.  Will also allow you to view stations and schedules.

HopStop.com - Gives you subway and bus routes for Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and a few assorted outlying areas. Allows users to submit their own ideas for sightseeing trips in a city.

MBTA.com - The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority website provides you with schedules, fare charts and maps for trains, subways, buses and boats.

MTA.info - The New York City Transit site has printable schedules and info for all of their mass transit systems.

OnNYTurf.com - A Google Maps mashup of the subway lines in New York City and New Jersey.  The service can help you figure out routes and show you stations throughout the city along with what lines run through them. It is available in multiple languages.

SpotBus.com - Helps you figure out the best bus routes in Seattle, WA.  Enter your start point and ending destination and the site will calculate your best route using Metro, Pierce-, Sound-, and Community-Transit lines.

TransitChicago.com - Bus and train schedules, integrated Google Trip Planner, and general information about the Chicago transit systems.

Information About Mass Transit

ELTIS.org - The European Local Transport Information Service provides you with news on public transportation throughout Europe.

MassTransitMag.com - Keep up on all the latest happenings with mass transit around the United States.

Metro-Magazine.com - A trade publication for the mass transit industry with blogs, resources for people in the mass transit industry, the latest news and more.

UITP.org - The International Association of Public Transit website not only features information for people inside the industry, but serves as a public outreach tool to explain to people the benefits of taking public transit.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Google to Create Online Transit Guide for N.Y.C.Google Maps Offers NYC Mass Transit DirectionsHopStop Raises Financing, Reports 1.5M Monthly VisitorsGoogle Transit Route Planning Now Works In EuropeGoogle Labs Graduates Public Transportation FeatureGoogle Maps Now Have Transit InfoYahoo Pens Deal with R.H. Donnelley for Ad Distribution Across Local & Maps Search

TechCrunch

Cowen & Co., an industry analyst firm that specializes in covering Web services, released a statement today discussing its findings on the success of online mapping solutions.

To no one’s surprise, the analyst found that Google Maps is the de facto leader in the space, while its rivals, Yahoo Maps, MapQuest, and Live Search Maps have slipped well behind Google. According to the analyst, much of Google’s success is due to the fact that its competitors simply don’t have what it takes to keep pace.

Roadways in parts of New York City are having their annual crisis of non-motion, a result of the gathering of the United Nations General Assembly. So what better time for the utilitarian folk at Google to ply the five boroughs and areas beyond for all manner of details concerning the mass transit options of the region?

Indeed, Google today has revealed it has produced an entire Web-based representation of lines that the MTA, Port Authority, and New Jersey Transit travel by. Which at first glance might seem a rather selective focus for the company. Still, it is said that “one in every three users of mass transit in the country” make use of the MTA system, so the provisions now officially in place in public view on Google Maps for the whole of New York City and its surroundings are bound to find appreciative consumers.

I gave the mass transit button in Google Maps a spin, charting a path from Central Park to the United Nations, and I was shown the path displayed above. In the left-hand trip guide was a detailed warning about 7 Line disruptions, with links to the MTA website for more information. Is this the most convenient option to take? You decide. Try other routes, too. See if Google is as smart with street-level and subterranean transport as a well-worn native might estimate his/her knowledge of the grid.

What the company can deliver is data for most everything in the vicinity of metropolitan New York. But as Google users have learned to recognize time and time again, an algorithm only goes so far.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Google Maps Expands CoverageAsk Launches Embeddable mapsGoogle Maps in (Almost) 3DGoogle Maps Street View is LiveGoogle Maps Hangs Up on Click-to-CallGoogle Maps Gets Wiki With ItTonight: Flash MashMeet in NYC!

Outside.in has just granted public access to StoryMaps, their GeoToolkit embeddable maps which let bloggers promote their local content in a visual format. The thing that makes StoryMaps so appealing is the fact that it’s so easy to use. Even the least technically savvy blogger will be able to connect their blog’s RSS feeds to their StoryMap which can be embedded on their site. Here’s the simple interface where you can customize the map and it then generates the embed code for you.

Paradigm Shift for Blogging Timelines?

StoryMaps strives to change the way people read blogs. The traditional method is simply a top to bottom format with the latest and newest posts appearing on top with each new item pushing the existing piece down a notch and so on. Outside.in’s theory is that it isn’t wise to keep burying your own posts with each new one. They believe that displaying your posts in a non-linear timeline as presented in StoryMaps would be the ultimate way to do this.

For example, if you’ve blogged about certain restaurants or other places in your neck of the woods then it would be lost somewhere in your blog and hard to find. However, if you used a StoryMap of your neighborhood then every post you’ve written about places in that neighborhood will appear as clickable links on the map.

Readers can also easily adjust how far back in time to view posts about that area on your StoryMap. Thus, from the same map and webpage readers can access posts from many different time periods.

Summation

For certain types of blogs, StoryMaps make a lot of sense. If you blog about places and events then this tool will be very valuable for creating a visual navigational system for your stories. Some of the other options available from Outside.in add value to StoryMaps. For example, their new Radar feature allows you to find stories in and around your area. Another useful feature is the integration with Yahoo’s Fire Eagle service that pinpoints your location on a map. All together Outside.in provides a decent selection of Geographic tools.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Outside.in Gets $1.5 MillionLefora Offers Premium Domain Mapping Exclusively to Mashable ReadersFixMyMovie Relaunches, Autopost to YouTubeJalbum’s Photo Album Site Now has Free HostingFT.com Frees Up ContentSpinVox Enables Voice-To-Text for LiveJournalRedBubble to Launch Global Artist Marketplace

Google on Thursday announced that it has used its Gears Geolocation API to make searching for businesses and locales in your area easier on Windows Mobile devices.

According to the company, Search with My Location approximates your location based on Cell ID technology already employed by Google Maps and returns businesses in that area. If you’re looking to find the best Italian restaurants in your area, you can input “Italian restaurants” into the Search field, and it will return a list of Italian restaurants around your location. But it goes beyond businesses and restaurants. Google said that if you want to know the forecast where you are, simply type in “weather” and it will return the weather for your area.

While Google Maps is an awesome application, it has its limits and can sometimes be a pain in the behind to transfer addresses to from other websites.  Luckily, there are a slew of Firefox extensions that can help you turn Google Maps into an even more powerful tool.

As we always warn you with any list of Firefox tools, please do not install all of these at once unless you’d like to slow down your browser.

Advanced URL Builder - Lets you set the first part of a URL, such as Google Maps, and then you just highlight a zip/postal code, right click and choose Google Maps to be shown that location.

BlueOrganizer - An extension capable of reading the information contained in a page, such as an address. It automatically pulls up tools like Google Maps to help you find locations.

GDirections - Allows you to set various home addresses in memory, and then you can highlight an address, right click to select which address to begin with, and it will bring up the driving directions from the mapping service of your choice.

iPhoneSender - Right click on a Google Map and you can send a properly formatted link to your iPhone via email for easy access on the go.

Locator - Highlight an address on a Web site, right click with your mouse and choose “locate on Google Map” to be taken directly to Google Maps and shown the location.

Map This - Merges the features of a few mapping extensions in that you can highlight the address on a page to see where it is and you can also get driving directions by the same method if you choose.

Minimap Sidebar - Numerous features for mapping including drag-and-drop of addresses into the sidebar, reads geotags and has an amazing laundry list of other mapping tools.  This extension was the Grand Prize Winner in the Extend Firefox 2 Contest.

PackageMapping.com Extension - While more of a Google Maps mashup, this one is great for people who do a lot of online shopping and want to see a graphical representation of where exactly their packages are.

Pre Trip Planner for your Navigation System - Adds a link to Google Maps that allows you to plot a course for a trip and then export it to your navigational system.

Select-n-Go by Cleeki - Allows you to highlight text in a page and then choose the search engine to plug it into, including Google Maps.

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:Google Maps Now Support hCard MicroformatsGoogle Maps Hangs Up on Click-to-CallGoogle Offers Easy Embed Code for MapsCustom Icons for Google MapsMaptacular! 7 Google Maps Tools For FirefoxGoogle Maps in (Almost) 3DGoogle Reader Gets Search!