“Since 2001, Yahoo! has been tallying up the top searches of the year, providing a snapshot of a culture in motion,” they explain. This year was “the first time that a news story has taken the No. 1 slot.”  Perhaps the internet is growing up.

In second place, “South Africa, the first African nation to host the FIFA World Cup, welcomed 32 nations in a global tournament of men’s soccer. People took an online crash course in the sport, learning about the rules of the game, the major players (and outrageous referees), the octopus oracle, and native horns that just wouldn’t quit.” Perhaps the internet is becoming even more international!

In other categories, you’ll learn about the top 10 Obsessions of 2010, which included the iPhone, Lindsay Lohan, iPad, and “Glee”. Burning Questions seem to indicate people’s need to find a good job: How to Tie a Tie, How to Lose Weight, How to Write a Resume. But eternal questions also found a place, like How to Kiss, and What Is Love?

But the last category is one that can fuel the future:  Inspiring Acts. For more, visit Ripples of Kindness at kindness.yahoo.com. “As more people take action and encourage others, your ripple of kindness might become a wave of change. That’s how good grows.”

You can send something as simple as an e-mail, maybe with a photo attached, or even a video.  You can also choose from among the many, many websites that offer e-cards for every taste – funny, pretty, inspiring, interactive—you name it, there’s something for everyone. You can send individual e-cards that are personalized and tailored to fit each person and relationship, or you can choose one that really reflects your personality and feelings about the season and send it to everyone at once.  This blogger recommends Care2 e-cards because “e-sending FREE Care2 eCards generates donations to great organizations.”

If the season of giving already has you thinking of those who are less fortunate, you can make donations on the behalf of your e-card recipients and include that information in your message.  Here are some ideas from Christmas Daddy.com and you can also check out our previous post about Making Online Donations.

If you’re getting increasingly worried about the looming deadline to have your gift list fully checked off,   online gift certificates may be your saving grace. Check out Amazon.com, iTunes,  Gift Certificates.com, Gift Card Mall.com, Give Anything.com, Gift Cards.com, or just do a search! Of course, you can also check out our previous posts for more information: Holiday Greetings with Internet Speed and Last Minute Gift Giving.

Goals of the Mashable Awards
• Create conversations around technology and innovation
• Encourage engagement within the Mashable Audience
• Set the standard for innovation around competition
• Identify and celebrate the best of the best!

Categories include:

Best Internet Meme
Best Location-Based Service
Best Music Discovery Service
Best Online Game
Best Web Video
Breakthrough Website Design
Entrepreneur of the Year
Most Creative Social Good Campaign
Most Creative Social Media Campaign
Most Influential Social Good Champion
Most Promising New Company
Must-Follow Brand
Must-Follow Non-Profit
Must-Follow Personality

To vote, you sign in with Twitter or Facebook, but even just looking at who has been nominated gives you an idea of where to find the best and brightest, or the most popular. Here’s a sampling:

• Best Internet Meme - Sad Keanu , #fridayreads, F-U guy, Bed Intruder, Double Rainbow (we covered him in August!) Learn about them at Know Your Memes.com and see what else the kids on the interwebs are into these days.

• Best Music Discovery Service - @dkpopnews, Fizy , Last.fm, Pandora, Tracksfor.com

• Breakthrough Website Design – Flavors.me, TheKillersMusic.com, McKinney.com, Clicker.tv, Twitter

• Most Creative Social Good Campaign - @Twitchange, CSR Cooperative, @ProjectDog, @Browncoatsmovie, @letsfcancer

• Most Influential Social Good Champion - @UnCultured, John Cena, @hardlynormal, charitybuzz, Chris Hughes

Makes you wanna look and learn with internet speed, doesn’t it?

“Until Monday (Dec. 6), there should be no human faces on Facebook but an invasion of memories. This is for eliminating violence against children,” the page says. The undisclosed campaign creator asks Facebook users to change their profile pic and share the above statement in their status.

The origins of this campaign remain a mystery, as it doesn’t seem to be affiliated with any official organization, but the Childhood Cartoon Faces campaign is catching on.

A Forbes blogger, in a post entitled Facebook, cartoons, pedophiles and a friend-sourced future mentions that he received a message on Facebook saying that the group that told everyone to change their pictures was a group of pedophiles with their own ulterior motives. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense either. He points us to another blog post that quashes the pedophile rumor, and points out we should all really do a little search and research before spreading fake campaigns or misinformation of any kind. 

Really though, due to the fact that this cartoon campaign has caught on with internet speed, perhaps people creating real campaigns can study it for clues on how to make the most of social media in a way that captures the hearts and minds of the people they want to reach.

Scientific American celebrated by running a series of articles and interviewing the Web’s inventor, Tim Berners-Lee. He was there when the World Wide Web went live 20 years ago this month, on a single computer in Geneva, Switzerland.  Today he is director of the international World Wide Web Consortium, based in the U.S. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also a professor of engineering at M.I.T. and a professor of electronics and computer science at the University of Southampton in England.

The four-part series covers “some of the most intriguing Web capabilities, including the power of linked data, social machines, free bandwidth to the masses, and Web science.”

Then, in Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality , Berners-Lee explains that the Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity—and even our liberty. And like democracy itself, it needs defending.  

“Now is an exciting time. Web developers, companies, governments and citizens should work together openly and cooperatively, as we have done thus far, to preserve the Web’s fundamental principles, as well as those of the Internet, ensuring that the technological protocols and social conventions we set up respect basic human values. The goal of the Web is to serve humanity. We build it now so that those who come to it later will be able to create things that we cannot ourselves imagine.”

According to Amnesty International, Cheng disappeared ten days later, on what was to be her wedding day. Her whereabouts were unknown until it emerged this week that she had been detained and sentenced by local police.

Her fiancé is not known to have been detained. However, Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Director for the Asia-Pacific said, “It is possible that Cheng Jianping may have been targeted for her online activism over the last few years and her expressions of support for other Chinese dissidents and activists.”
 
According to other Chinese activists on Twitter, Cheng had participated in low-level online activism, including support for imprisoned Nobel Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo and imprisoned consumer rights advocate Zhao Lianhai, as well as fundraising in support of other activists. 

Cheng Jianping was sentenced to one year of ‘Re-education Through Labor’ on Monday for “disturbing social order”. Re-education Through Labor is an administrative punishment that can deprive an individual of their liberty for up to 4 years through a decision by the police without a trial by an independent court.

Cheng may be the first Chinese citizen to become a prisoner of conscience on the basis of a single tweet. 

Remember, sarcasm and tone of voice doesn’t carry well in writing.  Be careful what you tweet!

Then again, there are things to be missed. No perfume samples making you feel fancy as you flip through the pages of a magazine, no leftover newspapers to line your bird’s cage, and no bookshelves to show off to or share with friends.

But according to a report released by the Center for the Digital Future at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, people do not necessarily trust their new online sources of news. Only 39% do, the survey showed, while 14% percent find little or none of the information online reliable—a big change from a decade ago.

The New York Times BITS blog said, “If that makes you think that people read the sites they trust and distrust the others, think again. Almost a quarter of people said that half or less than half of the information they read on sites they visited regularly was reliable.”

Almost a quarter of newspaper-reading Internet users would miss the print edition of their newspapers if they disappeared. So making money in this changing world becomes the next challenge. Subscriptions aren’t attractive for readers who’ve been getting the info for free, 50% of those surveyed never click on web ads, and 70% find them annoying. Still, a little more than half said they’d rather see ads than pay to see web sites.

Springwise reports that, “Since its launch in July, Alikewise has already attracted more than 4,000 users, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. It currently serves consumers in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands and Israel, but it aims to keep expanding.”   It might be a good site for single people who like to travel too, it sounds like!  Again, because the internet connects the world, there is no reason to restrict your search for those who are merely geographically desirable.  You can e-mail, IM, call using voice-over IP or even have video calls with Skype or similar services until you determine that you’re ready to travel to meet each other.  By then, you should know each other really well.

Users begin on Alikewise by creating a free profile that covers the type of romantic partner they’re seeking as well as some of their favorite books. In a sentence or two, they describe why they like it so much, and a link to buy it on Amazon is included. Like on other dating sites, once interested, you can send them a message, but on Alikewise, you can also suggest a book! The Alikewise blog lets people know about events in their area, as well as information about dating and reading-related stories. 

So if you’re single, literary and looking, check out Alikewise!

Now, users can easily link their Ping and Twitter accounts so that whenever they post, review or share downloaded music on Ping, the info can also be sent out to all their Twitter followers–complete with song previews and links to the iTunes store with internet speed.

“Essentially, Twitter has just managed to swallow up Apple’s new social network–everything users do on Ping can be followed through tweets,” Fast Company explains. “And thanks to Twitter’s recent redesign, the shared Ping activity will appear in Twitter’s new details panel, literally transforming half of Twitter into the iTunes store. All in all, it’s a huge get for Apple: not only does it provide a much-needed boost of potential users, but it will create a surge in advertising and access for iTunes. The benefits aren’t as apparent for Twitter. Certainly, song previews will make the site more media rich; plus, it’s never a bad idea to have Steve Jobs as an ally.”

Read Write Web was less enthusiastic about the partnership. “The long and the short of it is this: the [Ping] user experience is unappealing and it’s totally focused on commerce not community. In other words, Ping is like the opposite of Twitter…This is the internet, where if you want me to buy music you’re going to have to make it really easy and compelling. This doesn’t pass that test in my mind.”

In France, Super Marmite.com (marmite is a kind of cooking pot) allows cooks with a meal planned or in the works to simply list them on the Super Marmite site, specifying their location, when the meal will be ready and any per-serving fee they’d like to be paid. The trendwatchers at Springwise.com also mention one in the U.S.–Book of Cooks.com – where you can find out “what’s cookin’ in your neighborhood”.  From their website:

Are you craving for something homemade?
Nostalgic for a taste of your hometown?
Dare to try something vegan?
Want to eat with a local when traveling?

No matter what your delicious palate desires, we’re sure there’s a cook in the book who can make what you want, the way you want - all when you want it!

Cooks can set up their own online restaurant with menus, prices and even videos.  Foodies can search by dish, type of food, location or read reviews and ratings.  Then they place an order that can be picked-up, delivered or even prepared in the customer’s home.  The trendwatchers at Springwise say, “Meals purchased this way are frequently less expensive than what one would pay in a restaurant…and can also make it easier to find less common cuisines such as vegan or gluten-free. For cooks, meanwhile, BookOfCooks provides a free way to establish a consistent clientele…as a full-time business or for a little extra money on the side.”