Last week Google changed the Local Business Center to Google Places, and along with that change came some new features for local businesses. We looked at those here.
Among those changes was the addition of Google’s tag advertising. For $25 a month, businesses (in certain cities) can use Tags to highlight their listings on Google.com and Google Maps. These are yellow markers that let you promote important aspects of your business. They can be used for things like coupons, photos, and other select features.  They don’t affect the rank of search results, but they give customers more information and may prove beneficial.
Google promised that while the offering was starting out in a limited number of cities, that number would be expanding. The expansion process is underway. Google has now announced the addition of 11 new cities.
"You’ll notice that we’ve added Mountain View, CA to the list of cities participating in the trial," says Product Manager Shalini Agarwal. "Because we are still tweaking the product a bit, we thought we’d make it available in our hometown so we can get quick feedback as we work on new features."
In a couple weeks, Google says it will launch a new tag type: "post to your Place Page". This will be a freeform text field that will let business owners highlight custom messages announcing sales or events.
The company did not indicate when more cities will become available, but I would expect the feature to make regular expansions in the not-too-distant future.
A lawsuit filed by language software firm Rosetta Stone against Google for copyright infringement has been dismissed by a federal judge.
In its lawsuit, filed in July 2009, Rosetta Stone alleged that Google allowed third parties including individuals involved in software piracy to purchase the right to use Rosetta Stone trademarks or other terms confusingly similar in Google’s Adwords advertising program.
Google said the ruling was "consistent with a growing line of decisions" about the Internet.
"Users searching on Google benefit from being able to choose from a variety of competing advertisers, and we’ve found no evidence that legitimate use of trademarks as keyword triggers or in the text of advertisements confuses consumers. We’re pleased that the judge has ruled in Google’s favor, consistent with a growing line of decisions in the Internet space," Google said in a statement.
Rosetta Stone expressed its disappointment about the ruling, charging that Google does not do enough to stop such practices on its AdWords platform.
This state of affairs has left Bartz with some fairly vocal critics.  Check any financial forum today, and you’ll likely see a lot of folks complaining about the performance of Yahoo’s stock.  Other individuals have also speculated about how many dismissed employees $47.2 million could have kept on the payroll.
Yahoo’s stock is up this morning, at least (by 0.18 percent compared to the Nasdaq’s 0.01 percent gain), which may be a small comfort to investors.
Just like the Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad, this one comes in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities.
For those ordering the iPad Wi-Fi+3G online, it ships by May 7th. It does come with free shipping. That may be the safer way to go too. If you do go to an Apple Store, be careful about how you hold the bag.
Are you getting the iPad with Wi-Fi+3G? Let us know.
I’ve seen a lot of angst over the past week about Facebook’s moves to open up your data to other applications.
Twitter isn’t some strange new thing anymore, according to a fresh report.  In fact, if you reference "Twitter" in front of someone, the odds of you getting a strange look may only be a tiny bit larger than if you say "Facebook."  Unfortunately for Twitter, the odds of someone having a Twitter account versus a Facebook account remain not at all the same.
Twitter isn’t some strange new thing anymore, then, according to a fresh report.  Indeed, if you reference in front of any given person, the odds of you getting a strange look in return may only be a small amount larger than if you say "Facebook."
Edison Research released some stats today, and one startling find was this: "Awareness of Twitter has exploded from 5% of Americans 12+ in 2008 to 87% in 2010 (by comparison, Facebook’s awareness is 88%)."
Then here’s the sort of don’t-get-too-excited qualifier: "Despite equal awareness, Twitter trails Facebook significantly in usage: 7% of Americans (17 million persons) actively use Twitter, while 41% maintain a profile page on Facebook."
Jessica E. Vascellaro and Don Clark reported this morning, "Google Inc. is planning to introduce Android-based television software to developers at an event in May, according to people familiar with the matter."
Google promised that while the offering was starting out in a limited number of cities, that number would be expanding. The expansion process is underway. Google has now announced the addition of 11 new cities.
Rosetta Stone expressed its disappointment about the ruling, charging that Google does not do enough to stop such practices on its AdWords platform. 
Twitter isn’t some strange new thing anymore, then, according to a fresh report.  Indeed, if you reference in front of any given person, the odds of you getting a strange look in return may only be a small amount larger than if you say "Facebook."