Searching for a meaningful summer internship can be difficult for many college students who are actively looking to add helpful experience to their résumés. But what if you were one of the lucky students chosen to spend your summer working for the largest online search engine?

Google is offering the “Summer of Code 2012,” which is an internship for students who are willing to work on open-source projects. Unlike many interns who are working for experience without monetary compensation, Google has made their program a paid internship.

“The program works in a three-phase cycle, with organizations and mentors submitting proposals for their projects,” reported TheVerge.com. “…then students also applying to work on said projects, and finally the two groups get connected together for a summer of open source coding madness.”

This is not the first year that Google has offered the opportunity to willing students. The program was started in 2005, and this year the company will be accepting roughly 1,000 students for the internships.

If you’re looking to find out more about Google’s Summer of Code 2012, the search engine giant reportedly will be hosting an online hangout on April 2^nd. They also offer additional information in their FAQs.

What do you think about Google offering internships to students? Are you, or is anyone you know, planning to apply for the Summer of Code 2012 internships?

Have you visited Wikipedia, Google, Craigslist, or one of the many other major websites today that are blacked-out? No need to restart your system – it’s an organized protest against a major bill going to the Senate that could drastically change the way that we all are allowed to use the Internet.

Wikipedia's protest against SOPA and PIPA

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a bill sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith that was created to stop theft or piracy of content. The Protect IP Act (PIPA), according to Fast Company, is “…a bill designed to have a slightly broader sweep than SOPA with the intention of protecting goods that are copied by counterfeiters–anything from drugs to handbags.”

How would the passing of either of these bills affect you?

“If these bills were adopted, it would mean that no one could post another link on Twitter, Facebook, a blog, a website – anywhere online – without first checking to make sure that nothing on that site contained copyright infringement,” said Social Media Strategist Caroline Melberg. “It would change everything about how the Internet, social media and SEO work.”

Imagine having to check every single thing on a website before you linked to one of its articles. What if something was added later, after you had linked to it? Since links live “forever,” would you have to hire someone to go and check all your links frequently to make sure nothing had gone wrong with the website since you linked to it?

“In practice, it’s censorship of the Internet and how we do business today,” said Melberg. “This protest by many major websites is an organized exclamation to ‘Stop Piracy, Not Liberty.’”

Google's Protest

You might be one of the individuals in favor of SOPA and PIPA, thinking that we all need a law in place to protect original content and copyrights online. Are you aware that one already exists? It’s called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998, and it was put in place to help prevent piracy and copyright infringement online – the issues that PIPA and SOPA are challenging right now. The difference is that SOPA and PIPA go far beyond this with the potential power to “break the Internet,” according to CNN.

Remember the protests in Egypt that held riots in the streets? The Egyptian government shut down the Internet at that time, as if it was as simple as flipping a switch. Many Americans watched and casually thought, “That could never happen here.”

Welcome to reality.

What do you think about the blackout protests?

There’s been quite a bit of discussion about the reliability of online information that is compiled by individual users (think Wikipedia). Others scrutinize sites that allow users to share/upload files, music and videos freely. But who can really define whether these sites are doing right or wrong?

The Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) is an effort to regulate all content online. It has been creating buzz because, if passed, the Act “…makes the streaming of unauthorized content a felony,” reported MSNBC.com.

The reactions to this proposed law are definitely being heard. Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare are just a few of the online sites that are threatening to “…take a ‘nuclear option’ and ‘go simultaneously dark’ in protest of the bill,” MSNBC.com published earlier this week.

There are those who support the bill and would like to see unauthorized content removed from all websites. Others rely on shared information from internet users on a daily basis. How about if you’re a student writing a research paper – can you cite Wikipedia as a credible resource for your information? Educational institutions and their professors/instructors have a wide range of policies for students using these crowd-sourced encyclopedias as a reliable source in coursework. Since users can change the content, who’s to say that what you’re reading on those sites is factual?

Try asking followers of The Colbert Report with Steven Colbert on Comedy Central. In 2006 he encouraged viewers to change the Wikipedia entries on elephants to state that their population had tripled in the last six months. So what happened? Roughly 20 Wikipedia articles on elephants were vandalized by numerous users stating exactly what Colbert had suggested – until Wikipedia administrators caught wind of what had actually happened, locked the pages and blocked Colbert from the site. According to Colbert, a made up thing or idea becomes true reality if enough people agree with you. He coined it as “wikiality,” and he was proving it.

Does SOPA silent free speech? Or does it help regulate false information on the infinite Internet?

Remember that funny post your friend shared on Facebook last month, but now you can’t seem to find it? Google it! The search engine giant will soon begin indexing posts on Facebook and other sites and showing those comments in Google search results.

Are your online posts and comments meant to be private or public?

Will this apply to absolutely every Facebook user? The answer is no. One key factor to remember is that those who keep their posts private, comment on private groups or restrict profile access will not have as many of their comments available publicly. Only users who make their comments public or comment on any public, open group or page will be affected by this new policy.

Also keep in mind that this change will not just apply to Facebook. Any site that includes PostData, such as WordPress blogs, will be searched by Google. How do you know if information on those sites can be found by search engines? If you don’t have the choice to make your post or comment limited to a certain audience, assume that it is most likely searchable.

This new “feature” is just another reason why users need to be careful what they post online. Social Media Strategist Caroline Melberg puts it best when she says that “you shouldn’t post something online that you wouldn’t be willing to have printed on the front page of The New York Times.”

Do you see this as a helpful feature? Or does it present more potential problems online?

Google+ is getting a lot of attention right now due to the “rivalry” between Google and Facebook, which is heavily partnered with Microsoft.  Social Media Strategist Caroline Melberg feels that the site will be beneficial at some point in the future, but it might take some time. “I think it is a bit too early for most businesses to jump into Google+ as the jury is still out on how participation will ramp up, but if it happens like I think it will, Google+ will become the first real social-business networking site,” said Melberg.

While it definitely is a “social” site, it looks like the aspect that most people are missing about Google+  is that it’s really a play into cloud computing, making document sharing, calendar sharing and file sharing across all devices easier.

Back around 1997 or so, when Bill Gates was testifying in his antitrust lawsuit with Netscape (remember them?) he said that Microsoft Windows/Office was on the verge of obsolescence at any given moment because in “the future” we won’t install software on our computers or even require a computer – just an Internet enabled device.

Everyone thought he was nuts at the time, but he was right – and the future wasn’t 50 years down the road…it is happening now.  By the end of this year, smartphones will account for 50% of all cell phones in the US.  ”The cloud” has entered popular vernacular, and of course, the tablet market is going strong as well.

Melberg has recognized Google for upping the competition. “Not only does Google see the social opportunity, they are taking it one step further by integrating connectedness with their current suite of business applications, making sharing large files a snap,” said Melberg.

Long term, Facebook may find Google+ to be competition.  Shorter term, Microsoft (Office, Windows), Apple (App store), companies like YouSendIt, and cloud back-up/storage companies like Carbonite, DropBox, etc. have more to worry about.

Google needs to work a few bugs out yet and to launch business pages. Google+ also needs to be made available to their business-level premium customers, who pay $50/year per user for Google apps, which includes email hosting.  Once that happens, and business people start to see how easy sharing files and calendars is, as well as learn about Google’s extensive list of business applications that compete with Salesforce CRM,  etc., expect Google+ use to explode, just like hosted gmail premium has exploded in the business community already.

Bottom line, we’ll be keeping a close watch on Google+ to see how it develops for business.

The old saying, “a picture is worth 1,000 words” has new appeal as social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have made recent moves to make photography and photo sharing a much larger part of their offerings.

Now, Google is jumping on the bandwagon with the new Business Photos from Google. In conjunction with Google Maps, you can now highlight your business by signing up to have it photographed by a Google photographer. The picture will then show up on your business’ Place page in a 360-degree panoramic view. Business owners can also upload their own pictures to their Place page as well.

Currently this is available in certain cities in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, France and the UK. Click here to see the list of where it’s available.

Click here to watch a delightful video showing the benefits of using Business Photos from Google.

To apply or to learn more, click here.

While Google has been offering “street view” business photos for some time, this new Business Photos service is taking photography from Google to a whole new level.  What will Google tackle next?

Well, at least more social.  Further evidence that Google is making search more social comes in the form of their new “plus-one” button, which according to Google is short-hand for telling your social connections, “Hey, this is pretty cool! Or you should check this out”

“When someone recommends something, that’s a pretty good indicator of quality,” said Matt Cutts, Google’s principle engineer for search. “We are strongly looking at using this in our rankings.”

The new button allows you to share your preferences with your connections in Gchat, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Buzz and in the not too distant future, Twitter, making search an even more important partner with social media.

According to Google, currently there are no plans to bring Facebook into the “plus-one” system.

“In addition to ‘social search’ and ‘real time search’, the ‘Plus One’ feature is one more way Google is putting their money where their mouth is in terms of how important Social Authority is related to search engine optimization and positioning,” said Social Media Strategist, Caroline Melberg.  “It’s disappointing that Facebook “Likes” are not included yet, as Facebook is still the 800 pound gorilla in the social media world.”

Before you can +1 in searches, you will first need a Google profile.  Profiles allow people to see who has made the recommendation.  Your profile is visible to anyone who has your email address.

Are you ready to +1 it? Click here to give it a try.

The next time that someone asks if you would like to pay with cash, credit or check, just pull out your smart phone. No, you won’t be making a call for this one. Google is developing a new feature called Google Wallet, which will allow users to charge virtually any transaction to a credit card by using a smart phone.

So how does it work? It’s actually similar to the PayPass feature that you’ve probably already seen on many credit card kiosks. Just tap your phone on the reader and your phone sends payment, and, at some merchants, offers and loyalty information.

Google insists that the new feature will be a secure way to pay, and Google Offers can get you deals at the places you shop by automatically syncing to your Google Wallet.

Check please!

In this time of ever-changing social media tools, most of us wonder how we can keep up with it.  Every day the question  “how does social media really help my business?” is asked. Like all marketing tools, it should continue to be reassessed and updated.  Here’s what I know for sure… social media is not a hobby (at least not for those of us busy running companies.)  It IS an effective business tool when managed and implemented strategically. (Of course, there are those fortunate few who happen to hit it right on the mark without planning or integrating their social media efforts with other marketing.)   For those skeptics of social media, ask yourself, “Are my customers and prospective customers finding me when they “Google”?  If you’re not on the first page of the search, you’re missing an incredible opportunity …and social media is the answer.

The Bronx Zoo has reported a missing cobra earlier this week – who just happens to be an avid “tweeter.”  A report by the Star Tribune explains that an unnamed individual has been posting on a Twitter account by the name of “BronxZoosCobra,” and is sharing quite a few slithering travel tales. The tweets have included posts such as “On top of the Empire State Building! All the people look like little mice down there. Delicious little mice.”

The cobra has yet to be found, but at least there are over 140,000 followers who are interested in hearing whatssssss next!