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"Social media" tools like YouTube and Facebook have a new name: "killer apps" or powerful platforms for extremist groups to smear messages of hate. But those same companies are hoping to counter that those negative cabilities for good.

From December 3rd to 5th, Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, and Howcast will sponsor a summit to mobilize young people against violence and oppression at the Columbia Law School. The global network, called the Alliance of Youth Movements, aims to craft a "field manual" on how to create social change using online tools. (Yes we can... Twitter!)

"The field manual will stand in stark contrast to the Al Qaeda manual on the basics of terrorism, found by Coalition Forces in Iraq," according to the press release.

Whoopi Goldberg, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, MSNBC's Luke Russert, the U.S. Department of State's Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy James Glassman, and others are set to speak at panels, which will include 'How To Build Transnational Social Movements Using New Technology' and 'How To Use New Mobile Technologies.'

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So you're single in New York. You come home late after a few beers on a Friday night, check your email and find a bunch of spam. Your recent ex just wrote a new status update on her Facebook page, broadcasting how awesome the single life is before your new "relationship status" has dropped below the news feed page. And maybe you start drafting a drunken email message to the ex. Some of us have been there... and so has Gmail Engineer Jon Perlow.

"Sometimes I send messages I shouldn't send. Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together." But Mr. Perlow has come up with a solution : Mail Goggles. "Gmail can't always prevent you from sending messages you might later regret, but today we're launching a new Labs feature I wrote called Mail Goggles which may help," he wrote on the Official Gmail Blog yesterday.  read more »

Planet Google: One Company’s Audacious Plan to Organize
Everything We Know
By Randall Stross
Free Press, 275 pages, $26

First I must confess: I am a Google junkie. Like most info-hungry New Yorkers, I spend an unreasonable amount of time searching for things on the Internet, from breaking news to videos of hugging lions. Using any other search engine would seem absurd. But while reading Randall Stross’ book Planet Google: One Company’s Audacious Plan to Organize Everything We Know, I became uncomfortable with how much Google knew about me and how much I had been relying on it. A self-imposed rehab seemed to be the only solution.  read more »

Google Maps has gone underground! Now you can navigate the subway with their maps services. This morning they added comprehensive transit information for the entire New York metro region, including subway, commuter rail, bus and ferry services from the Metropolitan Transit Agency (MTA), the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New Jersey Transit and the City of New York. Watch out, HopStop.com!

Here's more from Chris Harrelson, Tech Lead & Creator of Google Transit, on the Google blog:

Transit is a vital part of the infrastructure that makes cities run efficiently, and can help mitigate congestion, environmental concerns, and increasing energy costs.

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You've probably heard all about Google's continuting quest to take over the entire internet galaxy by launching of their own free internet browser, Chrome, since noon yesterday. They have a cute little comic to go along with it, typical of the "candy, beanbags" and "kindergarten esthetic of the Googleplex" that their marketers and admen love so much. Oh, you guys!

The reviews are in, and they're pretty good. It's fast, anyway. But Walter Mossberg at The Wall Street Journal's Personal Technology blog complains that it's "rough around the edges and lacks some common browser features Google plans to add later. These omissions include a way to manage bookmarks, a command for emailing links and pages directly from the browser, and even a progress bar to show how much of a Web page has loaded."  read more »

On June 9, subscribers to mac.com—a service that for a $99 annual fee provides online photo storage, personal calendars and an e-mail address announcing one’s allegiance to the modish computer brand of the decade—received a missive from an entity called “The .Mac Team.”

“Today, Apple announced a new Internet service called MobileMe,” this team wrote brightly, going on to promise “a host of new features,” including the ability to “push” a clump of data “over the air,” like God himself puffing at a cloud, from one’s laptop to one’s iPhone (the latest edition of which would prove to be available, or rather frustratingly unavailable, by the middle of the following month).  read more »

Michael Bloomberg is hosting a week-long celebration of bloggers! Well, of digital media. Today, the mayor kicked off Internet Week New York.  read more »

So, we know that Google is rapidly expanding its presence in the city. The Observer reported that Google has increased its city presence to nearly 500,000 square feet after expanding in its Chelsea home at 111 Eighth Avenue, and agreeing to a lease at Chelsea Market at 75 Ninth Avenue.

Now, Google is moving north. According to the Boston Business Journal, Google is set to build a Cambridge, Mass., campus of about 200,000 square feet. They'll be located in Kendall Square and ready to pluck from the ample pool of MIT and Harvard kids.

Google’s recent Big Apple expansion has fueled speculation.  read more »

Google is officially expanding its presence in Chelsea.

The Observer has learned that the California-based search engine giant recently closed on 130,000 square feet of space at Chelsea Market at 75 Ninth Avenue – directly across the street from the 360,000 square feet that they already have at 76 Ninth Avenue.  read more »

The other day I noted that you can see ads for Michael Bloomberg’s campaign-style web site on Gmail and Google.

Liz subqequently found that Google searches for the words “education,” “poverty” and “climate change,” also turn up ads for MikeBloomberg.com.

Intriguingly, if we're trying to figure out what bearing this could possibly have on whatever 2008 intentions the mayor is still toying around with, it turns out that you also see an ad for his site if you search for the term "nonpartisan" (or “non-partisan”).

Bloomberg's people, according to my amateur research, haven't graduated yet to more nakedly campaign-y terms like “third-party,” “moderate,” “electable” or “reform.”

If you find any more that prompt the ad, please let us know.