As many of you are already well aware of, we in the Northern Hemisphere are knee deep in something that we like to call “summer.” Now to most people, summer means only one thing: complaining about the heat seeing movies in which things explode for no apparent reason going places. On part one of our special three part Showdown extravaganza, we will be taking a look at four apps and services that are designed to make the summer trip just a tad bit easier. But before we do, however, our good friend “Triple N” (aka “the dissenting opinion”) has something to say.

Triple N: “Hey … What gives? I thought you said that there would be more marketing stories.”

Us: Don’t worry about it. There will be. Besides, you don’t have to use these tools on vacation. You could always employ them on your next business trip. There’s more to “work” than just staying in the office, you know.

Triple N: Good point. Carry on then.

…With that said, here we go:

Tool #1: MotionX-GPS

Service Provided: GPS
Platform: iPhone
Programmer/Host: Fullpower Industries
Why We Checked It Out: To many, a good GPS system is a must. The problem is that we don’t necessarily have one. The closest thing we have is an unlocked Nokia smart phone that contains full maps for Finland and Germany. While that would be great if we wanted to drive from Helsinki to Dusseldorf, it makes driving from Atlanta to, say, Pittsburgh neigh impossible.
First Thoughts: I honestly have no idea what I am doing here. There is a compass, a scrolling banner and several intimidating looking buttons, all of which are doing something completely foreign. This is definitely going to be interesting…

Tool #2: GasBuddy

Service Provided: Gas station locator
Platform: Web/iPhone
Website: http://www.gasbuddy.com/
Programmer/Host: GasBuddy (Website); Bottle Rocket (iPhone app)
Why We Checked It Out: Finding a place to get cheap gas is always a good thing.
First Thoughts: The website is absolutely perfect for the rookie traveler, telling us everything that we could possibly need to know in a straightforward, timely matter. The iPhone app, however, left us scratching our heads in confusion. Still, the trip (and the Showdown) is still young.

Tool #3: TripIt

Service Provided: Social Travel
Platform: Web/iPhone
Website: http://www.tripit.com
Programmer/Host: TripIt
Why We Checked It Out: It’s always a good idea to keep track of your travel plans. Hey … It beats writing everything down on paper, right?
First Thoughts: The site, while a tad cryptic, looks to be rather promising. We will have much more on this intriguing looking social service in a few days.

Tool #4: Traffic

Service Provided: Traffic guide
Platform: iPhone
Programmer/Host: CLO Software
Why We Checked It Out: Just because we know the lyrics to “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” and “Feelin’ Alright” by heart doesn’t necessarily make us experts on “Traffic.”
First Thoughts: The reviews on the app store were the very definition of the word “mediocre.” Here’s to hoping that our experiences buck the current trend.

…And there you have it. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for a more in depth look at each of the services listed.

Okay gang, it’s time for yet another highly popular round of “ask me a question.” So without further adieu, let us get to it.

Where is part three of “Web Programming for Smart Phones?” – Part three, tentatively entitled “The Waiting Is the Hardest Part,” will be hitting a web browser near your within the next few days. the series is very important to us, but honestly, we also wanted to establish our other concepts as well.

Oh? Such as? – Building our own mobile site, for one. High class, high quality mobile sites should not just be limited to the likes of million dollar computer firms or folks whose personal wealth rivals that of Scrooge McDuck. We intend to prove that it is possible to build, maintain, and most importantly advertise, a mobile site without spending a ton of cash. We are so confident that we can make this happen, that we set our design budget to an unthinkable, unheard of sum of zero dollars American. That’s right. We will have a top shelf mobile headquarters, and it will not cost us a dime. And the best part? A site like this can be yours as well. It’s all about smart design, forward thinking, and a great ad campaign.

Wait … I thought you said you were for tailoring your existing site to fit the needs of mobile users. What gives? – We still are. Still, it doesn’t mean that we cannot explore other options.

Will this be programming intensive? I hate programming. I have guys who do it for me. – Nope. This will be about theory, content, advertising, marketing, and overall presentation. Not one line of code will be printed in this blog. I assure you of that.

Works for me. How’s the text advertising project coming along? – As we said last Friday, it usually takes a little while for this kind of thing to register. Ask us again in a few days.

I hate the “geek” stuff. More advertising news, stat! – We hear you. We here at the Free Line promise that there will be more talk about marketing your site and/or product in the future.

Great. Do you have anything that I can check out right now? – I do, actually. For those interested in the emerging world of mobile advertising, I highly suggest reading “Mobile Marketing Without Being Annoying” by Chris Crum. Essentially an expanded interview with Yahoo’s Tom Foran, the article explains the ins and of out of advertising on the so-called “mobile web” without being too confusing or geeky. While some of his suggestions and tactics are not exactly “free,” the piece is still worth the old “once over.”

…And there you have it. Until tomorrow, we here at the Free Line bid you all good day.

Hello and welcome back to “Web Programming for Smart Phones,” our landmark five-part series dedicated to unlocking the mysteries of the mobile web. Today we continue our journey with looking at your friend and mine, in-site content.

Why should I worry about my content? – As we mentioned last week, most of the major smart phones feature a screen resolution of 320 by 480. Having a wall of text that rivals Stephen King’s “The Stand” or tons of high bit rate images are simply not good ideas. This isn’t ten years ago, when mobile devices were as powerful as a graphing calculator and featured a small, blurry, monochrome screen. The iPhone, for example, is more powerful than the standard desktop built in 1999. Simply put, mobile users matter. Lose them, and you can potentially lose a large chunk of your audience.

So people on smart phones have short attention spans. – No, not at all. Look at it this way: staring at a pocket-sized screen is naturally harder on the eyes than staring at that beautiful flat screen you have at home or at work. Having a site with tons of small text and/or several massive image files will not be doing your mobile user base any favors. The “trick,” for lack of a better work, is to have a nice, easy to use site that is accessible to mobile users, while not insulting the traditional desktop and laptop crowd.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just make a mobile site? - Not necessarily. For the average site proprietor, spending a load of time, effort, and most importantly, money on a separate site does not make sense in this current financial environment. At this point in time, it would be best to concentrate your efforts into perfecting your main site.

Content gone bad – The “bad content for a mobile computing device” award goes to tech industry news site WebProNews. Every last article we clicked upon appeared to be nothing more than line after line of blurry, incomprehensible text. While it was nice that the ads were visible to the naked eye (we here at the Free Line prefer to live in the real world), they had a tendency to both overpower and overwhelm. For all of the effort it took just to make everything readable, we could have found a similar article on another site.

Good examples of mobile content – Out of all of the major tech sites — present company excluded, of course — TechCrunch fits the criteria described above the best. Each article and advertisement is easy enough to read on a mobile device, yet still carries all of the appeal and charm of a “traditional” news site.

Our suggestion – Our advice boils down to one, easy to remember phrase: keep it all within proportion. The last thing that anyone would want is a site filled to the brim with overpowering pictures and unreadable text. Still, you have to keep in mind that a site filled with pages and pages of text will bore the living daylights out of your “on the go” constituents. If you keep everything on an even keel, your site should be ready for any situation that might present itself.

…And there you have it. Be sure to come back next Monday for our part three of our series: Load Times. Expect the classic Free Line for the rest of the week. Until then, we bid thee adieu.

The search through our “virtual basement” — also known as the wiki — is almost finished. Needless to say, it just gets stranger and stranger from here…

Service #1: Broong

Website: http://www.broong.com/
Wiki Link: http://www.freelinereport.com/wiki/Office_and_Productivity_Software
Service: Social note taking
First Impression: “I am not familiar with the thing that I’m seeing.”
Ease of Use: N/A — Just type in your email address and your set.
Positives: It’s a community bulletin board that just happens to be online. Broong also has one major advantage over said “message boards” of old: each user gets five gigs of storage space for free. It’s hard to go wrong there.
Negatives: It’s a community bulletin board that just happens to be online.
Overall: 7; “It really is a nice service. It just looks a little odd.”

Service #2: Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG)

Website: http://www.gnupg.org/
Wiki Link: http://www.freelinereport.com/wiki/Security%2C_Spyware%2C_and_Viruses
Service: Security
First Impression: “Where did it go? I honestly cannot find it on my system.”
Ease of Use: -4; “What’s going on? What is it doing? Why do I have to type a message?”
Positives: Well … it probably is a really, really powerful privacy protector. Too bad that we could not figure out how to use the darn thing. We may or may not have to compile it ourselves.
Negatives: This is honestly the most difficult, most cryptic program that we have attempted to run in Windows. Case in point: once we finally found the root GnuPG file, it told us to “type a message.” We still have no idea what that means.
Overall: N/A, as we didn’t have a chance to do anything of merit.

Service #3: Websnpr

Website: http://www.websnapr.com/
Wiki Link: http://www.freelinereport.com/wiki/Web_Apps
Service: Online screen capture
First Impression: “Aww … that’s cute. It’s tiny!”
Ease of Use: N/A; All you have to do is type in a web address. The actual service does the rest.
Positives: It’s different.
Negatives: We are still trying to figure out what purpose this application serves. Who out there would exactly want a small little “snapshot” of their favorite website, anyway? Wouldn’t it be more productive to actually, you know, go to the website in question?
Overall: 6; “It’s a well put together program. We just do not see the point.”

Service #4: MixedInk

Website: http://mixedink.com/
Wiki Link: http://www.freelinereport.com/wiki/Social_Media
Service: Collaborative news
First Impression: “What’s with the logo? It looks like the ‘I’ is giving the ‘M’ a back breaker.”
Ease of Use: 8; “Setting up your account is easy. Posting your opinions is even easier.”
Positives: It is incredibly simple to use. It makes the likes of Digg and Reddit look like the Gnu Privacy Guard by comparison.
Negatives: It seems as if most the topics are about politics. While that’s great for political junkies, it’s bound to annoy everyone else within earshot.
Overall: 6

Service #5: Domainr

Website: http://domai.nr/
Wiki Link: http://www.freelinereport.com/wiki/Website_Creation
Service: Domain naming service
First Impression: “There’s a domain search service out there that isn’t ‘WhoIs?’ Neat.”
Ease of Use: 9
Positives: The results given by the service can be very creative at times. A search for the “Free Line Report,” for example, netted us such gems as “freel.in/ereport,” “freeline.re/port,” and “fr.ee/linereport.”
Negatives: …On the other hand, some of the suggestions can be a bit “odd” for daily use.
Overall: 9; “It’s entertaining.”

As we have established before, we live in a society that is growing increasingly dependent on information. When things work the way that they are “supposed” to work, no one complains. When several major “news sources” come up dry and ultimately bring nothing new to the table, however … things seem to break down fairly quickly. It is at this point that we in the blogging community try to make something — anything — interesting and unique. A few days ago, the major tech sites were all abuzz about the Chrome operating system and the surprising success of Bing. Today, on the other hand, the sites were overflowing with stories about several “minor” Twitter updates and a merger of two companies that, quite frankly, no one has ever heard of. If you got lucky, you just might have “stumbled” upon a discussion about Steve Ballmer or the various health issues facing Steve Jobs. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes or Lenny Briscoe to notice that their just might be a problem here.

The obvious solution to this “problem,” of course, is simply to turn off our monitors, put down the keyboards, and wait for something to happen. Be it right or wrong, life does not exactly work in that way anymore. So we fill the void with various media sources, hoping that it will fill the “dead space” of a slow news day. Some watch Brock Lesnar beat poor Frank Mir until he cries on YouTube for the five hundredth time. Others go to TMZ in order see the “forgotten” footage of Michael Jackson’s hair catching fire. Still others figure out a way to watch the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court hopeful Sonja Sotomayor. While all of these activities do give us our “media fix,” they are about as productive as watching paint dry. One can only watch a former professional wrestler insult everyone within earshot, burning hair, or politicians yell at each other for so long before going completely insane. So we decide to go back to work on our pet projects, hoping that one day it — and by extension, we — will become successful enough to be covered the likes of Michael Arrington and Henry Blodgett on a slow news day.

And therein lies what makes this moment in time different than the media controlled dystopia of Max Headroom: power. We are ultimately in control of the content given to us, not some cryptic television network run by Charles Rocket and Jeffery Tambor. The New York Times doesn’t decide what news is “fit to print,” we do. While it’s great to scope out The Drudge Report or Mashable for new things to read and/or learn about, it is more important in our society to “create” that next big idea. So we work on our blogs and fiddle with our various web 2.0 applications, all with the hope that our contributions will turn the “information tide” our way. This is our time, and we will make damn sure that we get every last second out of it. Biz Stone did it. Tim Brenners Lee did it. Now it’s our turn.

…And there you have it. On the behalf of everyone at the Free Line, we sincerely hope that you have enjoyed our three-part series about the future, media, and everything in between. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for more of that web 2.0 news you can use. Until then, we bid thee adieu.

If there is one thing that everyone knows about, it’s advertising. No matter where we look, there always seems to be a thirty-second television spot, billboard, or conveniently placed Coke can within eye shot. While that sort of bombardment does have the tendancy to be annoying at points, it could always be worse. We could be living in the media obsessed dystopia of Max Headroom. In the series, advertising is present in three unique, highly diverse ways. On today’s installment of Twenty Minutes into the Future, we will take a look at three techniques and discuss how each are being used in today’s culture.

Technique #1: The Cheviot Method

Championed By: Ben Cheviot (George Coe), founder and president of Network 23.
Thesis: People first, ads second.
Explanation: According to the “Cheviot Method” of advertising, it is imperative to remember that it isn’t robots and/or lemmings watching these ads. It’s people. If “advertiser A” uses their predetermined ad time to insult the viewer, or if they try to do to much, the viewer is less likely to return. If such behavior keeps up over time, the viewer will simply “give up” and simply stop caring about your product or service. By treating people like people, not only do you get the viewer to care about the product, you make hem more willing to investigate other products or services that have your name on it.
In-Show Result: Network 23 is consistently number one in the ratings.
Real-World Example: Anyone who tows the Free Line concept practices this advertising method.

Technique #2: The Grossberg Method

Championed By: Ned Grossberg (the late Charles Rocket), the president of Network 66 and Cheviot’s mortal enemy.
Thesis: People exists to buy things, so they might as well be buying those things from us.
Explanation: When this particular advertising method is employed, the consumer essentially becomes secondary to the items that are being shown on the screen. Although the company involved might see a initial spike in “audience participation,” the numbers will actually be lower overall. To compensate for this, the advertiser/network is forced to employ a variety of gimmicks in order to coerce people into coming back for more. In the show, these gimmicks ranged from ridiculous (“Watch 66 in your sleep! You can do that now!”) to horrifying (one second long “blipverts” that had a nasty habit of making fat people explode) to the downright bizarre (a reality show about the life and times of super genius infants).
In-Show Result: Grossberg is made to look like a fool on a fairly regular basis; network ratings go down sharply.
Real-World Example: Any company labeled as an “evil corporation” has been accused of using this advertising method at least once in their existence.

Technique #3: The Zik Zak Method

Championed By: A fairly mysterious, multi-national corporation called “Zik Zak.” While it is implied that Zik Zak makes everything from furniture to prescription drugs, the company’s main products are soft drinks and fast food.
Thesis: People?! Who cares about people! Buy our stuff and quit complaining!
Explanation: People who employ this kind of advertising structure simply do not care about anyone or anything other than their product. It really doesn’t matter if people get “inconvenienced” or even find themselves in a sticky situation. They still bought the product. The “in-world” example of this tactic is the NeuralStim, a “free bracelet” that caused people to crave cheeseburgers. In the case of our hero, Edison Carter, the bracelet made him nearly die from overspending.
In-Show Result: The “faulty” bracelets cause Zik Zak to nearly go bankrupt.
Real-World Example: In a fictional TV show, it’s called a “NeuralStim.” In the real word, it’s called “malware.”
Special Note: During my research, I ran across three very different organizations that call themselves “Zik Zak.” Please keep in mind that the comments above only apply to the fictional corporation, not to the these real-life entities.

Our Advice: The “Cheviot Method” is the only way to go. As I said a few days ago. These are your people. Never forget that. Your customers (and everyone else, for that matter) will thank you in the long run.

Anyone who lived through the late 1980’s ought to remember Max Headroom, the hyperactive, pseudo-CGI “head in the box” portrayed by actor Matt Frewer. The Max Headroom character was everywhere in those days, from music videos to ads for Coca-Cola and seemingly everything in between. What many people don’t remember, however, is the science fiction program that bared the character’s name. This was not the lovable, wacky Max that called Cinemax and England’s Channel 4 home. This Max exists in a world where the major television networks are in charge. Because of this, such every day items as the off switch and the mute button are deemed to be illegal. Televisions are everywhere, including bathrooms and junk yards. Simply put, no one could ever escape the grip of the mass media, and the people like it that way.

Working within the confines of this odd, “Network-meets-The Matrix” world is Edison Carter (also portrayed by Matt Frewer), ace reporter for the highly-rated Network 23 and the “basis” for Max Headroom. It is his mission to bring his viewers the truth, no matter the situation. In the show’s fourteen episodes, Emerson and company does everything from thwart a sentient supercomputer to blowing the lid off of a dangerous subliminal advertising scheme run by Bill Maher, using nothing more than quick thinking and a heaping helping of brutal honesty. The viewer, both physically in the show and otherwise, are constantly reminded that the world is a better place thanks to people like Emerson Carter and his “computerized” alter ego. As long as there are people fighting for the truth, there really is nothing to worry about.

In many ways, we are approaching this basic existence, only with a different concept serving as our vice. Instead of thriving on a flashing picture, we are addicted to information. I don’t just mean the “TMZ/Perez Hilton” style celebrity gossip columns. I mean anything. Pick your topic — President Obama, professional wrestling, U2 — and I bet there is someone, somewhere talking, tweeting, or blogging about it at this very moment. We need to know about what is going on, and we need to know it now. Take the recent “best of seven” series between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Orlando Magic for example. Five years ago, we would have had to wait two to three days to hear former Laker Shaquille O’Neal talk about his former team. Thanks to Twitter, we heard it minutes after the Lakers cliched the NBA title. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that this kind of “instant feedback” can become addictive.

Now despite what some might be thinking, things really aren’t all that dire. Our world isn’t based upon the idea of two-way television sets or networks that can make commercials so compact that they make people’s heads literally explode. We’re simply talking about the delivery of information, not a re-creation of 1984. It’s human nature to want to know what is going on around us. Exploiting that desire, on the other hand, is something else entirely. It all comes down to priorities. Those who put more effort into their advertising than their content are more likely to alienate their audiences than the people who put their “product” front and center. By ignoring the very thing that got you into this very situation to begin with, the writer/blogger/YouTube “star” is actually sending a message that your fan base’s mouse click means more than their physical presence. Who cares if the content is good nor not? You clicked the link. It’s your loss.

While it might seem like a good idea now, turning your audience into a group of mind-numbed automatons randomly clicking things will not help you become a success in the long run. The trick, if you want to call it that, is to adopt what I like to call the “Edison Carter” approach to content creation and maintenance. It all breaks down to three basic principles:

1. Your users are more than just a group of random mice clicking a white box. They’re people. Your people. Always keep that in mind when developing your content.
2. Stay genuine to your cause.
3. Stay open to the needs and concerns of your user base.

Do this, and the world just might become a better place. If you don’t, well … let’s just say living in an “off switch-free world” is not anyone’s idea of a good time. Be sure to come back tomorrow for part two of our three part series. Until then, this is Brad Fallon signing off for Network 23 the Free Line.

…So you want to start your own blog. Good for you. Let’s see … it says here that you already have a topic and have bought some web space. That’s good. Okay then, what software are you running? What’s that? You haven’t picked out your content management system (aka CMS) software yet? No need to worry. We realize that picking the proper management software can be a bit tricky, and we’re here to help. On today’s episode of Showdown, we take a look at five of the blogosphere’s top software packages to see which one is best for your needs. As always, all of the programs in question were tested by graphic designer/web developer/overall classy lady Angela Smedley on her custom-built, Windows 7 PC.

App #1: WordPress

Site: http://wordpress.com
Company: Automattic
Plugins: Yes.
First Impression: “Five minute install.”
Initial Setup: As we hinted at above, WordPress installs onto your server in five minutes. If you’re looking for installation trouble, you won’t find it here. Everything installed quickly and easily, with nary an error message in sight.
Special Bonuses: The documentation supplied with WordPress not only tells you how to set up the software, it offers up some suggestions on how to effectively write your blog. While most don’t have the need for such advice, it’s nice to know that it’s there.
Ease of Setup (Out of 10): 8
Overall (Out of 10): 8

App #2: Movable Type

Site: http://www.movabletype.org
Company: Six Apart Ltd.
Plugins: Yes.
First Impression: “Congratulations! It’s a blog!”
Initial Setup: While it didn’t match WordPress‘ now-famous “five-minute install,” it was fairly easy to setup and use. When a problem did arise, the official blog always seemed to have an answer.
Special Bonuses: None.
Ease of Setup: 8
Overall: 6
Notes: Make sure that your web server is up to spec before installing this software. As you might have heard, Movable Type is notoriously picky when it comes to compatibility. If something is missing or outdated, the install will not work. End of story. While it isn’t a “bad” system, nothing about Movable Type stands out. It works, but there are others out there that can do more.

App #3: b2Evolution

Site: http://b2evolution.net
Programmer: Francois Planque
Plugins: Yes.
First Impression: “I can do multiple blogs!”
Initial Setup: Insanely easy. Just upload the components to the server and start working. Everything else is automated, even down to database table creation. (You have to supply your own empty database, however.)
Special Bonuses: Photo blogs and link blogs can also be set up.
Ease of Setup: 7
Overall: 7
Notes: The entire “b2Evolution experience” left us confused. By rights, this system should be sitting with WordPress and Joomla at the top of the blog/CMS hierarchy, but for some reason, it isn’t. In fact, we haven’t even heard of it until twenty minutes before starting work on this piece. It’s a shame, because a world-class software package such as this deserves world-class attention. All in all, b2Evolution is a fantastic system for users of any age or skill level.

App #4: Joomla

Site: http://www.joomla.org/
Company: Open Source Matters, Inc.
Plugins: Yes.
First Impression: “It’s much, much more than just blogging software.”
Initial Setup: Installation is hit-or-miss. On the first go-around, the automatic install worked perfectly. The second time, which saw us move to a completely different web server, things got a tad more difficult. Due to an annoying “enable cookies” message, we had to resort a more “manual” approach. Although it sounds like a nightmare, the extra documentation supplied by the company made setup a breeze. Everything installed perfectly, and the mysterious message disappeared completely.
Special Bonuses: An exhaustive collections of add-ons.
Ease of Setup: 6; “A bit more complicated than your standard fare.”
Overall: 9; based solely upon the sheer amount of plugins, tweaks, and expansions available.
Notes: To many web professional, Joomla is the standard that all other CMS systems should be judged by, and it’s easy to see why. While it’s more complex that the others, it also the most versatile. Everything from a simple blog to a full-blown social network can be built off of this system, making it a must for anyone who tends to “dream big” when it comes to website creation. Expansive and dependable, Joomla is definitely worthy of all of the praise that it gets.

App #5: Drupal

Site: http://drupal.org
Programmer: Dries Buytaert
Plugins: Yes, though half of them aren’t exactly available to the public as of yet.
First Impression: “This is different.”
Initial Setup: Easy, in a way. It was after the setup that things started to get hard. (More below.) If you have shared hosting, be careful. Some errors cannot be fixed if you don’t have complete control over your web server. Make sure that you read the documentation thoroughly before attempting to install it.
Special Bonuses: If you know your way around PHP and CSS, you can make this system do what ever you would like.
Ease of Setup: 5
Overall: 7
Notes: We wanted to like Drupal. We really, really did. It just didn’t work on our test server. We tried for hours on end, but it still didn’t work properly. The final straw came in the form of a PHP-induced server error. Despite assurances to the contrary, the system would not allow us to allocate enough memory to the PHP scripts. The result was a variety of errors that simulated a memory leak. None of the suggested fixes/hacks worked for us, mainly due to the stigma it places on shared hosting sites. If you run your own server, you’d be a fool not to give it the old once-through. Everyone else should proceed with caution.

…And the Winner Is – While WordPress and Joomla are our personal favorites, all five systems have their own strengths and weaknesses. It all comes down to taste. With that in mind, we suggest giving them all a try. Who knows … you might find something that really takes you by surprise. And if your favorite software isn’t mentioned here, tell us. We at the Free Line enjoy expanding our horizons as much as you do.

The interview with Slacker is back on! Expect to see the interview on a computer screen near you either Friday or Monday. In the meantime:

Traditional print media, or at the very least, websites based upon traditional print media, is doing better than once thought. According to polling gurus Nielsen Online, the overall site views have risen nearly 23% in the past year. Unique views are also on the upswing, going up roughly 16% from December 2007. Many within the industry say the change is primarily due to both the recent economic upheaval and the 2008 elections. Leading the “old guard” charge is the New York Times, which saw a 6% increase to 40.1 million users. Other notables include the USA Today (18.2 million users; a 15% increase), the Washington Post (9.4 million users; a 12% increase), and the Los Angeles Times (7.9 million users; a 73% increase).

Websites featuring newspaper content isn’t the only service to make strides in 2008. Visits to free online gaming sites have risen by 27% in the fourth quarter, while the participation in the games found within have risen by 42%, says comScore. The spike, according gaming director Edward Hunter, is likely due to the a rise in free time caused by the aforementioned economic unease. “Not only have consumers turned to outlets such as gaming to take their minds off the economy, but as they curtail their discretionary gaming-related purchases they are turning to free alternatives.” Yahoo Games takes the top spot, with 19.5 million users.

And finally: the folks behind the world famous tech blog TechMeme are allowing users to suggest prospective stories via Twitter. If a user’s story is chosen, his or her Twitter name will appear in the corner of the article. The new policy is the latest in a series of actions designed to move the site away from its “automated” past. Users who want to help can send their stories to either Tip @Techmeme or Tip @TechmemeFH.

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.