Wikipedia has begun testing an article feedback tool, which lets users rate articles on four primary characteristics. "The tool allows users to rate articles on sourcing, completeness, neutrality and readability, on a five-point system," reports ReadWriteWeb. A test run of the tool is expected to run through December on a small number of articles. During the test phase, the tool will only run on articles in the WikiProject United States Public Policy to "avoid overtaxing the servers," according to the collaborative online encyclopedia. "What's really exciting about this tool is that it's a way to increase reader engagement at …

LinkedIn on Thursday said it plans to acquire ChoiceVendor, a company that rates and reviews business service providers. "With the deal, LinkedIn will have B2B reviews for more than 70 categories in the U.S.," ZDNet said regarding the deal for which terms were not disclosed. ChoiceVendor CEO Yan-David Erlich previously did time at Battery Ventures, Google (as a product manager) and Microsoft, while its VP of engineering Rama Ranganath worked on Google's AdSense team, according to ZDNet. "That experience should come in handy for LinkedIn." The deal marks LinkedIn's second acquisition to date. Just this past August, it bought …

New details have emerged regarding a forthcoming "Facebook Phone," which could fundamentally shift the way mobile users consume content and advertising.   "The devices, which will feature Facebook social-networking services, are due to be introduced in Europe in the first half of 2011 and the U.S. in the second half," reports Bloomberg, citing three people familiar with the matter. In an interview with TechCrunch -- which first broke news of the phone -- Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said of the company's mobile strategy: "Our goal is to make it so …

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg expects to partner with Apple at some point -- just not anytime soon, he told investors at a Goldman Sachs conference this week. "Hopefully, at some point Apple will get with the program," Seidenberg said, reports AP. Seidenberg's comments call into question multiple reports of a Verizon Wireless-supported iPhone hitting shelves early next year. Verzizon hopes that the "4G" network it's presently building will attract Apple's business, but it won't even be complete next year, according to AP. It should have near-nationwide coverage by the end of 2012, Seidenberg said. Meanwhille, there's no denying a …

Unlike AOL, Yahoo, or even Google, Facebook is positioned to turn the Web into "the perfect advertising medium," Bloomberg/Businessweek suggests. "The company has developed a potentially powerful kind of advertising that's more personal -- more 'social,' in Facebook's parlance -- than anything that's come before," reads the magazine feature. So, those ads that sit on the far right hand of site are what Madison Avenue's been waiting for? Not exactly. "These ads can evolve, though, from useless little billboards into content, migrating into casual conversations between friends, colleagues, and family members -- exactly where advertisers have always sought to …

Just 5 years after dropping out of Harvard to found Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is worth more than Steve Jobs, Forbes reports. At the tender age of 26, Zuckerberg's fortune is now estimated to be $6.9 billion -- and Facebook hasn't even gone public! How is that possible? "Recent private equity investments in Facebook valued the firm at around $23 billion -- more than triple its 2009 value of $7 billion," reports Fortune's Money Talks blog. Zuckerberg is now #35 on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans. At # 42, Apple's Jobs has a net worth of $6.1 billion. …

Facebook is altering news feeds so that users who don't play games (and couldn't care less about them!) will no longer see feeds from friends who do play games. Good news for non-gamers. Bad news for game developers, says Inside Facebook. "Overall, the changes could hurt virality for many developers, even if they see increased engagement," it writes. "Because news feed stories were a main way that people found games in the first place, we expect app virality to decrease as a result of this change." Not making any apologies, Facebook says of the change: "Tens of …

Amid larger concerns, The New York Times Co. on Wednesday said it expected digital revenue to rise 14% in the third quarter of the year. PaidContent calls it "a significant turnaround from the 7.2 percent decline in web dollars" that the company reported in the third quarter of last year. "The company in July projected ... growth in the mid- to high-teens on a percentage basis for digital," notes The Wall Street Journal. Costs, meanwhile, will be up 1-to-2% in the third quarter as Times Co. prepares to …

Valuations of closely held consumer Web firms are rising rapidly, The Wall Street Journal finds. "Venture-capital investors and others have been bidding up the valuations of consumer Web start-ups this year, particularly of the firms that show the most user traction," The Journal Reports. "In an echo of the 1990s dot-com boom, some investors also are giving lofty valuations to Web firms that have no revenue and that barely have a product out." Earlier this year, for one, Quora raised around $14 million in a financing round, which valued the question-and-answer site at roughly $87.5 million. As …

About AOL's $100 million cap on acquisitions? Gone, CEO Tim Armstrong said at Goldman Sachs' media conference this week. "Cue the bankers (who were already dialing madly, anyway)," jokes MediaMemo. Where might AOL be investing its hundreds of millions of dollars? Armstrong isn't saying. What about investing in a more coherent video strategy. Maybe, but Armstrong isn't saying. "Yes, we have a video strategy, and no, I'm not going go into detail on it," Armstrong said at the Goldman conference. "Pressed a bit more, he suggested we check out AOL's Cambio.com for a sense of where his …