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From a Twitter TV deal to a new Google programming language, it’s been a surprising week on the web. Here’s our pick of the top 5 stories this week, from the serious to the bizarre. 1. From Twitter to TV: Sh*t My Dad Says Gets CBS Deal – A Twitter account got a TV deal…has the social media and mainstream media fusion gone too far? 2. Google’s Plan to Make the Web Twice as Fast – The web is about to get SPDY, writes Barb Dybwad. 3. GO: Google Launches Its Own Programming Language – Google launched a new programming language this week: Ben Parr explains. 4. 7 Ways to Get More Out of LinkedIn – LinkedIn is the leading business network online. Sharlyn Lauby shows us how to make the most of it. 5. 500 Leading Nominees in Mashable’s #openwebawards – The Open Web Awards nominations are drawing to a close. Here’s a peek at the people and sites leading the field. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, AndrewJohnson Reviews: Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, iStockphoto

Kids deserve having the chance to navigate safely in order to learn about different subjects in a fun and entertaining way. It could be said that Mypage.it is a novel social network that is intended to reach kids aged 5 to 13, and that gives their parents the possibility to employ an effective Parental Control system. Read more Learn more about MyPage.it in Dataopedia.com Find out how much MyPage.it is worth with Stimator.com

This site aims to be a place where you can get in touch with other travelers like you that want to experience the feeling of being in the cities to be visited in the future. You already know that traveling is especially great when you can enjoy the most endemic details of the places you visit. Trourist is based on a good idea, conceived by three good friends who wanted to share traveling experiences. Read more Learn more about Trourist.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much Trourist.com is worth with Stimator.com

Your health is the most important thing you have in your life. Just think about it. You might be saying “No, there are other things that are more important than that”. Read more Learn more about RememberItNow.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much RememberItNow.com is worth with Stimator.com

Twitter is very efficient when it comes to learning what is happening worldwide on a real-time basis. There are many applications you can use in order to know more about different users and what they are doing all over the world, as well as to post your ideas, pictures, videos, etc. GeoMeme is an original service that was created with the intention to let users follow and share real-time local twitter trends. Read more Learn more about GeoMe.me in Dataopedia.com Find out how much GeoMe.me is worth with Stimator.com

There are many sites where you can learn how to cook but not all of them are simple and fast. This one is, and that makes it worth a look. In addition to being very simple, it has a wide assortment of recipes for you to enjoy. Read more Learn more about CookThing.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much CookThing.com is worth with Stimator.com

Web-based doctor appointment-setting service ZocDoc has noticed an amazing increase of 6250% in Swine Flu-related appointments over flu-related appointments last year (the numbers have been normalized against time for the increased volume). There has been an almost 14x increase in swine flu activity since September. Because of the massively increased demand, ZocDoc recently added “Swine Flu Shot” as a reason for the visit that patients can specify when searching for a doctor. “We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of flu-related appointments. Same-day flu appointments have increased by 15x since this time last year. Similarly, last year people made flu-related appointments an average of 4 days in advance. Now it is 48 hours on average, and trending downwards,” said Oliver Kharraz MD, ZocDoc’s Chief Medical Officer. H1N1-Related Appointments Spike ZocDoc’s data comes from the cities in which the company is active (New York and Washington, DC), where they have about 10% of the...

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. There are 25 billion videos watched each month in the US alone. That’s billion, with a “B.” So it should be no surprise that web video offers an important opportunity for small businesses to connect with a wider audience. For small business owners, online video represents a chance to reach thousands or potentially millions of people using a relatively simple and inexpensive format. All it takes is a video camera and a little time, and your message could very quickly be spread to a large number of new customers. As with anything, it pays to look at those who have come before and learn from what they’ve done. Here are five successful uses of web video for business and the key point that you can take away from each 1. Mattress Dominoes World Record Attempt Benson’s for Beds, comes the “Mattress Dominoes World...

On Tuesday, we wrote about the return of Elf Yourself. OfficeMax has been sponsoring Elf Yourself for the last four years and its an early example of successful, web-based viral campaigns. OfficeMax decided to get really meta with the Elf Yourself campaign by creating a flashmob in New York City. On November 3 in Union Square, OfficeMax hired several hundred performers to assemble — dressed in elfin gear — and do synchronized choreography for a crowd of delighted and confused passerbys. Consider this Elf Yourself IRL (in real life): What do you think of creating a viral campaign for a viral campaign? Is it meta-overload or does the existence of real-life Elf Yourself flash mob bring you holiday cheer? Let us know! Tags: elf yourself, flashmob, viral campaigns

Everything changes and evolves until a new potential is revealed. The Internet could be no exception to that. Not so long ago, it used to be a place where people looked up information by way of any of the conventional engines available, but now it has moved a step forward. Read more Learn more about LeapFish.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much LeapFish.com is worth with Stimator.com

The Google Wave invite rollout extravaganza started more than a month ago. While in some respects the buzz around Google Wave has started to subside, the term is still constantly one of the top trending topics on Twitter, and new gadgets, extensions, and applications are now starting to appear on a daily basis. Each day more and more people are opening up their email inbox to find an invite to Google Wave. With that shiny new invite comes the inevitable quest for ideas about to how to put the medium to good use. Should you happen to be one of those people, we’ve got a number of different resources that you can use to get up to speed with Google Wave. This time around, however, we wanted to look at how people are actually using it now. From process modelling and customer service, to project collaboration, annotation, and gaming, the examples listed here highlight the power of the newborn medium, and in part, showcase what we can expect as the platform matures. 1. SAP Gravity: Modeling...

Mashable reader Ben Kerin has noticed an odd change on Facebook that began last night: those importing their Twitter feeds into the service no longer see their links as clickable. In short: if you’re posting web links (Bit.ly, TinyURL) to your Twitter feed and using the Twitter Facebook app to share those updates on Facebook too, none of those links are hyperlinked. Your friends will need to copy and paste the links into a browser to make them work. If this is a design decision on Facebook’s part, it’s an extremely odd one: we’d like to think it’s an inconvenient bug, and we have a mail in to Facebook to check. Suffice to say, the issue is site-wide: it’s not just you. Are you having issues with links in Facebook status updates? Let us know in the comments. Reviews: Facebook, Twitter Tags: facebook, twitter

Having an appealing Twitter profile is easier said than done. Not everybody has the time to try new colors and backgrounds, and not everybody is good at that to begin with. However, if you have a company or you provide a service you already know the conveniences you can get from Twitter. Read more Learn more about TweetScenes.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much TweetScenes.com is worth with Stimator.com

Lootslinger works as an open online auction community where you can get in touch with other people in order to buy and sell products and services as well as to share information. The most convenient features you can find on LootSlinger are related to the fact that it is totally easy to use, and very safe. In addition to this, all the auctions are going to be shown on Twitter, Facebook and other major social sites with the intention to reach a wider number of users. Read more Learn more about Lootslinger.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much Lootslinger.com is worth with Stimator.com

Connecting potential employees with could-be employers is what a service like Pizini does. It was developed to help you find the right staff for your company. You already know that finding a new job is not an easy task and this site will help both job seekers and providers to be benefited by an effective posting service. Read more Learn more about Pizini.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much Pizini.com is worth with Stimator.com

Looking for templates for your blog could be an annoying task due to the fact that there are so many options out there to actually choose from. In addition to that, sometimes you do not have enough time to search for these templates and you end up having a mediocre one that does not reflect your personality or spirit. Those times might as well be gone as this solution will help you to find free blogger templates straightaway. Read more Learn more about ZoomTemplate.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much ZoomTemplate.com is worth with Stimator.com

Picothumbs gives you the chance to take a thumbnail screenshot of any page you want to show to others. This is a simple service that could be very useful in many circumstances, including your job and also when you want to have just plain fun. Imagine you want to show others any problems that are sporadically plaguing your website. Read more Learn more about PicoThumbs.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much PicoThumbs.com is worth with Stimator.com

Update: Twitter seems to have fixed the issue. If your pages are still having the issue, make sure to refresh and/or clear your cache. You may still see broken pages for a while. - If you’re taking a look at Twitter.com right now, you’re going to see some very messed up web pages. Images gone, design layouts borked, text overlapping, and missing fonts are just the start. Now thousands of Twitter users are complaining or completely confused. From our perspective, it looks as if the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) of Twitter.com is broken in some way (or the servers aren’t loading them). We’ll figure it out and update you when Twitter is fixed and why this massive error occurred in the first place. In the meantime, here’s a screenshot of you’ll find on Twitter profile pages if you haven’t visited already: Reviews: Twitter Tags: twitter

Google’s been on a homepage logo changing spree: they’ve celebrated H.G. Wells, the bar code, Confucious, Gandhi, and Sesame Street over the last few months alone. If you check Google.com now though, you’ll see that the search giant is celebrating something different: the discovery of water on the moon! NASA made the stunning announcement earlier today after its moon bombing mission successfully revealed water under the lunar surface. And now the Google logo depicts the bombing revealing water. When you think about it, Google had a quick turnaround time for this logo. As fellow space enthusiasts, our hats go off to NASA and the men and women behind the successful mission. Hopefully this is only the beginning of something even bigger than ourselves. Reviews: Google Tags: Google, google logo, moon, space, water

Since its inception in 1990, Microsoft Office has quickly been the dominant force in office applications and document building. Need to build a presentation? There’s PowerPoint. Looking to create complex spreadsheets? Excel is still the gold standard. And with the power of Windows to help push the desktop software, its presence only grew. Over the last few years though, the web has begun to change this dynamic. Collaboration has become more important in business. At the same time, web applications have become more and more able to match the power and features of their desktop counterparts. In the document space, Google Docs has carried the banner for web-based document building. Now Google claims that Docs will be a viable alternative to Office by next year. At the same time, Office 2010 boasts web-based versions of its popular software. With the two giants locked in battle, we wanted to get your take on things. We asked you to vote on which doc-building tool you prefer… …and while it...

Want to bail out of your Verizon service for a shiny new iPhone, or head to another carrier before your contract ends? There’s an early termination fee for that. And starting next week, that fee is going to double if you’ve bought a smartphone or other mobile the carrier considers an “advanced device” high-end enough to warrant a steep $350 penalty for ditching. Currently the ETF starts at $175 and is pro-rated by $5 each month you’re in your contract. If you pick up a BlackBerry or Android phone (like the new Droid) after November 15, though, you’ll be in for a $350 starting fee that drops by $10 a month. That means even if you cancel your contract in the very last month of service you’d owe Verizon a $110 chunk of change. To explain how we could possibly have even gotten here requires a bit of backstory. When you buy a phone on a carrier in the U.S. (and in many other countries around the world), you typically get a discounted price on the phone in exchange for signing a 1- or...

Friday is a happy time for many, which makes it the perfect time for our weekly Lunchtime Poll! If you’ve participated before, you know we throw out a poll question, start off with some responses from the staff here at Mashable, and let you fine folks have at it in the comments. Last week we wanted to know about your favorite Twitter photo-sharing services, and the results are in if you want to know how they stack up for Mashable readers. This week we’re curious about your RSS habits. Some pundits have claimed that RSS is dead, but we think the news of its death may be greatly exaggerated. Do you use a news reader? If RSS is dead to you too, be sure to let us know that in the comments as well. What’s your favorite news reader? Mashable Faves Adam Ostrow: Google Reader … still makes it easy to read my favorite news sources all in one place Pete Cashmore: Google Reader. Lazyfeed is getting some buzz but I haven’t gotten into the habit of using it. Sharon Feder: Google Reader — it’s a...

Jessica Faye Carter is an award-winning author and columnist. Her company, Nette Media develops social media technologies for women and multicultural communities, and she blogs at Technicultr. The expression of community has changed considerably since the emergence of social media technologies, but its basic foundation — the notion of individuals exchanging information, ideas, and opinions — remains firmly intact. Today, one of the most widely-used tools in developing these types of exchanges online is WordPress, the popular blogging and publishing platform. Part of its appeal is the ease with which users can build advanced functionality into their sites with plugins. If you’re interested in building a community around your site, there are plenty of third-party add-ons that can help create one. These 10 WordPress plugins add features that will help you to engage your user base. Highlight Your Best Content 1. Featured Content Gallery – If you’re not an expert in programming or design,...

Thanks to this week’s advertisers and partners for enabling us to bring you the latest social media news and resources. Mashable’s sponsors are as social media savvy as our readers! Advertise with us and get noticed. Help us to help you. Mashable is seeking out site sponsors for our large, diverse audience — social media users, venture capitalists, early adopters, developers, bloggers, and many more. You’ll receive hundreds of thousands of views a day in addition to weekly recognition to thank you as our premium sponsors. Are you interested? Contact us for more information and to receive our media kit and rate card. This week, our valued sponsors are Leapfish, Web 2.0 Expo New York, nimbb, Streaming Media West, MOTOBLUR, Conduit, Clickatell, Influxis, EdgeCast, Microsoft BizSpark, MailChimp, Sun Startup Essentials, and Eventbrite. LeapFish is an evolved search engine that provides a single, connected, multimedia experience for both searching and sharing traditional, social and...

If you already use Internet Explorer but haven’t upgraded to the latest version yet, there are plenty of reasons to do so. But perhaps none is as adorable as the following endorsement from none other than the Smoky Mountain Songbird herself, Dolly Parton. In the video she promotes a new feature on her website that makes use of a feature only supported in IE8, web slices. And it’s unexpectedly endearing. Check out the video below. [via All Things D] Tags: Browsers, dolly parton, IE8, internet explorer, microsoft, video

Bringing yourself online is a true adventure, and there is no real need for it to be over-complicated. If you agree with that philosophy (and we all do, really) then the Magntize website is bound to appeal to you. In essence, this company provides a platform for you to have your very own website not only in a fast and simple way but also in a professional fashion. Read more Learn more about Magntize.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much Magntize.com is worth with Stimator.com

http://friendfeed.com/web20 - Petr Buben from Bookmarklet

For better or worse, iTunes and the iTunes Store have become a ubiquitous part of the digital media experience. In fact, it’s such a common part of the experience that Apple just expects that everyone has it installed. Consequently, if you click on an iTunes link in a web browser, iTunes either opens up on your computer or you’re taken to a page that tells you you need to install iTunes. However, as Macworld figured out, that’s starting to change. Apple has just quietly rolled out some web-based search and viewing capabilities for the Music and TV portion of the iTunes Store called iTunes Preview. Right now you can see iTunes Preview by going to the iTunes Charts page or by following a link from the music store created within iTunes like this one. You can now view an albums page, see the songs included on the album, the length, individual track price, and read review from iTunes reviewers. You can also browse through the discography of that artist and look up similar artists and...