By Jackson West

Let’s get the Gang of Four out of the way. Google released Google Pages, and almost immediately closed off new sign ups due to demand. Still, it smells a little like Geocities to me. Chris Pirillo, for his part, has decided to go an entire week without using any Google products — Googlefasting, he calls it. Might be a good time to try MyWeb 2.0 from Yahoo, which is now in beta. Yahoo search also adds deeplinks to any Wikipedia entries that might turn up.

Is Microsoft also working on a new relevance algorithm for a search product?Thomas Hawk thinks he’s found evidence to that effect. And AOL’s new minion Jason Calacanis (a rather unlikely hero) works out some issues with how the Engadget podcast is presented on the Podshow Network.

On the media front, some interesting developments. BlogBurst thinks that they can make a mint licensing blog content to print publications, and promise to work out a system by which bloggers get paid. Which is funny, considering how many authors in print are starting their own blogs — like Malcolm Gladwell.

New World Notes, a blog devoted to news from the world of Second Life, introduces the first SLodcast.’ And newspapers continue to pour money into Tribe.net.

The horny teenager of today will be the spendthrift online consumer and Web 3.0 entrepreneur of tomorrow. Thankfully we’ve got folks like Danah Boyd to explain to us old folks how they’re using services like MySpace.

And while Thomas Crampton is looking into the future of email for Joi Ito, ZDNet’s IT Facts blog points out that IM is already more heavily used than email amongst the kids.

A topic rather dear to my own heart is BitTorrent, as I don’t have a television and rely on it for new episodes of The Boondocks and The IT Crowd. Illegal theft though it may be, damn if it isn’t convenient. Here’s a guide to subscribing to shows using the Democracy Player. Sadly, those killjoys at the MPAA are going after the major torrent index sites again (many of which became prominent after Suprnova was shut down). But even Irina Slutsky of GETV can’t get Bram to say much about his controversial creation.

Designtechnica crowns the Best of Web 2.0 — I’m startled to find I use out of ten daily .. Peter Merholtz: “Web 2.0 has actually very little to do with interface, and everything to do with the systems underlying them” .. Could strife at the top of the RSS Advisory Board tip the scales in Atom’s favor? .. KnowNow makes KMWorld’s top 100, Newsgator moves into new digs and Craig Newmark has some advice for Edgeio .. Mecanbe offers “Self Improvement 2.0,” somewhere a waterski jump is surrounded by sharks .. isn’t a hoax, and that self improvement coaching has now jumped on the bandwagon .. and my nominee for the killer app for online social networking: Couchsurfing.com.

Jackson West writes for SFist. He writes about Web 2.0 and other topics for GigaOm.