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All around you, people are having ideas. But often these are forgotten, or the person with the idea thinks the companies who could make it a reality aren't listening. Who hasn't used a product, service, or website and thought "Why don't they sell X too?" or "Wouldn't it be easier if this company/product/site worked like this instead?"

Google are setting out to capture some of these ideas and find out which ones their users want to see implemented. They've started by focusing on the mobile arena - Product Ideas for Google Mobile - but I expect to see this expanded if successful to other products. They say as much on their offical blog (23rd Dec post).

So: why are Google doing this?

• They get free ideas that could turn into money spinners, from the very people they want to keep happy - their users
• The voting system provides an indication (not foolproof I'll admit) of want their users actually want
• ideas can be "floated" past this community, to see if they are of interest or a waste of resource
• Google engineers and product managers can stay in touch with the "grass roots" of motivated, engaged users who are advocates for their products

This meets the core principles of Web 2.0 / community marketing / engagement marketing (or whatever you want to call it today) - listen to your customers, find out what they want, and then give it to them; and let them feel like they are part of the process, so they will love your brand.

Silicon Valley Insider have some good coverage of the lay offs and different Tweets, and there’s a blog post by soon-to-depart CEO Jerry Lang, as well as a leaked copy of Yahoo’s instructions to managers (here too - a script) – some of whom laid off their teams, and were then laid off themselves.

I’ve not seen coverage of cuts in Europe, yet.

This follows the sale of Kelkoo and, of course, Yahoo’s decision to not sell to Microsoft – a decision some of the comments attack. Many say they feel managers are avoiding the cuts, keeping their “pet” employees, and some of the best engineering talent is being axed. Delicious' product team were apparently amongst those to go.

Stationing recruiters outside companies who are making talented people jobless isn’t a new idea, but several start-ups have done this to Yahoo (including offering free tacos - ToxBox) - and others are using Twitter in the same way to recruit.

So, if you're making redundancies, don't expect to keep staff sentiment behind closed doors in the 21st century. if you are a recruitment agency - Twitter!

Lay-offs are never easy to see - good luck to all the Y! folks looking for work, and let's hope some kick-arse start-ups are spawned as a result.

Latest Yahoo Twitter content.

Here's the email they are sendng their user base:

Hello,

This is an interesting example of creating an event using Twitter, providing an alternative platform too (the site mentioned above) and using a traditional marketing event approach (delivered via non-traditional Twitter) to entice new customers and boost sales.

It's well established that other media drive consumers to search and there is a growing body of research that shows search results have an effect on brand perception. This is, of course, a double-edged sword: it can help a brand when search results are positive, and hurt if the results are negative. What is a brand to do? I'll be discussing the reputation challenges marketers face online and some search-based solutions they can adopt to protect their brand at the upcoming Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago on December 11th. Please stop by and participate if you happen to be in the windy city next month.

Yesterday both Yahoo! and Google revealed how they are opening up their systems. In a blog post on Yahoo! ,  Jay Rossiter, Senior VP Yahoo! Open, stated how Y! has opened up its platform to developers "who are now welcome to come in and access our tools and data so they can build applications for a more customized, social, and relevant Yahoo! network and beyond." Some of the things that you'll now be able to do are:

1. See what your friends are doing on Yahoo! and let them see what you are doing

2. Create a single, universal Y! profile

3. Develop a portable address book that you can take to other sites

4. Customize Yahoo! by making it easy to bring in content from other places across the web into Y!

5. Connect with people through social networking features

What I find really interesting about Yahoo! opening itself up in this way is that it's one step towards portability of content across the web. And that, in my humble opinion, is a good thing.

Google announced yesterday the launch of Google Apps Lab. There are three Google Apps that can now be used by business and schools:

1. Google Moderator: "Makes it easy to gather and prioritize questions or opinions on any topic from a group of people."

2. Google Code Reviews: "Facilitates quality software development by making it easy for peers to review an author's changes and share feedback."

3. Google Short Links: "Allows users to easily create descriptive shortcuts to web URLs. This makes it easier for users to recall and share the locations of important documents and web sites."

The fabulous TechCrunch reports that "Google will be opening up the platform to third party developers who want their apps to be available to the 'million-plus businesses' using Google Apps today."

The open systems are the Internet's free market: the pros of free markets (until the recent financial meltdown) are that they typically spur competition, leading to lower prices and better quality for consumers. Open systems have the same effect spurring innovation, from both companies and individual developers, to the benefit of all Internet users.