As most of you have already heard, Google Webmaster Tools is getting a facelift . Changes include a simpler dashboard and more intuitive navigation, more top search queries and message subscription, among others. In light of this change, I thought I'd revisit my love/hate relationship with Google Webmaster Tools .

Did you know that the number of website hosts that have been submitting Sitemap files has almost tripled over the last year? It's no wonder: the secret is out - as a recent research study showed, Sitemaps helps search engines to find new and changed content faster. Using Sitemaps doesn't guarantee that your site will be crawled and indexed completely, but it certainly helps us understand your website better. Together with the Webmaster Tools design update ,

Clicking "Show options" in the upper left expands settings like sizes, aspect ratios, or licensing. Google's photo album service, Picasa Web Albums , now allows you to show options during your search. As Ionut noticed, as part of these options you can tick the "Creative Commons" link, which will only return shareable pics. The amount of images is not all too bad either, at least for some queries: a CC-only search for the keyword google shows 276,529 pics,

Geoffrey Fowler had a very interesting piece (subscription required) in the the Wall Street Journal yesterday detailing eBay's shift in focus at the hands of CEO John Donahoe. According to the article, while auctions accounted for over half of eBay's $8.5 billion in revenue last year, looking forward, the company will focus on building secondary markets. I read Fowler's article via Kindle last night during my Chicago to San Francisco flight.

I’m very excited to announce to everyone that the latest and greatest version of WordPress, version 2.8 “Baker,” is immediately available for download. 2.8 represents a nice fit and finish release for WordPress with improvements to themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed. We also fixed over 790 bugs. This release is named in honor of noted trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker. Here’s a quick video overview of everything in the new release:

The first thing you’ll notice is that visually 2.8 feels a lot like 2.7, just with some minor tweaks here and there. However once you’ll dig in you’ll begin to appreciate the changes.

Major New Improvements

First and foremost, 2.8 is way faster to use. We’ve changed the way WordPress does style and scripting.

The core and plugin updaters in previous versions of WordPress have been such a success we decided to bring the same to themes. You can now browse the entire theme directory and install a theme with one click from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard.

If you make edits or tweaks to themes or plugins from your dashboard, you’ll appreciate the new CodePress editor which gives syntax highlighting to the previously-plain editor. Also there is now contextual documentation for the functions in the file you’re editing linked right below the editor.

If you were ever frustrated with widgets before, this release should be your savior. We’ve completely redesigned the widgets interface (which we didn’t have time to in 2.7) to allow you to do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don’t lose all their settings. Developers now have access to a much cleaner and robust API for creating widgets as well.

Finally you should explore the new Screen Options on every page. It’s the tab in the top right. Now, for example, if you have a wide monitor you could set up your dashboard to have four columns of widgets instead of the two it has by default. On other pages you can change how many items show per page.

And Even More

You can read the full list of over 180 new features, changes, upgrades, and improvements on the Codex. The list is exhausting!

The Future

We’re already thinking hard about the next versions, 2.9 and 3.0. Keep an eye out for improved media handling, better dependency checking, versioning of templates and themes, and of course the fabled merging of WordPress and MU announced at WordCamp San Francisco two weeks ago.

Posted by rebecca A couple weeks ago I went to Sweden to speak at IMC Stockholm. I had a really lovely time exploring the beautiful city as well as speaking at IMC and networking with marketers from all over the world. I thought I'd provide a recap of my trip and share some conference coverage with all of you who didn't attend the conference but are curious as to what it entailed. Enjoy! Stockholm: A Photo Recap In a nutshell, Stockholm is beautiful,

Hey folks! Last week we brought you Bing , the worlds first decision engine, to help you make important decisions faster. To that end, wed like to show you how to set Bing as your search default on Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers, and to highlight how Bing can be tightly integrated into these browsers. Internet Explorer 8 If you have already installed IE8, you can add Bing from the add-ons Gallery by clicking here .

by Mike Krumboltz For a decade and a half, Leno and Letterman battled for the late night ratings crown. Leno usually came out on top, but now there's a new guy in the mix - Conan O'Brien . Can Letterman top his new rival? According to TV Guide , Conan's ratings have steadily fallen ever since his heavily-hyped premiere. Meanwhile Letterman's viewership has grown stronger. Can Conan turn it around or is Dave finally the undisputed king of late night? Stay tuned.

Posted by randfish I read two blog posts this week that touch on a fascinating suject, and both are worthy of perusal: How Google Profiles SEOs from Wolf Howl Google Openly Profiles SEOs as Criminals from Outspoken Media The basic premise is that Google's web spam team, a division of their search quality unit, is especially aggressive about researching the backgrounds & projects of individuals in the SEO and webmaster space.

by Claudine Zap " The A-Team " is putting a plan together: For a movie . Word is that Liam Neeson is in talks with 20th-Century Fox to head the cast as Col. John "Hannibal" Smith. "The Hangover's" Bradley Cooper is being tapped to play Lt. Templeton "Faceman" Peck. The TV show aired for five seasons in the 1980s, and told the story of a crack fighting force out of Vietnam, wrongly convicted for a crime they didn't commit. The men escape prison,