Legendary pollsters Nielsen have released their data concerning the growth of online video in 2008, and the results are, to say the least, surprising. According to the findings, nearly 60% of videos loaded from sites such as YouTube and DailyMotion are from people above the age of 35. Younger viewers, on the other hand, tend to watch more diversified content more often. “Initially, it is a bit shocking,” writes the team on the official Nielsen blog, Connecting the Dots. “But the truth of the matter is that video has already reached popularity to the point that the video universe, in broad terms, looks much like the overall Internet audience.”

Entrepreneur, sports executive, and generally polarizing figure Mark Cuban has a few interesting things to say when it comes to the future of Yahoo. According to the Dallas Mavericks owner, the solution to Yahoo’s financial woes is simple — buy up the competition like there is no tomorrow. “Yahoo has a very simple business. Generate traffic and monetize it,” writes Cuban. “Their strategy should be to acquire every and any company that makes their traffic, services, content or monetization stronger.” If all goes well, he theorizes, Yahoo won’t need another company like Microsoft to bail them out. It would also prove once and for all that the company might not be as “washed up” as many think. “Yahoo has the opportunity to be the ultimate next generation media company. Google does one thing well, search. Yahoo is and should be the best at everything else. It just has to stop being afraid of its own shadow.”

Elsewhere, Twitter is the latest major media concern to sign on to Google’s new Friend Connect service. Users can now use their Twitter IDs to access everything the Friend Connect universe has to offer, from Google Doc to AOL Instant Messenger and everything in between. The service also adds your Twitter contacts as friends automatically, making it easy to stay in touch no matter which service is in use. The addition of Twitter is big news for the fledgling service, which has to compete with both MySpaceID and Facebook Connect. While many within the industry applaud the new Google/Twitter partnership, some wonder if the existence of three “universal login services” is even necessary. The new, Twitter-centric Friend Connect is available now.

In other Google-related news, the search engine giant has begun to make a few changes to its Google Suggest feature. Instead of providing a series of “related searches,” Suggest now simply provides a sponsored link that takes the user directly to the site. Full-fledged advertisements have also been spotted, but these links do not interfere with the normal Suggest listings. At press time, the new “intsa-link” technology is active for only established organizations (UPS, for example) and news stories. While beta testers have been working with the new addition for a few days now, it is as of yet unknown when the feature will hit the general population.

Finally, we have Zannel. Zannel is based around the idea that iPhone users need a microblogging service of their very own. Like Twitter, the service lets users send short messages back-and-forth at rapid speed. Unlike the name brand equivalent, however, users can use the included map to see what other activity is going on around them. In addition to the root program, the map picks up Twitter and Flickr usage as well, making it easy to find new things and people. Easy to use and set up, Zannel is perfect for anyone who wants something a bit more “technologically advanced” from their portable microblogging client. Zannel is available now for all users.

Sometimes, a heavy diet of  website advertising is not necessarily a good thing. According to a new survey conducted by Burst Media, roughly 29% interviewed said that they routinely leave sites they feel are swarming with ads. Out of those who do stick around, 75.5% claim that they generally ignore the advertising around them. “One of the main obstacles to getting consumers’ attention online is ad clutter,” Burst Media Vice President Chuck Moran told WebProNews. “It is critical for advertisers to ensure their messages are being placed in a high quality content environment to receive the maximum exposure they deserve.”

Elsewhere, Microsoft has been working on something that is a bit different — a web-based scrapbooking program called Thumbtack. Thumbtack is a brand new service designed to keep notes, pictures, and comments all in one place. While many within the industry are generally underwhelmed by the base program. most agree that the available “gadgets” makes the entire experience worthwhile. By employing these gadgets, the system transforms from a mere collection of thoughts and images to a highly powerful trip maker and planner. The only real drawback is the need for Silverlight, Microsoft’s Flash alternative. Without it, many of the handy tools simply will not work. That aside, Thumbtack is solid enough on its own to warrant a test run. Thumbtack is available now for all users.

As many fans of the Free Line know, a fair share of oddball social media applications have come across our collective desks. From social programming to social history folders and everything in between, there are few things that people will not do in order to work together. Bitloot, however, is easily one of the most original social concepts out there. The general idea behind Bitloot is to make open source programming a true community experience. First, users of the service offer up what they would like to see worked upon in an open format. A programmer then takes up the project, all the while asking for donations from the community. Once the program is finished, the code is immediately forked and released to the community. Although it might seem a bit odd at first, Bitloot has the potential to show everyone what a cooperative open community can truly do.

Staying in the world of open source for the moment, blogger John Perez has one (or rather, 25) good reason(s) why you should try to “open up” your company’s tech resources. “Many who oversee the Operations and IT Budget [have] probably been challenged to reduce your capital budget by at least 40%,” Perez writes. “[Open source programs are] some of the most cost effective applications on the market [and] can easily replace some of your more expensive Enterprise solutions and functions.” A wide variety of programs inhabit the list, ranging from Free Line Favorites (Open Office) to future all stars (Get Clicky). Interesting and highly informative, these programs will not only help you get the most out of your system, it’ll save you money as well.

And to finish out the week, the folks at Google have officially removed the “beta” tag from Chrome. The newly christened “Chrome 1.0“ features a new bookmark manager, faster page load times, and better all around security and stability. “Google Chrome is a better browser today thanks to the many users who sent their feedback and the many more who enabled automatic crash reports”, writes Sundar Pichai on the Official Google Blog. While the rise to software legitimacy is a big step for any program, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all of the bugs and kinks have been worked out. Says Pinchai: “Our goals for stability and performance have been met but our work is far from done. We are working to add some common browser features such as form autofill and RSS support in the near future. If you haven’t used Google Chrome for a while, now might be a good time to give it another spin.”

Google is number one in the world of online video yet again, and it’s all thanks to YouTube. Roughly 5.37 billion Google-controlled videos were loaded in October according to respected pollster comScore. Out of those videos, nearly 98% featured the familiar “YouTube” branding. Coming in second is MySpace parent Fox Media, which saw 520 million downloads and a 3.8% share of the market. While it is impressive, the number does not even come close to that of Google/YouTube, which enjoyed a staggering 39.7% share. Other notables include Yahoo (363 million views, 2.7% share), Microsoft (286 million users, 2.1% share), and Hulu (235 million users, 1.7% share).

Last week we talked about Facebook Connect, the new service that lets users use their Facebook IDs at a variety of web 2.0 hot spots. Now it’s MySpace’s turn to join the “all for one” party with MySpace Open Platform. The big news concerning Open Platform is less about where the new scheme can be used, and more about whom is actually backing it. The new service is compatible with OpenID, OpenSocial, and most notably, Google Friend Connect. Many within the industry sees Open Platform as a more “long term solution” than Facebook Connect, mainly due to the OpenID partnership. “The beauty of open standards is how easy they make it for users anywhere on the web to connect with the people they care about,” Google’s David Glazer told WebProNews. “We’re excited to work with MySpace.” The MySpace team is also working with British telecom Vodafone on a mobile implementation of the service.

Elsewhere, the critics are being less than kind when it comes to Experimental Search, the new search feature from Ask.com. Like many modern search engines, Ask.com incorporates paid advertisements into their results page. Unlike these engines, however, Ask doesn’t differenciate the paid ads from the actual listings. The result is something closer to a “full page ad” than a page of search results. Officials at Ask.com have disputed the claims, saying the monsterous ad was due to the actions of a “rouge syndicator” that have since been dealt with.

In other news, bookmarking mega-site Delicious is now available for mobile phones everywhere. The new, more portable version of the service features everything its older brothers does, only in a smaller package. Since it’s designed to work on as many different handsets as possible, don’t be surprised if (or rather, when) the service doesn’t physically look all that great on newer equipment such as the iPhone. Aside from the physical appearence, the only real drawback is the dreaded “beta” tag — some users have already run into their share of bugs and mistakes. Even with the “beta” label fully attached, the new Mobile Delicious is better than almost anything your cell phone currently offers.

And finally, we have Twones, a Dutch music suggestion service with a distinct social flare. Instead of operating primarily from a website, Twones does its business from a browser extension. Each time you listen to a song, the extension makes a note of it. The song is then sent to your personal music feed, which houses your overall playlist. Others can review the burgeoning list, leave suggestions, and link to their own private lists. While some might fault the service for lacking a music library of its own, most will pay the minor inconvenience no mind. Twones is available now by invitation only.

The way that many companies monitor the popularity of sites are at risk of becoming outdated. Many within the industry say that this phenomenon is due to the proliferation of so-called “corporate web 2.0″ projects. To compensate, many companies are implementing a series of small web apps designed to track web 2.0 data.  “For years, enterprises have used traditional web-analytics tools to simply measure page views and keep track of traffic on corporate web sites,” says Heather Havensen, writer at tech blog Computerworld. “With the spread of corporate-sponsored Web 2.0 applications, forward-thinking IT managers are starting to install tools that can measure and analyze activities there.”

In a somewhat related story, Google Analytics is coming to a Flash video near you. The new add-on is designed not only to track and monitor the use of Flash-based web items, but to bring some semblance of order to those items as well. “There was a lack of standards,” writes analyst Nick Mihailovski on the Official Google Analytics Blog. “New developers who tracked Flash had to create their own processes to get it working. With this launch, tracking your Flash content has never been simpler.” Google Analytics for Flash is available now for all users.

Monitoring the popularity of Flash sites isn’t the only thing that Google has been fooling around with as of late. The AdWords team has been hard at work on a service designed to help you with your keyword generation. Sporting the snappy title of “Search-based Keyword Tool,” the new service searches your site for content, then matches the results to your pre-existing AdWords list. It then suggests keywords that fits said content, but are not currently being employed. “With so many searches, you have to guess which [user searches] might be relevant for each of your landing pages, and hope you find the right audience for your AdWords campaigns,” writes Trevor Claiborne on the Inside AdWords blog. “That’s where the Search-based Keyword Tool comes in. With this new tool you can get a better sense of what your potential customers are searching for and which keywords you should advertise on.” The cleverly named Search-based Keyword Tool is available now for all users.

In other news, the iPhone is officially the most popular cell phone in the world, according to mobile advertising firm AdMob. The much lauded phone had a 4.1% market share in October, a 2.1% increase from the previous month. Coming in second was the Motorola RAZR V3, with a 3.4% share. The popularity of Apple’s handset is not only a boon to the likes of Steve Jobs, but to advertisers as well. It is a widely held belief that advertising on mobile networks are a losing proposition, with one caveat — the iPhone. As the popularity of the iPhone increases, so does the profitability of the ads. Other phones listed in the survey include the Nokia N70 (3.2%), the Motorola KRZR K1c (1.8%), and the Blackberry 8300 (1.5%).

Finally: The already crowded office and productivity market has yet another contender in Etherpad. Think of Etherpad as an amalgamation of a traditional word processor and a social media tool. Each user starts with a rather innocuous blank sheet, designed for quick-and-dirty typing fun. You can then invite users to your innocuous blank sheet, allowing them to edit and add what they please. Unlike other online apps such as Google Docs and Adobe Buzzword, all of the changes are seen in real time and are marked by a colorful highlight. While it isn’t exactly “advanced” when it comes to formatting, Etherpad is perfect for anyone who wishes to fire off a few notes and ideas to coworkers without a lot of downtime.

Full-length movies are coming to YouTube. The online video pioneer/Google subsidiary has worked out a deal with MGM to bring “several” of their films and television shows to the service. Many within the industry give the due credit not to YouTube or Google, but to Hulu. “The studios have Hulu to thank for forcing Google to soften its approach,” writes Cnet contributor Greg Sandoval. “[Hulu] has become the top outlet for watching full-length films and TV shows on the web… If Google wanted to duplicate Hulu’s success, it needed to make nice with film studios. So it did.” Neither the slate of films nor the advertising model the films will be based around are known at this time.

In related news, AT&T is entering the world of online video … in a way. The communication giant has released VideoCrawler, a search engine designed specifically for video sites.  While the actual number of video sites are unknown at this time, many within the industry speculate that VideoCrawler scans roughly 1,600 different sites for content, including YouTube. VideoCrawler is built upon a platform developed by Divvio, a start-up that specializes in “personalized” media search tools. VideoCrawler is online now.

Elsewhere in video land, Keystream has discovered a new place to stick advertisements — within the video itself. The California-based start-up has officially released SmartAd, a software tool that places ads into the “empty spaces” on a video feed. If a person is watching a video of a shuttle launch, for example, there are spaces in the top left and right hand corner that are devoid of any movement. Thanks to SmartAd technology, those spaces can now easily be filled with a variety of advertisements. As one could expect, early reviews of the new technology have been less than kind. SmartAd is available now for both clients and perspective investors.

In other “news” (pun not intended), there’s Newsified. Newsified is a compilation site that shows you what’s hot in social news, social bookmarking and YouTube. The site is not only broken down by service, but by subject as well. This way, users who are looking for the latest on the stock market or president-elect Obama won’t be bombarded with news about Linux or the upcoming Captain America movie. While it won’t win any awards for design, Newsified is perfect for anyone who wants their daily dose of social news in a hurry.

Finally, the much anticipated Microsoft application Photosynth has finally been released. For those unaware, Photosynth is a photography application based around the idea of “synths” — three-dimensional pictures that are held together by an algorhythm. Pictures made with the software can then be connected to Live Maps, similar to the relationship between Google Maps and StreetView. Unlike the name brand Google equivalent, however, synths are made by the Photosynth userbase, not by employees. Photosynth is available now for all Windows users.

YouTube is the number one video site in the land yet again. According to a poll conducted by Nielsen Media and Beet.tv, the Google subsidiary had roughly 5.4 billion total views and 82 million unique users in the month of September. The big news, however, has nothing to do with who is number one. In a surprising turn of events, Yahoo Video was able to grab the number two spot, with 264.2 million views and 30 million unique users — an astonishing 59.1% increase from the previous month. Many insiders believe that the popularity boost is due to Yahoo’s unique “quality over quantity” approach to online video. Other video sites listed include Fox Media/MySpace (242.4 million views and 19.2 million users), MSN/Windows Live (164.7 million views and 11 million users), and Nickelodeon (163 million views and 6.15 million users).

To many users, the illegal downloading and sharing of media files are the “dark side” of the Free Line. If you feel this way, then you have a new ally in the fight — the French government. In an overwhelming 297 to 15 vote, the French Senate passed a so-called “P2P three strikes” anti-piracy bill. According to the bill, a new government agency known as the High Authority for Copyright Protection and Dissemination of Works on the Internet (or HADOPI) will be created to monitor all of the country’s Internet connections. If a user is convicted of online copyright infringement three times, HADOPI will have his or her Internet privileges revoked. Critics argue that the punishment does not fit the crime. The French National Assembly has yet to vote on the bill.

In other news, text messaging is coming to Gmail. The folks over at Gmail Labs are hard at work on a plugin that will allow users to send text messages from their mail accounts. The service initally launched last week, but was quickly taken offline after a few major bugs were found. “When you’d try to turn it on, it wouldn’t fully enable,” writes product manager Leo Dirac in the Official Gmail Blog. “We thought about keeping it out there — bugs and all — but the experience wasn’t that great. So, in the spirit of Labs, we’ve pulled SMS chat back to fix it.” Dirac expects the new service to up and running again “in about two weeks.”

In other news, it seems as if the usually mundane task of web searching is about to get a bit more social. Scour (formally known as Aftervote) is a new search engine that allows users to view results from Google, Yahoo, and Windows Live Search, then rank them in order of relevance. Aside from the distinct social aspect, users also have the opportunity to get paid for their work. Each search query, vote, comment, and recommendation is worth a point. For each set of 6500 points, the user gets a $25 gift card. Despite the similarities in the name, Scour has little to no connection to the domain’s previous tenant, music downloading pioneer Scour Media. Scour is up and running now.

Elsewhere, blogger Jack Humphrey has written an interesting piece about attracting more people to your blog. According to Humphrey, the key is to let your personality shine through. “The majority of successful blogs share one thing in common: people follow the blogger, not the blog,” he writes. “If personality weren’t important to building more than just a casual following for your blog, why would so many people who have reached the big time in blogging feel the need to pass on what they feel is a pretty important factor in their success?” Interesting and thought provoking, Jack Humphrey’s article is perfect for anyone who wants to shake things up a bit.

The use of online video sites such as YouTube are on the rise. In a recent poll conducted by D S Simon Productions, 65% of all online media sites use so-called “outside video sources” to supplement their content. Furthermore, 67% of magazines, newspapers, and radio stations and 45% of television stations say that their respective websites have used at least some outside video with the past year. Out of those polled, 79% state that they plan on using outside video sometime in the immediate future. “Web Influencers [sic] are now the mainstream media,” said D S Simon president Douglas Simon in a statement to Online Media Daily. “We need to understand the content needs of these Web Influencers if we hope to communicate successfully in the online world.”

Elsewhere in the polls, not everyone is down on the economy. According to a DLA Piper survey, 66% of business executives polled believe that the “Tech Bubble” troubles of 2000 was worse overall than the current crisis. Only 25% said that they are planning to cut back due to financial concerns. While the mood isn’t exactly upbeat — 75% said that their businesses have been negatively affected by the market’s volatility — the survey suggests that things aren’t as bad as it could be.”Those responses reflect an opinion that the impact of the current crisis on the technology industry is more residual than the 2000 crash,” says DLA Piper co-head Peter Astiz.

Moving to the web, data tracker Hitwise has published an interesting list detailing the twenty most popular websites in the month of September. Coming in first is Google, with an industry leading 6% market share. Despite its impeccable reputation amongst the web elite, Google’s Gmail mail service came in eleventh with a 0.79% share. The undisputed king of the web-based email services is Yahoo Mail, which came in second overall with a surprising 4.7% share. Other notable rankings include MySpace (third, 4.01% share), Facebook (eighth, 1.2% share), and YouTube (tenth, 0.93% share).

Our last stop on the survey train takes us to England. According to the London Telegraph, 92% 0f those polled said that they were at their creative worst at 4:33 in the afternoon. In contrast, 25% said that they were at their best past midnight. Nearly 44% mentioned that a quick shower usually gives their minds a proverbial “second wind.” The survey also suggests that people tend to be more inspired in the lavatory than anywhere else. It just goes to show that creativity can truly strike at any time … unless the time in question is 4:33, that is.

And finally, it seems as if Microsoft’s search interests are about to get the “social” treatment. A derivative of Live Search, U Rank allows users to not only customize their searches, but also share them with others. Although still in development and fairly bug-filled, many critics consider U Rank to be an interesting departure for Microsoft. “This… takes search into a different direction by putting a lot of emphasis on social interaction,” writes RedWriteWeb contributor Frederick Lardinois. “We can see how this new interface could be very useful if you are working in a team that is focused on a very specific topic.” U Rank is up and running now.

It seems as if Yahoo’s “social experiment” isn’t going as smoothly as they were hoping. The experiment, which saw Yahoo Profiles morph into more of a MySpace style user account, has been panned by both users and critics alike. When many loyal Yahoo users went to check out the new layout, they found that their profile information had been removed. “Why change something that obviously wasn’t broken,” writes one disgruntled user. “I am slowly bringing all my friends to other chat clients. I am tired of dealing with people who fix the unbroken instead of dealing with the stuff that has been broken for ages.” According to Vice President Jim Stoneham, those who wish to retrieve their missing information can contact Yahoo Customer Care.

Sometimes, even the best writers and orators are at a loss for words. When this happens, we here at the Free Line suggest giving Tip of My Tongue a try. Unlike traditional thesauruses, Tip of My Tongue harnesses the power of the search engine in order to help you find the word you have in mind. You can search by meaning, by letter, by length, or all three at once. Simple and powerful, Tip of My Tongue is perfect for anyone who is on the hunt for the perfect synonym.

Users of so-called “social networking” browsers such as Flock know about the bliss that comes with using both Twitter and the web at the same time. Users of traditional browsers such as Firefox haven’t known this giddy thrill … until now, that is. Enter TwitBin. TwitBin is a Firefox plug in that adds a side of Twitter to your browser. Simple and powerful, TwitBin is set to make both you and your browser very, very happy.

In other Twitter related news, we have TwitterVision. TwitterVision is an online tool that allows users to use Google Maps to see exactly where  different tweets are coming from. Think of it as a GPS, only for your Twitter accounts. It is extremely easy to set up, fun to use and best of all, completely free. Twitter and Google Maps … together again for the first time.

Finally: Pizza Hut has begun taking orders from Facebook. Using a specialized plug in called The Pizza Hut Interface, users can look at menus, place orders, and more, all without leaving your profile page. In addition to Facebook, the world famous purveyors of pizza accept text messages, orders placed from an Adobe AIR-powered web app, and of course, the good ol’ telephone. While it isn’t designed for regular use, The Pizza Hut Interface is perfect for the times when leaving Facebook is simply not an option.

It seems as if Yahoo has decided to give social networking another try. Instead of creating an add on site such as the now defunct Mash, the Yahoo team decided to make the entire service a social experience. The first section to receive a makeover is the all-but-forgotten Yahoo Profiles. “This new profile [system] is not intended to be a new social destination on Yahoo,” writes Vice President Jim Stoneham. “Rather, our plan is to integrate ’social’ as a central dimension into the services you use every day.” The new Profiles page is available now to all registered users.

In other news, the world of graphic heavy display ads is finally coming to Google AdWords. Called the Display Ad Builder, the new service lets you make a smart looking advertisement without spending a lot of time or money. The ad can run on the entire Google Content Network, including in YouTube videos and in-game marketing situations. Easy to use, the Display Ad Builder is perfect for anyone who is growing tired of the traditional, text-only scene that AdWords usually provides.

Elsewhere, scientists have discovered that using the popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo might be better for your brain than reading a book. According to a new study on aging brains from UCLA, users who chose to surf the Internet had twice the amount of activity in cognitive centers than those who chose to read. “[The] results are encouraging,” says Professor Gary Smalls. “Internet searching engages complicated brain activity, which may help exercise and improve brain function.” At press time, neither Google nor The Association of Literary Scholars and Critics have chosen to comment on the study.

Despite what you might have heard, you don’t need a fancy degree or an internship with webtoon maestros The Brothers Chap in order to make elegant Flash files. Nope … not while Wix is around. Wix is a new online Flash editor that lets you create stunning animations and websites with just a mouse click. You can mix and mash YouTube videos, drag and drop images into a stunning layout, and even create simple menus. Unlike most Flash content, files created in Wix are completely search engine friendly. While it won’t exactly give you Homestar Runner,  Wix based Flash files are the perfect way to add a little “spice” to your existing site.

And to finish off the week, blogger extraordinaire Chris Brogan has a few tips on how to grow your blogging community. Twenty-five, to be exact. Brogan’s advice ranges from the simple (use Twitter) to the thought provoking (”Keep your eyes on the STRATEGY of what you’re doing”). As always, these words of wisdom are just one man’s opinion. “If this all works for you, great,” He writes. “If not, as always, I want you to give your thoughts. You probably know better than me.”

In the world of online advertising, it seems as if text ads just might have the edge over the competition. In a survey conducted by research company iPerceptions, only 11% of those polled said that they click on video-based advertising. Nearly one-third of those clicks were provided by people who identified themselves as “under 25.” By comparison, 25% stated that they click on text-based ads. “Our research shows that inexpensive banner and text ads are still preferred among web consumers,” said iPerceptions vice president Jonathan Levitt. “By having a direct dialog with consumers, we are able to know - with certainty - what consumers want and expect from their online experience.”

Speaking of advertising, those familiar picture-free ads are coming to a Google Map near you. The ads appear at the bottom of the screen and feature content relevant to the location in question. While a number of bugs and dead links have already shown their ugly faces, Google is confidant that the new ads will work properly in the near future.

Yahoo is entering the data analysis business. The embattled search giant recently released Yahoo Web Analytics, an Internet marketing tool similar to Google Analytics. Based upon IndexTools, Yahoo Web Analytics provides users with everything one could want in a data collection service, including real time updates and routine performance assessments. Users will also have the ability to add their own custom widgets to the service, thanks to Yahoo’s extensive development network. At press time, the Yahoo Web Analytics beta is being limited to only 13,000 users.

Next up, we have Fring. Fring allows you to use Skype, Twitter, and a host of other tools on a variety of mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Developers see their program as more of a “web 2.0 suite” than an as a run of the mill social service. Easy to set up and and even easier to use, Fring is the perfect tool for anyone who wishes to keep in touch on the go.

And to finish off the week, the Internet Marketing Blog has a new article up about using scarcity to bring in users. Scarcity is a marketing ploy used to make people act impulsively and buy right away. Author PV Raymond warns against what is known as “fake scarcity,” a tactic where people claim that something is hard to find when really it isn’t. Using fake scarcity can potentially get you into a lot of trouble. A great tip, both in marketing and in life.