An Italian robbery victim sat in stunned disbelief. When his computer screen flashed to life, it displayed Facebook’s familiar wall. Thing is, this 52 year-old baby boomer isn’t among the world’s 300,000,000 Facebookers. Turns out the 26 year-old Gen-X’er who robbed him is. And, he stopped in mid-theft to post some updates to Facebook. Police saw the errant thief’s name on the screen and simply went to his house, finding the thief and his ill-gotten goods.

Where it a country, Facebook would rank fourth in the world ahead of Mexico, Japan, and only slightly behind the United States. And yet, countless business ignore it? Ditto Twitter. Social media is redefining how people live. Shouldn’t it redefine how you reach them?

This video, sent by my partner Roy H. Williams sent this Monday morning, is a clanging bell of dawning reality for those still nestled in an old-think advertising dream-state. Grab some coffee. Watch it. Grasp the historic pivot-point on which we stand. If these numbers don’t leave you slack-jawed, hit the snooze button and continue Rip Van Winkling. On the other hand, if they sit you up double-latte awake, call me. I will put them to work for you.

What will mobile advertising look like in 2020? A new report from OgilvyOne and messaging company Acision predicts mobile advertising in 11 years will be far more personalized as users exercise control over the types of messages they see, and when, on their handheld devices. Read more at Online Media Daily.

Building a brand is the accumulated result of sustained heavy lifting. Losing that weight, however, often happens ounce by ounce. Yahoo!’s surrender to Google, masked in its new Microsoft partnership, is a classic example. This isn’t a big drop for Yahoo!, it’s more of a last gasp. According to BusinessWeek, “Yahoo alumni say as Yahoo outsources search to Microsoft, a wave of top-tier engineers will likely depart, taking with them the inner geekiness that’s fueled much success over the years.” BusinessWeek has the details:  Yahoo: Losing the Geek Factor.

Proof of Yahoo!’s search engine demise is plain to see in this graph. When’s the last time you saw the second horse in a race concede the contest to the one in third? Google’s dominance in the category can be attributed to many factors. Google’s ubiquity is direct result of their simplicity and transparency. Microsoft’s Bing must be showing great promise for Yahoo! to cave. Then again, Microsoft is redefining the territory by being a “decision” engine, not a search engine. Does that really matter? Since Google’s become every bit as much a verb as it is a noun, I don’t think people care where they Google–even if they do it on Google, MSN or Bing.

UPDATE: Media Post’s Rob Griffin weighs in: “ Microsoft’s advertising, as fellow Insiders have written about a lot lately, is driving usage for Bing but it also lifting Google’s market share. The only person to suffer, search-wise, is Yahoo.”

Surrender by any other name is still defeat.

Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp. says the web “is not free, and is not going to be.” The days of free content may come to an end if a gathering of media moguls this week in Pasadena, California have their way. Can these captains of content stuff the freebie genie back in the broadband bottle? Bloomberg has the details.