Google’s Web-based e-mail program is far better than any other Web mail program I’ve ever encountered. There’s a lot to like:

• Way more storage than other programs
• Superior searchability
• Nested threads make it easy to see a lot more correspondence at a glance
• Labeling and archiving is simple and effective
• Integrated chat
• Awesome spam filtering

All in all, it’s an incredibly powerful program that saves me a lot of time and effort. And I’m sure it’s going to sync well when I get around to going more mobile with my email. So I’ve been switching my other email accounts over to Gmail, and during this process it’s become apparent that Google knows a LOT about me, my habits, even my patterns of thought.

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As previously noted, the Yellow Pages are now as antiquainted and useful as dial-up rotary phones. Yahoo and Google have redefined how people find businesses by offering simple but powerful search functions. And now a San Diego start-up is poised to unveil a next-generation business directory that will incorporate Web 2.0 features to give consumers a voice — and maybe a lot more influence in the marketplace.

MojoPages is in alpha and rolling toward beta, and doing so in very transparent fashion. You can follow the impending Mojo launch through a series of videos on Veoh, a new one shows up every Tuesday, and on the MojoPages blog here. The video series introduces the team, tells the story well and captures some of the early-stage energy behind what looks like a great idea.
And the timing for an interactive business directory that enables consumer ratings and feedback couldn’t be better. Just last week Citizen Marketers, a new book by Church of the Customer bloggers Ben and Jackie was published. As the big media behemoths continue to lose ground to new media outlets like MySpace and YouTube, businesses are necessarily searching for new ways to effectively reach their customers. The trend is toward engaging customers in conversations, and businesses that ignore the trend do so at their peril. Your customers are your best evangelists, and they are about to become your marketing team too.

So why not an online outlet for raving fans? While MySpace and to some extent YouTube are great for the narcissistic, it’s-all-about-me set, there’s room for a practical, useful Web 2.0 play — one that helps you find a decent plumber when one you need one, or a muffler shop or whatever. Word of mouth, after all, is the mother of all marketing, the ancient method of assuring that the cream rises to the top. If MojoPages can become an agent of truthiness (props to Stephen Colbert) we all win.

Practicing what he preaches, George Siemens has made his new book “Knowing Knowledge” available for download as a pdf, and posted it as a wiki. It’s also for sale on Lulu.com. Scanning it, part one is theory, part two appears to be more focused on practical implementation, but it effectively raises some interesting questions right off the bat:

Is the book still a viable vehicle for knowledge transfer? Think about it, a book is essentially a snapshot in time from one tiny pin-prick of a perspective. Business books typically assert an authoritative viewpoint — this is how to solve this problem. But how can someone sitting at a keyboard in a small room for a certain period of time anticipate the particulars of your specific problem? If that person is knowledgable, they can produce an artifact that has value, sure. But can they compete with say, a network of semi-experts?

Will kids being born today actually consult “books” when they reach adulthood? Or will all human knowledge be readily available, and accessible on the fly, in other formats?

Playing catchup to Google, Microsoft is planning to become more of a player in the advertising space, today launching its Digital Advertising Solutions, which will enable companies to target audiences using the Xbox, MSN, etc.

It makes sense…

“As today’s consumers spend more and more time online across various digital devices like mobile phones and video games, advertisers are finding they can no longer reach their entire target audience by advertising on a single medium,” Joanne Bradford, Microsoft’s vice president of global sales, said in a statement.

How will this change advertising? We can expect online ads to become more targeted, thus more relevant. Will ads become more provocative, which has been one of the ways that advertisers have tried to reach increasingly jaded viewers? Or less provocative but resonant in other ways?

Maybe we’ll see the product-placement dynamic come online, with more and more staged product appearances in blogs, forums, etc. Personally, I don’t think that will work, as audiences will see right through it and react loudly against it.

It makes sense sometimes to advertise your product or service on the side of a bus; or on a banner being dragged behind a plane that flies back and forth along the beach. It might even prove to be a wise expenditure to have your logo laser-etched on a large batch of farm-fresh eggs. In each case, you could be reinforcing your brand to a target market and furthering the conversation with your customers.

But seriously, does anyone look at the Yellow Pages anymore? A big yellow book landed in my driveway yesterday, it’s the Verizon Yellow Pages. I haven’t opened it and doubt I ever will. I have nothing against print, I actually love books. But I’ve come to regard the Yellow Pages as useless clutter, and mine are going in the recycling bin.
As stbodie noted here yesterday:

I haven’t used the Yellow Pages in years. If your company doesn’t come up in a Google search as one of the top four results, I don’t even see you. You can get buy Google AdWords to get in the paid results side bar or you can hire an expert on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and you need to do one of those!

Certainly Google AdWords is one way to reach your customers and prospects. How else can you make you and your business more findable?