Thanks to rampant tweeting, Twitter is having trouble keeping the lid on its forthcoming Lists feature, which lets users of the micro-blogging service categorize the people they follow, streamline their feeds, and discover like-minded users. Twitter just began testing the new service among a select group of users, but asked them to keep quiet about it. It describes the feature as "a way to organize the people you follow and discover new and interesting accounts." Facebook has a lists feature, launched in early 2008, which lets members sort their friends in a similar fashion.

Digg has reportedly acquired WeFollow, a user-generated Twitter directory launched by Digg founder Kevin Rose earlier this year. The site lets users add themselves to a directory by sending out a tweet to @WeFollow, and adding tags they think are relevant for their account. The site then breaks down the most popular Twitter users in categories based on their tags. The site initially attracted hundreds of thousands of users -- which could be attributed to Kevin Rose's massive following among Twitter users and, er, the broader geek community -- but has since tapered off.

Perhaps fired up by Google's strong third-quarter earnings, CEO Eric Schmidt was particularly confident about the company's mobile future on Thursday. "Android adoption is about to explode," he claimed during an earnings call, as all the "necessary conditions" are set for growth. Indeed, there are now 12 Android phones on the market across 32 carriers in 26 countries. The Android strategy is to offer a low-cost, fully-featured, open-source OS to cell phone manufacturers -- so they can concentrate on hardware -- and thus corner the nascent mobile search market. In the second quarter, mobile searches on Google were …

VentureBeat discusses the present and future of online video with Jeremy Allair, founder and CEO of Brightcove, which has thrived by focusing on a business-to-business model by targeting publishers. Admitting that "all the major publications" have cost pressures, Allair insists "they're still allocating an increasing share of their resources toward the online space." Taking a page from Malcolm Gladwell, he adds, "We're at a tipping point where we're going to see very significant growth and broad adoption of video that's going to challenge its traditional use cases." Also, if only as a safety precaution, Allair appears very bullish …

Recognizing the growing demand for real-time information, YouTube has added a real-time search feature for comments. YouTube comments are commonly thought to be not worth reading, but users can now search their full text, and in real time, to extract what little value the threads possess. There are some that might stand to benefit greatly from such a service, including companies that want to know what people are saying about their names in the comments on YouTube. Real-time search appears to have been rolled out very recently, with no mention. In addition to search results continuously updated a …

By now, along with the boy-in-the-hot-air-balloon hoax, you've probably heard that Google's third-quarter earnings beat the street, indicating, as the Times put it, "Consumers are loosening the grip on their wallets and advertisers are trying to get their attention -- at least on the Internet." But, unlike like bubble boy, this is big news, and therefore deserves a second, third, and even fourth look. The Times, for one, took the news as "the latest sign that the global economy may be on the mend." "Investors that may have been skittish before, perhaps doubting the …

Want to be the first kid on your block to own Google's Chrome operating system? Not afraid of a few product glitches? Then head over to TechCrunch, where one enterprising reader has made the "build" available for download. This is the same reader, Jonathan Frederickson, who was first to identify a "chromeos" folder on the Chromium build site, which allowed for a full walk through of the highly anticipated system.

Apple thinks it can capitalize on the launch Microsoft's forthcoming operating system. How exactly? It's going to hit the millions of PC owners heading out (or online) to buy Windows 7 with a barrage of Apple-endorsing advertising. Most likely, Apple will argue that Macs are less susceptible to viruses and are best suited to iPods and iPhones. Also, expect it to knock Microsoft for making XP owners upgrade to Windows 7, which includes backing up all their files to external drives, reformatting their PCs, and then reinstalling all of their old programs -- assuming they still have the …

Of equal import to editors and marketers, the Nieman Journalism Lab takes a look how The Huffington Post uses real-time testing to write more arresting headlines. Applying so-called A/B testing to some of its headlines, readers are randomly shown one of two headlines for the same story, soon after which the version with the most clicks becomes the one that everyone sees henceforth. To boot, Huffington Post's new social media editor, Josh Young, is increasingly soliciting better headlines from readers on Twitter.

Staying one step ahead of the competition, Amazon has introduced a new "Local Express Delivery Option," which offers same-day delivery so long as a product is ordered between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. At the moment, the service is still limited to seven cities -- New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, Baltimore, Las Vegas and Seattle -- while Chicago, Indianapolis and Phoenix are expected to be added to the list shortly. For Amazon Prime members, same day delivery means an additional $6 an item, while non-Prime members will have to fork over an additional $15 a item.