According to Reuters, not only is Nokia not abandoning Symbianas its smartphone platform of choice, but the Finnish mobile giant plans only one (1!) Linux-based device for the entire next year. Nokia refused to officially confirm this information, which comes from a “source with direct knowledge of Nokia’s product roadmap,” saying that they “remain firmly committed to Symbian as our smartphone platform of choice.” Personally, I’m not sure whether this is good or bad news. I’ve had the chance to try out the only Maemo-based device currently on offer, the Nokia N900, and it left me disappointed. Not in the terms of what it can do, mind you, as it’s packing some powerful hardware; but the UI and the touchscreen responsiveness if you try to use your fingers (there’s a stylus included, too) need to undergo a lot of improving to be anywhere near the iPhone-levels of usability and fluidity. On the other hand, Symbian as a smartphone platform feels old and unable to compete with the iPhone OS, Android and Palm’s webOS, and Nokia can definitely benefit from starting over with a new OS. Let’s just hope that one Linux-based device that gets released in 2010 will be a game changer.Reviews: Android, linuxTags: Linux, Maemo, Nokia

  We’ve written on numerous occasions about Apple’s app approval policy, which has so far been inconsistent, often unfairand sometimes just plain strange. If you need more proof that many developers are unhappy with the way Apple is treating them, check out a new site called Apple Rejected Me, where everyone can come and vent about their (unjustly) rejected iPhone app. Of course, the entries on the site being anonymous doesn’t exactly make it a good source of reliable information; furthermore, most of the entries are jokes. From the site:“I made a time machine app, but apparently Flux_Capacitor is a private API. ARM”“I made an app that caused AT&T to drop a call randomly based on a 50/50 chance. Because of duplicate functionality, ARM.”“I tried to “Think Differentâ€� but ARM.”However, the sheer fact that such a site exists shows that something is wrong in Apple’s app approval policy, and that it needs to be fixed, fast. Tags: apple, applications, iphone

  While Twitter may have taken second place in Bing’s 10 most searched topics of 2009, we’ve now learned that it has become top dog in something far bigger: the entire English language.The Global Language Monitor, which tracks language trends, has once again compiled and released its yearly list of the most popular words and phrases within the English language. In 2008, the #1 most popular word was “change” (referring to the mantra of the top name of 2008, Barack Obama). However, Obama has been supplanted this year by the 140 character sensation that is Twitter.GLM’s list of top words and phrases for 2009 isn’t surprising, once you factor out words like “the” out of the equation. Twitter’s constant media attention and mainstream ascent has vaulted it into the English lexicon, so much so that it beat out the words Obama (#2), H1N1 (#3), Stimulus (#4), and Vampire (#5). The top phrase of 2009 however was “King of Pop,” referring to the late Michael Jackson. This mirrors Bing’s top 10 searched topics. However, Barack Obama was once again the top name of 2009, just beating out Michael Jackson.With Twitter declared English’s most popular word and unfriend taking the title of Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year, what else does social media have to conquer? Please tell us in the comments, because we’re stumped.Reviews: Bing, TwitterTags: english, trending, twitter

  It isn’t even December yet, but Microsoft’s Bing search engine is already announcing its top ten most searched topics of 2009, as well as the two celebrities that were binged more than actress Megan Fox.The new Microsoft “decision engine” has only been in service since June, but Bing has apparently analyzed billions of search queries in order to create a listof the ten most searched topics of the year, Bing’s version of “trending topics.” Six of the top ten searches referred to specific individuals while only one search term referred to a website or company. As you’ve probably guessed, we’re talking about Twitter, whose rapid ascent into the mainstream garnered it the honor of being the #2 most searched topic on Bing.So who or what was #1? Here are the top ten Bing searches of 2009, in reverse order:The Top 1010. Jaycee Dugard(kidnapped in 1991 and finally found in August of this year, the story was national news)9. Billy Mays (famous pitchman who passed away in June)8. Jon and Kate Gosselin (former stars of Jon and Kate Plus 8, the public destruction of their marriage was a big topic of interest)7. Cash for Clunkers(a U.S. government program to replace less fuel efficient vehicles with newer, more fuel-economic cars)6. Patrick Swayze (famous actor who passed away in September)5. Farrah Fawcett (famous actress and pop culture icon who passed away in June)4. Stock Market3. Swine Flu2. TwitterAnd the number one searched term of 2009:1. Michael JacksonSocial Media Has Captured the Public’s AttentionIt’s not a shocker that any of these topics made the top ten Bing searches of 2009. There was an outpouring of interest in each and every one of these people or things. Still, Twitter being more searched than the stock market, Swine Flu, and every major public icon except Michael Jackson is an impressive feat that speaks to the mainstream reach Twitter now enjoys.Bing also decided to release the top three most search living celebrities. While the inclusion of Transformers actress Megan Fox (#3) and Twilight actor Robert Pattinson (#2) didn’t surprise us, we were a bit shocked to find that celebrity blogger Perez Hiltonwas the most searched living celebrity on Bing in 2009. No matter what you think of Perez, he proves that blogs have acquired incredible reach and captured the attention of the world.What do you think of Bing’s top ten searches of 2009? Does anything about this list surprise you? Are you shocked something didn’t make the list? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.Reviews: Bing, Twitter, twilightTags: bing, microsoft, Search

  The Open Web Awards: Social Media Edition, our annual contest where you pick the best of the social web, is in its final stages. Time for a quick update!Mashable readers have cast 400,000+ votes for the top individuals, companies, websites and applications – that’s in addition to the 450,000+ nominations you made in the first round. At the current pace, it looks like more than 1 million total nominations and votes will have been cast by the end of the competition. In the final weeks, we’ll highlight your picks and explore the wider web trends of 2009.If you haven’t voted yet – and you can vote once per category per day – now’s the time to do so. Voting closes December 15th.Vote in the Finals of the Open Web Awards 2009>>Thanks to our Partner: MOTOBLURMOTOBLURfrom Motorola was built expressly for the way people communicate today. It’s the only service that automatically delivers and organizes your conversations, contacts and content from all your favorite sites and sources in easy-to-manage streams. Whether it’s Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, text messages, Gmail or work e-mail, MOTOBLUR keeps track of it all and serves it up on a customizable home screen and integrates it through the phone. Plus, with MOTOBLUR you have peace of mind, because all of your info is backed up and secure. Discover MOTOBLUR on Motorola CLIQ available at T-Mobile. It’s time to spend less time managing life and more time living it.Reviews: Facebook, Gmail, Mashable, MySpace, TwitterTags: openwebawards

  Tweetie 2.1, the latest version of the popular iPhone Twitter client, went live in the app store today. As we mentioned in our preview earlier this week, new features include support for Twitter Lists, the new Twitter retweets feature and geolocation. The new version is free to existing Tweetie 2 users. As we wrote in our complete review:Lists support is a big deal and thus far, it looks like Tweetie 2 for the iPhone handles the process in a very robust and intuitive way. When you click on the “Moreâ€� tab in Tweetie 2, you are now presented with a listing of every list you subscribe to (whether you created it or just subscribe to it), making it easy to view the contents of that list with one click…Twitter’s native retweeting feature was implemented in many of the beta versions of Tweetie 2, but was disabled in the first shipping version because the feature hadn’t been rolled out extensively. Now that the new Retweet system is in full effect, it’s back in Tweetie 2. When you view your profile, you now have an option to view your retweets, retweets by others, and even your tweets, retweeted.You can download Tweetie 2.1 here[iTunes link]What do you think of the new Tweetie? What’s your iPhone Twitter client of choice? Let us know in the comments.Reviews: Twitter, tweetie

  Advertisers are frustrated. You’re all having direct conversations with friends on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and the rest while totally bypassing the mass mediums they understand. Rather than consuming content all day on TV, in newspapers and on the radio, you’re engaging, one-to-one, with individuals you trust. They can’t get in the middle of that. They hate it.So it’s perhaps predictable that we’re experiencing the rise of in-stream Twitter advertising. How do you get inside those conversations? “You pay to do it!”, they exclaim. Ah yes, so suddenly we have Sponsored Tweets, ad.ly and others offering to pay users to Tweet out their ad messages. Problem solved! Except it’s not. That’s the exact same outdated model of interruption-based advertising that we’ve been trying to block out with a TiVo or an internet ad blocker. We don’t want it. We’ll ignore it.Paid Recommendations Destroy TrustSome envision an in-between route in which we get paid for our recommendations. So if I buy a new phone and love it, I can pass on that recommendation and also get paid. Likes.com, which is yet to launch, aims to profit from this model. Sounds smart, huh? Except that my relationship with you is based on trust: if I’m suddenly getting paid to make recommendations to you rather than doing it in kind, do you put as much trust in me and my recommendations? Of course you don’t.This week I posted on Facebook about my new MacBook Pro. I’m very pleased with it. Today a friend posted that he’s ordered a new MacBook Pro based on my purchase. Do I expect Apple to pay me? Heck no: my payment is knowing that people trust my recommendations. That builds more trust.The Web Economy = Trust + AttentionThe problem: people assume that money is the web’s primary currency. But the web trades in other currencies: trust and attention. Trust is the confidence we place in individuals and brands. I’d suggest it’s the highest form of currency in human societies: extremely hard to build and remarkably easy to lose (see Chris Brogan’s Trust Agents). Attention, meanwhile, is the currency of abundance. In a post-scarcity world where billions of web pages cry out for my attention every second of the day, paying attention to you is a gesture that says “you matter to me” (see Jeff Jarvis’ What Would Google Do, among others).Twitter ads steal attention and destroy trust. That’s the exact opposite of what we need. Advertisers: Add Value, Don’t Interrupt!How do brands get their messages across if not by interrupting us? They need to become agents of trust, too. Dell is making millions by posting special offers to its Twitter followers. Blendtec increased blender sales 5xby turning its ads into entertainment. Comcast joins the conversationsimply by asking “how can I help?”. Those are just three examples from the hundreds we’ve posted in recent years.Brands need to befriend us, build relationships, and offer so much value that we broadcast our positive experiences out to our own networks of trust. They might entertain us. They might help us. They might become enablers of our own personal goals. And when they do, we’ll return the favor. “Spend your attention on this”, we’ll say, “it’s important!”Reviews: Facebook, TwitterTags: twitter

  A TV station in Alabama is learning that live Twitter billboards sometimes deliver unintended consequences. While we can’t vouch for its authenticity, South Carolina-based blog The Palmetto Scoopclaims a University of South Carolina graduate driving through Mobile, Alabama snapped the shot below and sent it in. The WPMI-TV billboard displays Tweets from the LOCAL15NEWS Twitter account, with this Tweetresulting in the juxtaposition.Update: The photo has been confirmed as real and WPMI-TV’s general manager and news director were suspended over the incident, reports Rob Holbert.Tags: Billboard, trending, twitter

  Last year’s holiday season wasn’t so cheery for online retailers. The devastating economic recession hit people’s wallets, forcing them to cut back and save whatever they could. Now with the markets recovering, are consumers shopping again?Data released today by marketing optimization firm Coremetricsreveals that Black Friday, the traditional start to the holiday shopping season, turned out to be a good day (and a welcomed relief) for online retailers. Consumers spent more, ordered more, and did it all more efficiently than compared to Black Friday last year.Stats Point to a RecoveryAccording to the Coremetrics data, the average online order on Black Friday jumped to $170.19, an increase of 35 percent. Last year, consumers only spent $126.04 per order on the websites Coremetrics tracks. In addition, there was an 18% increase in the average number of items purchased per order. Last year, it was 4.56 items per order, but this year it rose to 5.40 items.Coremetrics had some interesting data on how users behaved on retail websites as well. The average bounce rate rose by nearly 40% and browsing sessions decreased by 5%, suggesting that consumers were focused less on “window shopping” and more focused on specific items and deals. If they couldn’t find them on a specific website, they left.The biggest winners seem to be apparel and jewelry retailers. The data says that the amount spent per order for these websites increased by about 25%. Part of it is department store websites, which had a flood of new customers visiting their websites this Black Friday.Black Friday has always been an important barometer for the health of the holiday shopping season and the economy. These numbers are reassuring and encouraging, although it’s still just data from a single day. We’ll have to see what the final numbers are for this holiday season to really know if we’re through the worst of the global economic downturn.Tags: black friday, online retailers, shopping, stats, trending

  An app developer has found the identifier for an as-yet unreleased iPhone in its usage records, providing evidence that a new iPhone is under testing by Apple. iPhone development company Pandav, which makes the iBart app, spotted the phone this month in stats provided to it by analytics firm Pinch Media. The usage logs for the first time showed a phone identified as “iPhone3,1″, even though the last iPhone, the 3GS, identifies itself as “iPhone2,1″.The first mention of “iPhone3,1″ showed up in iPhone firmware in August, but this new development suggests this next generation of the phone is now in testing.Don’t get your hopes up though: MacRumors, which broke the story, reminds us that the iPhone 3GS first showed up in usage records 8 months before launch. That suggests we might see a new iPhone in the middle of next year.Tags: apple, iphone, trending

  At this time of year every web site and its dog is offering pages and pages of “for her” or “for him” gift guides, but for the seriously challenged shopper you want the ability to input data and get a neat list of suggestions tailored exactly to who you need to buy for. After all, where have we got to in 2009 if we can’t expect the Internet to do the hard work for us?While we’d hope most of you will be fairly sorted in terms of buying the perfect something for your nearest and dearest, it’s those once-a-year gifts for in-laws and more distant family members that can be a struggle. With this in mind, we’ve compiled a list of 10 of best sites and mobile apps that offer gift suggestion generators, so you can click, tick or input, and then put your feet up, sitting pretty with the knowledge a difficult decision has been made for you by a clever algorithm.1. Gifts.comFar and away the most fun gift finder visually, Gifts.com offers a clickable family line-up and differentiates between babies, children, teens, and college age kids, while grown-ups are categorized as young adults, 35-plus, or seniors. Those that appreciate attention to detail will be happy to note the family graphic changes as you make your selection. After that stage the site offers around six sets of two different options, such as getting you to state whether a female recipient would prefer jewelry from a well-known designer, or a talented local artisan, to build up a profile of the person. At the end of the process the site does throw up a huge list of potential presents that you have to trawl through, but they are at least highly relevant, thanks to the clever profiling process.2. Barnes & NobleThe gift of a good book is always welcome and Barnes & Noble has made it easy with its “Gift Suggestions” widget. One of the more simple options out there, it none-the-less returns decent results, meaning you could be a few clicks and a flash of the plastic away from sorting out Uncle Herbert’s present. The widget lets you select “kid” or “adult,” with the kid option then giving you a choice of age range, whilst hitting adult will let you select by price. There’s then a list of interests to choose from. Adult options are the usual, and kid interests encompass things like, “cars, trains, planes,” “animal and dinosaurs,” and “dolls and plush,” and returns toy, game, and DVD results in addition to books.3. Knickers“Be very wary when buying lingerie for your girlfriend,” is accepted wisdom in the Western world. That’s all about to change though with the launch of Knickers’ quiz that helps hapless bra buyers with simple online questions that narrows down just what kind of undies your lovely lady would like. Getting the thong question out of the way first, the quiz offers images that help the quiz taker determine what type of bits she already has. Ten questions and a cheeky peek in her knicker drawer for sizing insight and before you know it there’ll be a classy gift box under the tree, ready to open when the children/parents are out of the room…4. Wicked UncleNot wicked in the call-child-services-sense but wicked in the cool sense – this particular Internet uncle may well help you out of a present jam. It’s a UK site, so a few of the branded toy suggestions may have cultural irrelevance for users elsewhere, but for gift idea generation highly specific to age, it’s a cracker. UK users can take up the life-saving options to gift wrap, get a hand-written Christmas card, and have the present sent direct, while all users can create an account on the site to send you email reminders – not that you’ll need them for the Holidays (we’d hope), but useful to avoid missing little Jimmy’s birthday in May.5. GiftGenGiftGen a great gift finding service offering the rare “either gender” and even more rare “couple” category, so you’re not forced to choose to go one way or the other in terms of gender if you are buying for two. There’s also the nice option to spend “nothing” which generates ideas and links along the lines of; get a library book; visit a gallery; make a meal; issue a novelty voucher; create a mask, etc, depending on your input data. As well as a web site, GiftGen offers an embeddable widget and iPhone and BlackBerry apps.6. Macy’s Fragrance FinderMacy’s online Fragrance Finder is the next best thing to trawling to the cosmetics counters at your local department store. No wait, it’s better because you don’t have to actually trawl the cosmetics counters at your local department store. Armed with a little bit of knowledge about your giftee (as you have to put yourself in their shoes to answer the quiz) there’s a few simple questions to field before you’re presented with a handful of fragrances to suit. Help someone out of a fragrance rut this Holiday season by selecting a new scent based on their personality and preferences.7. MusicPlasmaUnless you know someone really well, music is a hard gift to get right, but when you do it’s kudos all the way. If you want to try and impress a certain someone, be it a audiophile colleague, teenage nephew, or difficult dad, then the MusicPlasma site can help. Simply enter in the name of a band or artist you know the person does like and the site will bring up a visual bubble map of similar or related artists. From there you’re a few clicks away from snapping up a CD or download, and hopefully impressing giftee with your eerily accurate understanding of their complex music taste.8. Toys R UsFrankly the best advice we could give on buying gifts for tykes is talk to the parents to make sure said spoiled kid does not already have the gift — oh, and don’t assume because they loved Dora the Explorer last Christmas that they still do. Kids are faddy and grow up fast, something that can catch an unwary uncle/aunt off guard. But Toys R Us can help, with a gift suggestion guide that separates girls from boys, then by age, then interests, with categories such as techie, smarty pants, as well as creative, before showing a list of hot toys that you can be sure will cause November’s salary to rapidly vanish.9. RandomGiftsRandomGifts offers another fairly simple user interface with drop down boxes getting you to narrow down its frightening 1,000-plus product list to a more manageable size. We like it because the recipient list has a bit of thought about it, with “colleague,” “male/female friend,” and even “pet” as options. Occasion is next, then personality options, which are light-hearted including “miserable,” “bling,” and “has it all.” Suggestions range from clothes to furniture to food and drink presents.10. A Perfect Gift, Christmas 09 EditionFinally, we have an iPhone app for you, ideal for those “I’m standing in the middle of a mall and I’ve just realized I don’t have a clue what to buy” moments. For $1.99, “A Perfect Gift, Christmas 09 Edition” offers help with finding that perfect gift using your relationship with the person (12 options), your spend budget, and the interests of the person you’re shopping for (25 options). The app offers around 200 gift ideas in total, so it’s not as comprehensive as some of the sites we’ve mentioned here, but for some quick on-the-go inspiration it might well sort you out.What other gift suggestion guides out there would you recommend to hapless Holiday shoppers? Let us know in the comments.Image courtesy of iStockphoto, AcikReviews: iStockphotoTags: gift suggestion, Gifts, holiday shopping, Holidays, List, Lists, shopping

  Last week, we witnessed a shocker in our weekly Web Faceoffseries, where we pit two tech companies or web apps against each other and let you choose the victor. To our surprise, Google Android easily trounced the popular iPhone by over 1800 votes.This week, we decided to jump from mobile to carrier. On Monday, we asked you to vote in our Network Faceoff between the #1 and #2 carriers in the U.S., Verizon and AT&T. The two have been have beenat war, firing off lawsuits, statements, and … Luke Wilson commercials.Has this war over the commercial airwaves helped AT&T regain some of the luster it has lost from its inability to support iPhone web traffic?With 64% of the vote …Verizon has emerged victorious again. The nation’s largest wireless provider was able to secure a clean victory with 1161 votes (64%) compared to AT&T’s 538 votes (30%). Only 118 of you (6%) couldn’t/didn’t decide between the two carriers and called it a tie.Next Monday, we’ll have another edition of our Web Faceoff, so be on the lookout! In the meantime, let us know what you think of these faceoff results in the comments.Who would win in a fight: AT&T or Verizon?(surveys)Web Faceoff: Overall ResultsWeek 1:- Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome- WINNER: Firefox, 4600 votes (Chrome: 3310 votes, Tie: 911 votes)Week 2:- Tumblr vs. Posterous- WINNER: Tumblr, 1809 votes (Posterous: 1496 votes, Tie: 256 votes)Week 3:- Pandora vs. Last.fm- WINNER: Last.fm, 1187 votes (Pandora: 1156 votes, Tie: 122 votes)Week 4:- Twitter vs. Facebook- WINNER: Facebook, 2484 votes (Twitter: 2061 votes, Tie: 588 votes)Week 5:- WordPress vs. Typepad- WINNER: WordPress, 2714 votes (Typepad: 267 votes, Tie: 357 votes)Week 6:- Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard- WINNER: Windows 7, 3632 votes (Snow Leopard: 3278 votes, Tie: 121 votes)Week 7:- TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop- WINNER: TweetDeck, 3294 votes (Seesmic Desktop: 1055 votes, Tie: 260 votes)Week 8:- Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs- WINNER: Microsoft Office, 1365 votes (Google Docs: 994 votes, Tie: 315 votes)Week 9:- Apple iPhone vs. Google Android- WINNER: Google Android, 3323 votes (Apple iPhone: 1494 votes, Tie: 228 votes)Week 10:- AT&T vs. Verizon- WINNER: Verizon, 1161 votes (AT&T: 538 votes, Tie: 118 votes)Reviews: Chrome, Facebook, Firefox, Google Chrome, Google Docs, Mozilla Firefox, Pandora, Posterous, Seesmic Desktop, Tumblr, TweetDeck, Twitter, TypePad, WordPressTags: att, trending, verizon, web faceoff

  Extensions are coming to Google Chromein the near future. The current developer build supports them, and there’s a lot to be excited about in the implementation — you don’t have to restart the browser to use an extension you’ve just installed like you do in Firefox, for example.On the other hand, the group of brave folks using the developer build don’t have nearly as many extensions to pick from yet. Firefox has the best lineup in the browser biz, so let’s play a wishing game; here are some Firefox extensions we’d love to see pop up in Chrome’s gallery, too. Some of our favorites are already in the works, but we haven’t yet heard a peep about any of the ones on this list.If you’ve already thought of at least one plugin without which you just can’t make the switch from Firefox to Chrome, feel free to add to our list in the comments.1. Tree Style TabsThe proponents of Tree Style Tabs are not the majority, but they make two excellent points. Their extension of choice sorts tabs vertically along the left side of the website you’re viewing instead of at the top of the browser. This makes more efficient use of screen real estate on widescreen displays — which means most displays nowadays.Even more notably, Tree Style Tabs displays your tabs in a tree (Surprise!), with each tab appearing one level beneath the tab from which you opened it. If you have 50 tabs going, that visual certainly makes them easier to manage.2. IE TabThere are some web applications that still only work properly and with all features intact in Internet Explorer — Microsoft Sharepoint, for example. Firefox’s IE Tab extension opens a native IE tab within the Firefox interface. It looks like any other Firefox tab for the most part, but under the hood it’s all IE. This feature is supported in the spinoff browser ChromePlus, but the original still lacks it. The extension is also great for developers who want to test sites cross browser without actually having to open two separate browsers.Hey, while you’re at it, can we have a Firefox Tab too?3. TwitterBarIt’s neat that Chrome will do Google searches from its address bar, but with Firefox’s TwitterBar you can type and send tweets there too. Jumping over to TweetDeck or your Twitter.com tab would use up two or three more clicks or key presses. You’ll hear no complaints here if you accidentally tweet “http://www.mashable.com” but be warned that it’s a possibility with this extension installed.4. ScribeFireYou can use ScribeFire to write blog posts and publish them to WordPress, Movable Type, and a number of other platforms without browsing away from the site you’re blogging about. It pops up at the bottom of your Firefox window, and you can drag items from the site in front of you to the body of your post. Chrome’s speed and stability make it attractive to bloggers, so ScribeFire or something like it would be right at home.5. StumbleUponDelicious was among the first extensions to make its way to Chrome, and we like it, but we’re still hoping for an easy StumbleUpon solution to add to our social bookmarking options. Admittedly, there is a functional web-based workaroundout there for Chrome, but it demands some URL tweaking, so it doesn’t match the Firefox extension’s ease of use by a longshot. That’s why we want a legit Chrome extension.6. FaviconizeTabThis extension adds an option to reduce tabs to the size of a favicon (the tiny website icons seen in the address bar), removing the accompanying title text. It’s useful in the eternal battle to keep as many tabs visible as possible. You probably don’t need all that text; for example, Twitter and Facebook tabs should be recognizable by their iconic (pun only sort of intended) lower-case “t” and “f” logos, respectively. Chrome’s tabs are already more conservative with pixels than Firefox’s tabs are, but every little bit helps.7. AutoCopyAutoCopy sends text to the clipboard as soon as you select it, no keyboard shortcut necessary. You’ll never need to hit Control or Command + C to copy text, and if you have an application like CopyPaste Proyou can recover any clipboard items you might accidentally replace.Many Linux distributions with out-of-the-now-proverbial-box clipboard history functionality ditched Control + C ages ago, and so have many Firefox users thanks to this extension. Chrome should be next.8. LeechBlockNever let it be said that Chrome users are not as productive as Firefox users. LeechBlock helps you manage your time with up to six groups of websites by blocking them when you know you shouldn’t be visiting them. You can limit your time with each group to specific hours of the day — like only being able to visit Facebook after you clock out of work at 5:00 PM — or you can tell the plugin to only let you access certain sites for so many minutes out of each hour.9. TabooThe self-described cure for “tabitis,” Taboo adds a button to save tabs for later (scrollbar location, form data, and all) instead of leaving them open to eat up memory and clutter the top of your browser. It also takes a snapshot of each saved tab so you can browse thumbnails when you’re ready to revisit the stuff you didn’t have the time to finish before. The usefulness of this extension is platform-agnostic, so the extension should be too. Let’s hope we see a Chrome clone soon.10. StylishGoogle has run ads promoting Chrome’s many aesthetic themes, but with Stylish you can re-theme not just your browser but each website you visit.It’s similar in principle to Greasemonkey; you download geek-made tweaks to the CSS of existing websites, and the plugin interprets those tweaks and displays the sites differently as a result. We’ve already pointed out some of the best examplesof what this extension can do for Firefox users, and we’d love to see it on Chrome in the near future.What other Firefox extensions would you love to see on Chrome? Let us know in the comments.Reviews: Chrome, Delicious, Facebook, Firefox, Google, Internet Explorer, ScribeFire, StumbleUpon, TweetDeck, Twitter, WordPressTags: chrome, extensions, Firefox, List, Lists

  Google has been actively collecting feedback on Google Wavewith an ongoing survey, which was distributed via email, the help center, and Twitter. Today they’ve publishedthe initial findings for public dissection.So far results indicate that users love the concept of Wave, appreciate the collobartion features, and like the extensions, gadgets, and robots. On the flip side, however, the most perplexing part of the Wave experience is that users’ friends and contacts don’t have access to Wave. Respondents also complained of speed issues and indicated a desire for integration with more tools like email.Based on our experience with Google Wave, the results that Google has published are spot on and point to some of the reasons why the system is both a game changer and, on the other hand, still not ready for mainstream attention.Google does say that they will be acting on your feedback and opinions:“With these responses and other data, we’re organizing our team around the core issues that are important to making waving better. We’re working hard to scale our systems so you can invite your friends and colleagues to wave with you. We’re also thinking about how to integrate with existing communication and collaboration tools. And since we all know that fast is better than slow, a large portion of the team is working to make Google Wave faster.”Do your Google Wave likes and dislikes fall in line with survey data? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.Image from watch4uon FlickrReviews: Flickr, Google, Google WaveTags: Google Wave, trending