Amid all the excitement over "real time" search results, The Guardian (UK) reports that users are actually ignoring such results. Citing an eye-tracking study from Oneupweb, the paper suggests that posting Twitter results high into search results isn't working. But why? The Guardian looks to blogger Dave Winer, who says: "It's impossible to convey much information in 140 characters ... So when a search hits a tweet you get at most a soundbite, telling you something you probably already knew ... When you search you're looking for information you don't have but want." Adds The Guidarian: "Possibly …

To ward off scammers and spammers, Twitter will now shorten links in direct messages, and sent via email, with its own URL shortener. "It's a welcome move," says Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan. "By routing all links submitted to Twitter through this new service, we can detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad links across all of Twitter," explains the microblogging service. "Even if a bad link is already sent out in an email notification and somebody clicks on it, we'll be able keep that user safe." After a little testing, Sullivan also concludes that the …

Google has launched an Apps Marketplace, which, according to Fast Company, "does clever cloud-connecting stuff." The Marketplace, it would appear, was created to make it easier for "Google Apps administrators" to find, enable, and distribute to their users all of the apps sitting in Google's cloud storefront. By having all of this stuff in one place, Google argues, users' "daily workflows" in Gmail, Calendar, Contacts are streamlined, and the system lets everybody share data between the apps and each other for collaborative working. Notes, Fast Company, the service places a strong emphasis on open standards, "meaning it's …

Why isn't Foursquare afraid of Facebook? "Facebook used to be who your friends are, now it's everyone," its cofounder Dennis Crowley tells the Business Insider. "[Foursquare] is more tightly curated to who you want to have as your check-in friends ... Facebook is good place for status updates and sharing photos, not to keep tabs on where people are going." For his sake, we hope Crowley's right. Otherwise, the fact that Facebook will soon offer Foursquare's key feature -- the ability to broadcast one's location to friends -- might be cause for concern. One problem? "Facebook has …

Potentially pole-vaulting location-based social networking into the mainstream, Facebook is about to let its 400 million members broadcast their every physical move. Expected to launch next month, the new location feature will have two aspects, people familiar with the plans tell The New York Times' Bits blog. "One will be a service offered directly by Facebook that will allow users to share their location information with friends ... The other will be a set of software tools, known as A.P.I.'s, that outside developers can use to offer their own location-based services to Facebook users."

It looks like Facebook is working with Eventbrite to let members sell tickets to the 3.5 million odd events added to the top social network every month. "Eventbrite is partnering with Facebook to enable you to collect money for your event," read a Web page, since vanished, at facebook.eventbrite.com. "Your attendees pay with credit card and Eventbrite collects the money on your behalf and sends you a check when your event is over. We charge a small service fee for every ticket sold. 5.5% + $.99c, which attendees pay, costing you nothing." Earlier this month, TechCrunch confirmed that Facebook …

In the first of what is sure to be many such spin-offs, The New York Times plans to offer its Book Review as a separate digital e-reader product, "disaggregated from the rest of the Times content on the mobile devices," writes PoynterOnline. According to Poynter, James Dunn, director of marketing at The Times, alluded to the plan during an afternoon session at the Digital Publishing Alliance and E-Reader Symposium at the University of Missouri's Reynolds Journalism Institute. The paper is expected offer a separate version of its Book Review for three e-reader platforms, beginning with the Sony …

Keep an eye on FourWhere -- a deceptively simple "mashup" of comments and venues from location-based social network Foursquare on Google Maps. With it, users can search by city and neighborhood, and see recent "tips" from people who've checked into various nearby restaurants, bars, stores, and offices. "It does the job," writes TechCrunch -- despite the fact that it requires users to right-click to see comments or venues, rather than simply having a menu on the side. "I'm kind of surprised Foursquare doesn't offer the exact same functionality, but that's what APIs are for," says TechCrunch's Erick …

Nationwide, computer scams targeting small businesses cost companies $25 million in the third quarter of 2009, according to new research from the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. What's worse, online banking fraud involving the electronic transfer of funds rose to over $120 million in the third quarter of 2009 -- a number that has steadily been rising since 2007, according to the FDIC. The FDIC bases its estimates on a variety of confidential reports that it receives from financial institutions, according to David Nelson, an examination specialist with the FDIC. The vast majority of the hacking incidents …

Google's attempt to revolutionize the way consumers buy phones is all washed up. That's the conclusion of ZDNet's Googling Google blog based on revised retail estimates from Goldman Sachs. "Google's attempt at fundamentally changing the way we buy cell phones has yet to bear much fruit," it writes. Goldman Sachs reduced sales estimates from 3.5 million units in 2010 to a just 1 million -- and only 2 million in 2011 if they launch a second phone, ramp up their own marketing effort, and, critically, agree to sell it in physical retail stores. "Initial data-points were disappointing, …