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Google announced a partnership with the World Bank today to make Google Map Maker data more accessible to government organizations in disaster scenarios. Google Map Maker is the tool for crowd-sourcing the editing and maintenance of Google's world map. Its user-generated data include locations of hospitals, schools, settlements, water sources and minor roads.

Access to these data will help governments, NGOs, researchers and individuals plan without waiting for the changes to be approved and added to the official maps. World Bank partner organizations, such as government and U.N. agencies, can contact World Bank offices to request access to the data. Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Zambia, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Moldova, Mozambique, Nepal and Haiti will pilot the project.

It seemed like everything was going so well. Holiday mall traffic was said to be brisk, consumer sentiment seemed to be thawing a bit, even the unemployment numbers made a U-turn just before critical mass and started heading nicely downward. Then came reports of exceptions to the general rule of an improving U.S. consumer economy in Q4 2011, most notably from big-box retailer Best Buy, which reported lower same-store unit sales for the quarter and flat revenue.

So what happened; did a piece of the sky fall and someone forget to blog about it? Some clues came this morning from analyst firm NPD Group, which reported a 6% overall drop in holiday consumer electronics sales compared to the same period in 2010. Sales were sharply lower for MP3 players, digital picture frames, point-and-shoot... whoa, whoa, wait a second! MP3 players? What decade are we talking about again?

Reuters reported that Cyber Monday sales were up 20% versus the same time last year, according to data from IBM. Last year's sales topped $1 billion, and ComScore expects that number to hit a record high of $1.2 billion.

PayPal saw a 514% increase in mobile payment volume on Cyber Monday as of 11am PT. It also noted six percent more in mobile payment volume on Cyber Monday as compared to the same time period on Black Friday.

Unlike Thanksgiving and Black Friday, all Cyber Monday purchases occur online, with online retailers offering deep discounts.

The biggest shopping day of the year is upon us. PayPal predicts that Black Friday will start on Thanksgiving with Internet users shopping from their couches right after the turkey feast ends. If you're one of the many who will be shopping online this Black Friday, there are a few things you need to know.

This past April Epsilon, one of the largest email marketing companies, announced that its database had been breached. Epsilon said that 2% of its clients were affected, including major retailers like Best Buy and Target. This was a phishing attack, the same kind that's bound to appear on Black Friday.

The global economy has existed for at least 5 centuries now. During the 1400s and 1500s, explorers traveled from different parts of the world to establish trade routes and set the first foundations for the global economy. Merchants from Spain, Portugal, France and different parts of Europe began to trade with Asia and China, and vice versa. Many "universal" products today, like chocolate, coffee and potatoes were the result of this very global economy. Indeed, these products were not native to the whole world back then.

From the development of sea routes, all the way up to the industrial era, "products" continued to be at the core of the global economy. However, in the last fifty years, after the World War and later, the fall of communism, services have grown to be equally important. In the 1980s, in developed countries, including America, large sections of jobs shifted from factory or agricultural sectors to services, and this trend was reflected in the global economy.

In advance of its live event with President Obama today (starting now! 2 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Pacific), LinkedIn has produced this infographic about the swath of the U.S. economy represented by its members. Since 2009, over 7.4 million job changes have been reported on LinkedIn.

The top industries on LinkedIn are higher education, marketing and advertising, information technology and health care. Of its 115 million members, almost 5 million are employed by small businesses. The biggest growth industries are renewables and environment, and oil and energy. The infographic also focuses on LinkedIn's use by veterans, as well as the number of users who have attended community college.

App developers who launch their projects on the Facebook platform have created 235,644 jobs and contributed $15.7 billion to the economy, says a study released by the University of Maryland.

Using statistical evidence provided by Facebook and apps developers, researchers at the Smith School Center for Digital Innovation, Technology and Strategy show that the boom in games like Farmville and the creation of productivity apps are boosting at least one corner of the economy.

Last Friday, Amazon took on the U.S. Post Office and opened a real world locker box service as a delivery portal for the stuff people buy on Amazon.com.

The lockers, which come in several sizes, are located on a wall in a 7-11 convenience store in Seattle surrounding an ATM-like device that allows a customer to key in a PIN and pick up their Amazon package.

The latest global mobile workforce survey from economic trends analysis firm iPass reveals a trend that we probably noticed but tucked away in our Outlook agendas or Google calendars for some time later: Mobile workers worldwide are working longer hours. But they feel empowered by the mobile devices that enable them to do so, and they're apparently happy with the results.

So if you have a spouse and/or kids whom you may have neglected in the past month, well, shut off your iPad and pay attention.

Forrester released today a report called Caution: IT Investment May Be Hurting US Job Growth. The report's authors - Andrew Bartels, Christopher Mines and Sarah Musto - note that despite record corporate profits, unemployment remains unchanged. Forrester notes that poor job growth both causes and is caused by poor economic growth. It's a vicious cycle.

The report suggests that corporations are investing in IT instead of hiring workers. The analysts looked at research from 62 industries to find out what's going on. The report says that the industries with the highest IT investment are also the ones with the biggest decline in jobs. The analysts conclude that there is a causal connection between IT investment growth and the lack of employment growth.