Anyone who has followed the current TV adventure/soap opera Rome, knows that modern technology may bring the world of antiquity back to life.

Google is now doing its part, by adding an Ancient Rome module (”layer”) to Google Earth, its free software package for exploring the surface of the Earth.

According to Wired the The Ancient Rome 3D feature was created in conjunction with the Rome Reborn Project 2.0 at University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities.

The image below is taken from the Rome Reborn project’s web site, while the image above is from Google Earth.

Google AdWords is rolling a new tool that would let AdWords members identify which keywords their potential customers are searching for and to help them identify which keywords they should advetise on and which keywords are relevant to their landing pages. This new AdWords tool is called the Search-based keyword tool.

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So much to read and so little time. It’s good Pandia is doing all the reading for you! Here are some of the essential search engine news articles from this week:

• For Yahoo’s CEO, News Keeps Getting Worse

  Yang made no concessions to the growing chorus of angry investors and media pundits calling for his ouster at a Web industry conference in London this week. (Reuters Nov 14 2008)

• Sweeping Changes At Live.com: It’s A Social Network!

  US Live.com is now a social network, too, pulling in activity information and content from around the web. (TechCrunch Nov 12 2008)

The latest issue of Website Magazine presents a top 50 list of websites that are popular among web designers and developers.

Anyone working withing the fields of online information dissemination and Internet marketing need to know something about the arts of setting up and designing web sites, so these resources may also be of interest to the readers of Pandia.

The list is partly based on web statistics gathered by Ranking.com.

Here are the top 20:

1. about.com (All round information site. The reason it has been included here is most likely the Web Design subsite)

Google Flu Trends, based on Internet search activity, predicts new outbreaks of flu in the US.

It is that time of the year here on the Northern Hemisphere.

A steady stream of new mutated flu viruses reach Europe and Northern America from Asia, leading to sore throats, runny noses and feverish days and nights, and there seems to be nothing we can do about it.

Normally you would look to the medical field for a solution (there is not one yet), but now Google wants to use web search to help out.

Google search has now added voice recognition software to their search application on Apple iPhones. Now, iPhone users can request Google results without having to type information on their phones, a must for drivers or those on the go … aren’t phones for speaking and listening anyway?

Google iPhone spoken search will be made available to Apple iPhone and iPod users today via the Apple iTunes store, and will let users ask questions that are not only local directory sensitive (like the 1-800-GOOG-411 experiment) but also basic search questions which request facts or figures. (more…)

A blog is an awesome networking tool. Beside multiple obvious benefits (interacting with your audience, content link building, etc), there are a few more creative ways to build links with your blog.

Blog carnivals

A blog carnival is a regular topical event connecting multiple blogging based on a chosen theme. A blog carnival often includes a number of participants (most of them get credits i form of links and new niche connections):

• the blog carnival organizer: if you are an established voice in your niche, you can organize your own blog carnival and get plenty of awareness;