Google is expected to join the social network data portability crowd with "Friend Connect" on Monday. TechCrunch speculates that Friend Connect will be a set of "APIs for Open Social participants to pull profile information from social networks into third party websites."

Google will join Facebook and MySpace, which launched ways to port user data to partner sites this week. Facebook Connect will provide the hooks to let users port their friends, profile photos, events, and other data across the Web to partner sites. MySpace on Thursday announced Data Availability, with Yahoo, eBay, Photobucket, and Twitter as initial partners for its effort to let members port their data. Read More..

Source: http://www.news.com/8301-13953_3-9941039-80.html

Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) just announced that they now power AdSense for Search. Another nice new change is that if you provide a Sitemap, Google will use that to improve the coverage of the custom search engine.

We just announced today that AdSense for Search is now powered by Custom Search. Custom Search (a Google-powered search box that you can install on your website in minutes) helps your users quickly find what they're looking for. As a webmaster, Custom Search gives you advanced customization options to improve the accuracy of your site's search results. You can also choose to monetize your traffic with ads tuned to the topic of your site. If you don't want ads, you can use Custom Search Business Edition. read more

Source: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/05/sitemaps-offer-better-coverage-for-your.html