The folks at Microsoft are the latest in a long line of tech firms putting their chips on the OpenID project. For those unaware, “OpenID” is based around the theory that having one login ID for several sites is intrinsically better than having proprietary IDs for each site. Many analysts see addition of Windows Live users — all 400 million of them — as a major victory for the emerging web standard. While Microsoft might be the biggest company to embrace OpenID, it isn’t the first. Other notable firms that have pledged their support for the service include Yahoo, Technorati, and WordPress.

Pollster and security company FaceTime Communications has a few interesting things to say about social networking use in business. According to the report, roughly 79% use social networking and video sites at work for specific, “business-centric” reasons. In addition, 51% of those surveyed said that they visit social sites at least once a day. LinkedIn is by far the most popular social networking site among business people, with 62% saying that it is their favorite service. YouTube comes in second, with a 55% user rate.

In related news, video services such as YouTube have a new group to thank for their unparalleled growth — women. Roughly 54% of women over twelve said that they have watched at least one online video in the past month, a 9% increase from 2007. Men still lead the pack at 58%, but the gap is shrinking. “It appears the prevalence of streaming video online among younger males may be approaching a ceiling today,” Ipsos Media director Adam Wright recently told WebProNews. “The other demographic groups are driving the audience growth here.”

In other news, Kwanzoo is promising that even the smallest of quizzes can boost overall advertising revenues. The little startup claims that they can produce results ten times greater than traditional banner ads, and is using the success of partners Meebo and Glam Media to prove it. Kwanzoo is based around the idea that people are more likely to click on something that is interactive and fun than “boring” and traditional. Site owners can choose from over 50,000 questions for their own personalized “quiz widget,” or they can write their own. Kwanzoo is up and running now.

Finally, a few new Gadgets are coming to a Gmail account near you. New additions include a simple Calendar viewer (complete with so-called “meeting alerts) and a full-featured search engine geared towards Google Docs. “Gmail Labs has been a really fun way to easily try out new ideas and get some of our pet feature requests implemented quickly,” writes Gmail engineer Dan Pupius. “We wanted to take this to the next level.” The new Google Gadgets are available now, with many more to come in the near future.