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Ever since last summer, the Internet has been awash in rumors of a Google social network. First, it was "Google Me" and later it was "Google +1". Last September, however, Google CEO Eric Schmidt explained that the company wasn't working on a stand-alone social network, but rather the interweaving of social elements. ""We're trying to take Google's core products and add a social component," said Schmidt.

Today, Google is doing just that. The company is updating its Social Search feature, which it first launched in 2009, and bringing a tighter, deeper integration of social connections to Google Search.

Bing seems to be doing something right, at least according to the latest numbers from the Web analytics firm Experian Hitwise, that show its share of searches on the rise.

The data comes on the heels of a war of words between search engines Google and Bing which took the form of undercover stings and accusations of copied search results, as Google seeks to maintain its position as the premier search engine.

If you've missed it, there's practically been a spy novel written over the past couple of days about Bing copying Google's search results. The whole thing started with a novella by Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan, which related the tale of Google's honeypot trap to catch Bing in the act of copying its search results. Ever since, the two companies have been battling it out in public, accusing and denying, in blog posts, tweets and more blog posts, but one question still remains - what now?

Even if the move wasn't intentional on Microsoft's end, the end result is the same - Bing search results that more closely mirror Google's search results. One ex-Googler has some thoughts on how this can change how Google approaches search, which he shared earlier today on Q&A site Quora.

As of today, businesses and individuals can opt out of recieving paper-based phone books in the mail using a new Website called the National Yellow Pages Consumer Choice & Opt Out Site.

Last month, we wrote about a study showing that nearly 70% of adults in the United States "rarely or never" use the phone book, and instead opt to use the Web-based search tools, which are infinitely more convenient and efficient. That research was conducted on behalf on WhitePages.com, who operates BanthePhoneBook.org, a site advocating opt-in-only delivery of phone books.

For the past two years we've been keeping an eye on real-time search engine Collecta, watching as it's inked some big deals, widgetized its real-time feeds and raised some funding. Today, however, it looks like the company has decided to change directions. Collecta announced to developers today that "Collecta is changing over the coming months" and that the API will be unavailable as of February 11.

The home page, once the home of a series of trending topics, now features a real-time feed of images from the likes of Flickr and TwitPic, in an overt hint at the company's likely next move.

Google Maps has added a new feature: search transit directions by types of transit and time spent outside. Want to take the light rail and not the bus? Willing to take a longer route if it means fewer transfers and time spent outside in the cold? Google will now oblige.

More data equals more choices and for Google to have taken the time to index all the more types of public transit is a real service to transit riders. Expect more details in a future announcement from the company, but check out the screenshot below. The new feature is live now.

Mark this day on your calendar: a major movie studio (Sony) has begun experimenting with some cool new technologies that make purchasing movies on iTunes more appealing to potential customers, instead of simply stomping their feet, threatening downloaders with lawsuits and being generally boring.

According to a report by Andrew Wallenstein at PaidContent tonight, Sony is experimenting with the following, when you buy one of three new movies on iTunes:

"A search button allows you to input a word, and any mention of it in the script will be retrieved along with a link to the exact moment in the movie in which the line was uttered. A 'clip & share' function lets the viewer take select scenes and post them to social networks. There's also a playlist with songs from the film, which are linked to to places on iTunes where those songs can be purchased."

Online travel company Expedia removed American Airlines from its flight searches this weekend. The action is the culmination of a series of disagreements between the airline and online travel booking companies over fees. American has pressed for travel sites to cut the fees they charge in order to book flights on the airline's behalf.

Last month, American pulled its listing from Orbitz over a similar disagreement. And following that move Expedia tweaked its search module, effectively burying American flight listings. Customers could still book flights on American - if they could find them - but after this weekend, no longer. American Airlines flights are gone from the site.

The mobile Web is growing at a tremendous rate and it's likely that mobile usage will take over desktop usage in the next decade. Mobile users don't just expect rich, optimized mobile experiences, they also want to execute searches on their mobile device and receive fast, relevant results to their queries. To meet this demand, marketers and publishers have had to explore the brave new world of mobile search engine optimization.

I'd like to ask for a moment of silence to mark the passing of a Web application that had eyes bigger than its stomach. An ambitious little startup called Nsyght gave up the ghost this weekend and with it went some very, very cool features. In the end, this little Twitter and Facebook message-parsing service just couldn't do what it set out to do, and so it has closed up shop.

By some standards, Twitter publishes a whole lot of data, about 1,000 messages per second. Nsyght allowed you to do remarkable things with that river of data: search inside Twitter lists, retrieve your own long-lost messages or filter messages from your friends by media type. Below are three of the ways I used Nsyght every day in my news gathering routine. Maybe someday, someone, somewhere will be able to bite off this many Tweets and return these kinds of dream-features to the world.