Google is the undisputed king of search engines in the month of September. According to a poll conducted by Neilsen Online, around 8.1 million searches were performed, giving it a 59.7% share of the market. While impressive, the Google market share actually went down by .3% from the previous month. The biggest gainer this time around is Windows Live Search, which grew 1.1%. Microsoft’s favorite search engine came in at a solid third, with 953,000 searches and a 11.8% market share. Other notables include Yahoo (second place with 1.46 million searches and a 18.1% share), AOL (fourth place with 335,000 searches and a 4.1 share), and Comcast (seventh place with 52,000 search and a .6% share).

In other seach-based news, Yahoo’s so-called “Open Strategy” has gone live. The service, also known as Y!OS, lets users share applications and data in ways that most Yahoo users never considered. The new system will also add a level of “social interaction” that will permeate throughout the search engine and its related services. “As of today, developers can start using our newly available data on their own web sites and even start deploying new applications into Yahoo,” says Open Strategy chief Jay Rossiter. “We’re anxious to see what developers out there have up their sleeves and what [the end user will] do with it.”

In social networking news, the folks behind Facebook are planning to give their beloved service a major overhaul … with a twist. Instead of working during office hours, the techs are going to do it the old fashioned way — with an all-nighter. “Every few months, our engineers unleash their talents in one epic, all-night coding session,” writes Pedram Keyani in the official Facebook blog. “Dozens of Facebook engineers create working prototypes of projects that they always wanted to build but couldn’t ever pursue during their regular hours.” In addition to their ideas, the engineers will be working on some of your ideas as well. Deadlines for the suggestions are noon (Pacific Time) on Monday, November 3rd. Facebook’s Hackathon XI will go down Wednesday, November 5th.

Elsewhere, a specialized version of Microsoft Office is coming to the web. The so-called “Online Office” will allow users to read, create and edit a variety of files without leaving the safety of your browser. Surprisingly, the new web suite is not built upon Microsoft’s Flash competitor, Silverlight. Instead, the programs operate upon a solid bed of HTML and Javascrpt, similar to Google Apps. “What’s great is that this provides a consistent Office experience when and where our customers want it, regardless of whether they are accessing their Office documents through the PC, phone, or browser,” said Senior Vice President Chris Capossela in a press release. At press time, the web-centric version of Office is scheduled to work in Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

Finally: LinkedIn, the social network designed for the business-minded, is getting into the “proprietary apps” game. Unlike the widgets available MySpace and Facebook, each LinkedIn InApp is comprehensively reviewed and tested before it is deemed worthy for release. In theory, the approval process will limit (or even eliminate) the proliferation of so-called “junk apps.” Users are also limited to having “only” fifteen apps on their main profile page to help reduce clutter. The first batch of InApps widgets are available now for all LinkedIn users.