“We are going to rewire the entire experience at Yahoo to make it social in every dimension,” said Ari Balogh, Yahoo’s chief technology officer. The open platform is a concept that already has been embraced by Google, Facebook and MySpace.

The new feature will give Yahoo’s roughly 500 million users greater flexibility to customize, including the ability to pick from a variety of widgets for placement just about anywhere on the site, including a personalized home page.

Will this be good for marketers and advertisers? We’ll see: I’ve gotten used to targeting ads based on interest and demographic, which works. For example, What if Betty White and Rue Mclanahan wrote a show about their relationship with Bea Arthur called Rue and Betty about Bea on Broadway.  (Hint, hint, ladies—and producers!) I want to target people with “Broadway,” “Off Broadway,” “The Golden Girls,” “Maude,” “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Bea Arthur,” etc. in their profiles and send them a hot message about the new hit show. On Facebook, I can now target users down to age and location. (Hello, 45 year old ladies in New York!) Yahoo is now making this possible, too.

We haven’t had much luck using search ads on Yahoo: I have tried it with a few shows, but I can’t match the high ROIs I get on Facebook and Google).

Will this makeover make Yahoo a more effective place to advertise? I hope so and I will certainly let you know. Yahoo’s search, chat, music and email are already great, and if this will help me reach the audiences I want, I’m all for it.  C’mon, Golden Girls fans, get your wallets out!

Here’s a great article that reports on how Facebook didn’t allow for the Batmans, Kissers, Supers, Yodas and Pancakes of the world sign up for a Facebook account.

Facebook blocks the registration of a number of names that are frequently abused on the site. The name “Yoda,” also being the name of a popular Star Wars character, is on this list of blocked names. I apologize again for the inconvenience. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

With the rise of bizarre first and last names, how will Facebook accomodate?

I caught this article on CNN.com entitled “New Zealand police use Facebook to stop crime.”

The Queenstown police set up a Facebook fan page for their office where they post footage of criminals who have fled the scene of a crime. On Monday morning a masked man broke into a pub through the roof and tried to break into the safe, because the criminal was hot he took off his mask and continued his task. When he failed to open the safe he got up to leave and managed to look directly into the camera as he was leaving.

The Queenstown police took that photo, along with video footage and posted it on their Facebook fan page. The next day the criminal was in custody because of Facebook users who recognized the man in the picture.

Social Networking at its finest. You can become a Fan of the Queenstown Police department here.

The COO of Playfish, a leader in this type of game development, describes how he aims to create games that are “very engaging, entertaining worlds and lead to the discovery of new friendships and relationships.” 

Playfish and its competitors make money by advertising and selling virtual goodies.  They host video ads on their site and sell gifts to give to friends — including $40 virtual lip-shaped couches. 

(We live in interesting times, don’t we?)

Here’s Forbes list of the 10 hottest games.