To that end, start-up Redbeacon.com took the top prize for its innovative model that allows users to search for services among rated providers and connect directly with them to set up appointments and receive quotes. Search results are organized based on a variety of user feedback that includes reviews, ratings, and proximity.

As Redbeacon’s press release explains:

“Consumers describe what they need done and specify when and where their job should take place. Using patent-pending machine learning and semantic technology, Redbeacon determines the best local service providers for the job. If matched, service providers get notified by email and text message and are given the opportunity to submit a price quote. Consumers can then select and book appointments with their top choice service provider based on a comparison of business profiles, price quotes, and ratings and reviews from past Redbeacon consumers.”

Picking up on this trend, the Atlantic Monthly reports last month on sites that have similar models to Redbeacon, pointing to the new wave of .coms seeking to satisfy this demand for consumer opinions online. These ratings sites allow users to offer up their personal spin on virtually anything, but I feel Redbeacon sets itself apart by providing utility for a wide variety of services and situations with a great search.

[image via Chanaye J. Thomas]

Seth Godin refers to this situation as a “surplus of attention,” a reversal of the previous trend that saw marketers buying up ad space wherever they could and at premium prices because there was only so much that people were looking at and it typically translated into increased profits for everyone.

Now we’re looking at a situation where there’s so much real estate that the options of where to try and capture an audience are almost too vast. Advertisers don’t know how to handle so many choices to leverage this situation and therefore are missing out on our collective time spent online. Godin sees the solution as “hyperlocal, hyperspecialized, hyperrelevant,” as the direction we need to be heading.

And while this trend, is more geared towards marketers, I see parallels within the business world, particularly when looking at new tech start-ups because this is the landscape that they will be navigating. Understanding the demands of the your potential customer in any environment, but especially online will have a huge impact on the success of your offering, whether product or service.

[image via katielips]

The NY Times points to the current landscape, where Microsoft and Apple have recently upgraded their entries, Google has introduced Chrome and “browser-lite” offered by Mozilla has captured 23 percent market share. Add to this already crowded field, a new venture by start-up RockMelt – backed by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen – that while still in the early stages, is rumored to have implications for engaging with social media platforms, and the battle lines are being redrawn.

With the increasing mobility and connectedness offered by new technologies, the web and not the computer is increasingly becoming our access point to work and play, while the internet is simultaneously being seen less as a cohesive whole as it is deconstructed into dynamic pages and applications for performing specific tasks. Which is to say, that the browser is the gateway to controlling and shaping that user experience and there’s plenty of room for  innovation to keep pace with this evolution.

The biggest challenge remains distribution, but as we’ve seen time and again, develop a compelling enough product and your audience will find you, particularly in the fluid world of online technology.

[image via R.P. Piper]

Fast Company examines the acquisition, taking the former perspective, saying “Friendfeed has is universality: it acknowledges that some people are on Facebook, yes, but plenty of other are on Twitter and Gmail, and all those people want to talk to each other using one simple interface.” They note that Facebook’s biggest challenge is maintaining relevance. While it excels at connecting people initially – much like a phonebook in their view – all of its other services – updates and messaging- are merely adequate, giving users little reason to keep going back. Rolling Friendfeed’s model into that of Facebook might eliminate some of its simplicity, but it reestablishes Facebook as a social networking home base.

According to the Silicon Valley Insider, however, the deal was all about the people behind the platform – of Friendfeed’s 12 employees, all but one are engineers. They lay it out simply, pointing to Facebook’s desire for “FriendFeed’s 11 engineers, its ex-Google cofounders, who helped build products like GMail, Google Maps, etc. and their ideas, primarily to be built into Facebook.”

Regardless of your particular point of view (and barring the financial details of the deal) it’s hard not look at this buy as a big win for Facebook, as they make further inroads into transforming their site from a destination to a multi-use platform. Now if only they could figure out a way to monetize their service beyond the advertising model, Facebook’s dominance might really mean something.

[image via jaycameron]

The New York Times reports that the split occurred under relatively friendly terms, and “Apple praised Mr. Schmidt for his work. But the company’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, said in a statement that Mr. Schmidt’s position would have been ’significantly diminished’ because he would have been forced to recuse himself from more of the meetings as Google and Apple began to compete head to head.”

This announcement serves to further complicate the race for top dog on the web, particularly given the power grab made by Microsoft and Yahoo! last week to regain ground in the search market. Google followed Schmidt’s announcement with news it would be starting a massive billboard advertising campaign in the major markets of Boston, Chicago, New York, and San Fransisco in order to combat fears that Microsoft’s new deal with Yahoo! would adversely affect the industry leader’s current dominance.

Even though conventional roadside billboards may seem anathema to the Google ethos given the almost esoteric nature of the format, it’s clear that the move will ultimately support the company’s bid to break into the operating system market long though of as a duopoly. According to Fast Company, the billboards, located next to high trafficked commuter routes, will “update every day for a month, and as the days go by it’ll reveal more and more about the concept of “going Google.”

And although Eric Schmidt downplayed the implications of his departure from the board of Apple, “clearly Google is confident enough in its software that it sees it as a real, working, reliable, solid and cheaper alternative to the business production solutions that MS has been peddling for decades,” it’s hard to ignore the obvious implications, namely, Google pitting its prospects against those of its former partner-in-crime.

Needless to say, with the current reordering at the top of the heap, it appears like the battle for web supremacy will continue to heat up, a fact that should lead to some interesting innovations as these companies drive each other and attempt to take hold of greater market share.

While the move is on to develop the algorithm that will make this idea a reality and no doubt revolutionize the way we consume our stream of information in process, what might the search look like and how will it function exactly? ReadWriteWeb provides an excellent analysis of how our future searches will function based on what they refer to as “Social Relevancy Rank,” a constantly updating feed of data filtered through the people in our trusted networks.

Based on this model, the most relevant information would come directly from your closest (online) friends and then move downward through a progression of an ever widening web of affiliations – taste neighbors to friends of friends to influencers – until it final reaches results from the crowd.

If it works, it would create an entirely new level of value to our time spent online and one imagines would most benefit the relatively small (but growing) community of creators – thought leaders, bloggers, designers etc. – who are actively engaging with the web at large. If such an engine were to take hold it will be interesting to see how the information reordering takes shape, particularly when it comes to corporations and to a lesser extent traditional media outlets.