MySpace Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe said that he's "cautiously optimistic" about ad revenue for the News Corp.-owned social network in the face of a recession, Reuters reported Monday.

Speaking at the outlet's Reuters Media Summit, DeWolfe said that MySpace's "revenue and profits are significant and they continue to grow in spite of the poor economy." Fox Interactive Media, the News Corp. division that encompasses MySpace, Photobucket, and other digital properties, was declared the top destination for display ads on the Web several months ago.

But display ads will be hit hard as ad budgets are cut, many critics have said--harder than other forms of digital advertising like search ads. Market research firm eMarketer slashed its 2009 projections by over $1 billion this week.

DeWolfe also said, according to Reuters, that MySpace's revenue in the last quarter was up 18 percent from the previous year's. He's expecting that they'll continue to grow--just not as much.

Did you shop? More to the point, did you shop brick-and-mortar? Or did you shop from your La-Z-Boy with a Wi-Fi signal beaming your way? Are you waiting for the so-called “Cyber Monday” to arrive? Or are you keeping your purse strings lock-tight this season?

If you did buy, what did you get? That mid-sized flat screen TV that you thought would be discounted much more than it showed on the shelf? And did finally spring for one of those not-so-fast-selling TiVos, the better to hook yourself up to video downloads (and annoy Comcast’s meter men to no end)? How about an Apple TV for not-quite-doorbuster pricing? An Xbox plus the Netflix action, perhaps?

On the premium Web services front, Any Flickr Pro gifting planned? How about Vimeo Plus? Settling for the free space on YouTube and limited Flickr uploads instead, along with all the things Facebook and Photobucket allow you to do?

Dish details if you please! And be sure to check our Cyber Monday prep course as well.

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The horrendous attacks in Mumbai, while covered extensively by mainstream news outlets, have also been credited as another landmark moment for social media sites like Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. CNN called the Mumbai attacks Twitter’s “coming of age“, while one Flickr photoset has received in excess of 70,000 views.

How to make sense of the outpouring of social media from Mumbai? Social timeline Dipity has just served up a particularly useful account tracking how events unfolded, pulling together news stories and YouTube videos and posting them along a timeline (embedded above).

Some things to try while playing with the above widget:

1. In Timeline View, click on the first bubble, then continue hitting “next event” for the easiest navigation.

2. Hit the Flipbook View, then click on the far right of the timeline to flick through the events of the most recent attack (the Mumbai timeline goes right back to 2001)

3. Click List View for the simplest representation of the data - a list of the videos in reverse chronological order

4. Click Map View to see videos plotted on a map (largely useless in the Mumbai case, but a good Dipity feature)

Dipity is imperfect, for sure: you can quickly lose your place while navigating the timeline. And yet, there is so much social media content created during world events that new ways to view and navigate that data are becoming invaluable. Perhaps even more telling: use cases like these are helping social media to shake off its stigma of being a tool for narcissists or a wasteland filled with life’s minutiae.

See also: Dipity 2.0’s Social Timeline Opens to the Public, Show Off Your Activity Stream on a Timeline with Dipity 2.0

What social media tools are you using to track the events in Mumbai?

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There are a lot of ways to get your images online. Facebook recently noted that more than 10 billion images have been uploaded to its site, while Flickr touted its own 3 billion number soon after. While these giants might have attracted the most photos, so far, they haven’t attracted the most votes, with a half dozen other photo sharing sites seeing significant numbers in early voting. Which should win the Open Web Award? Take a look at the nominees and then vote for your favorite:

drop.io - a secure and private file sharing service. Recently simplified its service further by releasing a Firefox addon for file sharing.

Flickr - one of the largest photo sharing community sites. Earlier this month, 3 billion images were reported to have been uploaded to Flickr.

fotoviewr - enhances Flickr and SmugMug’s experience by giving you the ability to create stunning galleries for your own photographs.

ipernity - a community that revolves around sharing your photos and images with your friends and family.

iStockPhoto - a royalty free stock photography site that now also includes video and music sharing.

PhoneZap - gives you the ability to share your pictures from your phone.

Photobucket - massive host for uploading images, creating albums, and sharing videos. It also has scrapbooking capabilities and more.

Picasa - lets you edit and then share your personal photos with your friends and family.

Shozu - helps you capture your favorite moments online. You can take photos and then put them on multiple online services simultaneously. Shozu supports blogging and geotagging as well.

SmugMug - photo sharing site geared for professionals, offering many different printing options.

TinyPic - image and video hosting tool with an easy-to-use interface that also generates a short URL for every piece of media.

TwitPic - lets you add your photos into a Twitter stream and takes advantage of its geotargeting capabilities to show you where exactly you are when you upload a photo.

Zooomr - photo sharing site for your friends and family. The service is packed with features and offers basic and pro accounts.

VOTE OFTEN: One Vote Per Category Per Day

Now it’s time to vote for your favorite blog plugin in the first of two voting rounds. You can vote for one company per day until midnight on November 30th.

Feel free to embed this widget on your own blog or website by clicking the “Grab This” button! For a timeline, rules and information on our 100 blog partners, please visit the Open Web Awards site.

Top Tip For Nominees

You got through? Congratulations! Did you know you can create a custom version of our voting widget above to post to your company blog or website? Just visit the Open Web Awards Widget Creator and check the box to preset a category or company. This means your fans only need to enter an email address to vote - simple!

Start Canvassing for YOUR Candidate!

Want others to vote for your favorite site? Of course you do! Why not leave a comment here and on any of our international partner blogs encouraging other readers to add their support? The more you promote your candidate across these blogs, the more likely it is for your site to proceed to the finals!

OWA Sponsors Love The Web

The Open Web Awards is made possible by our sponsors. By supporting the Open Web Awards, these companies reward and encourage innovative web technologies. We can’t thank them enough for sharing our passion: building great web companies.

Platinum Partner

“PartnerUp brings small business and social networking together to create a community where entrepreneurs find the people, resources and information to grow their businesses.”

Gold Sponsors

“iStockphoto is the world’s leading image market and a revenue-sharing social network. Browse 3.5 million images and videos starting at $1 or become a contributor.”

“With Quintura’s advanced visual-based search and analytics solution, content publishers can increase site usage while creating new ad revenues”

Prize Sponsor

“Infinite and Instant, Zazzle is the only on-demand retail platform for consumers and major brands, offering billions of retail quality, one-of-a-kind products, most of which are produced within 24 hours.”

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We’re now able to add images from a collection of over 3.5 million stock photos, vector illustrations, video footage and Flash files, and we’ve yet to find a keyword that lacks an interesting image.

In addition to improving the visual appeal of articles on Mashable, we’re also offering our readers the same opportunity for your own blog, website or project: Mashable readers get 10% off their first purchase of 50 credits or more. Just sign up for a free iStockphoto account and enter code MA5HAB1E before checkout.

Examples

Here’s a selection of some of the photography we’ve recently used:

CREDIT: iStockphoto / lcsdesign

USED IN: 17 Killer Mashups for Taking Control of Your Government

CREDIT: iStockphoto / diademimages

CREDIT: iStockphoto / cmcderm1

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Mixbook offers sharing photos in the new way: Photobooks. This unique method enables users to share photos in the same way as that of photo albums – just that this is online. You can create a photobook and scroll through pages where a bunch of photos are grouped together by you, and even have friends join in to make books together; as collaboration is a big part of the offerings. Sharing memories is much more fun with Mixbook’s software as it offers features through these 3 steps:

• Start by creating a book and inviting a few of your friends.
• Upload your own photos and have your friends add some from their own collection.
• Automix the book to start off with a few pages and make additional edits to create a beautiful book.

There’s no requirement of software downloads as you an pick a layout, drag-and-drop photos into the photo slots and edit them with your preference. You have the features of zooming in, rotating photos, choosing frames, selecting background and text colors, and much more. Mixbook can pull in photos from Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, Yahoo Search, Smugmug, and Photobucket. The service is found to be cheaper than Inkubook as printed softcover books start at $12.99.

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Whether you’re new to the series or a long-time fan, we’ve gathered up a list of 10 places to help get you up to speed. Have a favorite 24 site? Tell us more in the comments.

24 Official Site - The official site for the 24 series features episode and character guides, photos, message boards and a whole lot more to prepare you for the special movie and upcoming season.

24:Redemption official site - Learn all about the 2-hour movie event that will bridge the time gap between seasons 6 and 7 of the popular series.

24 On Hulu - Hulu, the popular video site for streaming television episodes, oddly only has ten complete episodes of 24, but numerous clips of the show. To add to the strangeness, the full episodes are the first five episodes of seasons 1 and 6.

24FanClub.com - The official fan club of the hit series has a store open to anyone, but if you join the club you get exclusive news, a free club tshirt and discounts on their regular items.

24Forum.net - 24Forum is a popular unofficial forum for fans of the show to gather and discuss the popular series.

24:Redemption Exhibit Photos - While on location in Africa to film the movie, the show’s creative team took numerous images from behind-the-scenes and of the locals they worked with. The photos are now on display at the The Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles, but if you can’t make it there, you can view them on this official Photobucket account.

JackBauerTortureReport.com - JackBauerTortureReport helps you keep a running tally of the yearly Bauer body count.

The Jack Sack - A blog dedicated to the deadliest fashion accessory ever, Jack Bauer’s man purse, AKA The Satchel of Doom, AKA The Jack Sack.  Between seasons they discuss other subjects, but their main focus is Jack’s bag of death.

TwentyFour.tv - While TwentyFour.tv is a basic fan site, its claim to fame is the Chuck Norris type facts about Jack Bauer.  Some of them include gems such as “When bad things happen to good people, it’s probably fate.  When bad things happen to bad people, it’s probably Jack Bauer.”

Wiki 24 - Do you have a burning desire to know how many people Jack Bauer has killed each season? Even better, do you want to know how he has killed each person? Need to know when and where Mr. Floppy made his cameos in season 1? Then Wiki 24 over at Wikia is the place for you. It has every piece of trivia a 24 fan’s heart could desire.

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Today I've found another personalized photobook creator called Mixbook. Mixbooks seems similar to Inkubook except for a few differences. Mixbook allows you to pull in photos from Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, Yahoo Search, Smugmug and Photobucket. The Facebook integration is something we heard from readers that they wish Inkubook had. Mixbook also appears to be a bit cheaper overall than Inkubook. Printed softcover books start at $12.99.

Here's how Mixbook works: You create a photobook and then invite your friends to join the book. Everyone selects photos to include in the photobook. As the book owner you can select the final photos to be printed. Mixbook recently launched a new book creation option called "Automix". Automix takes your photos and automatically creates a book which you can customize - apparently the Automix feature makes the initial process easier.

Lastly there's a pretty neat photobook widget which allows you to show off your photobook on your blog or social networking profiles.

From travel planning sites to navigation apps and services to help you keep track of your spending, here are over 20 resources to help you survive the holiday travel season.

Are you planning to travel? Which services have you found most helpful? Tell us more in the comments.

Planning Your Vacation

Disney - Has a useful site dedicated to families on the go. Believe it or not, they don’t just recommend that all families just go to Disneyland or Disney World! There are plenty of excellent suggestions for activities and sites to see.

Kaboose - Also provides a tremendous amount of ideas for family travel and vacationing. There’s a plethora of useful family friendly tips and suggestions such as the best family-friendly cars.

The Travel Channel - Has a special section just for family travel and vacations. There are many videos covering travel suggestions as well as message forums dedicated to families on the go.

Tripology - Like an online travel agent that works with the information you provide on the type of trip or vacation you want to take. They take the information and provide relevant suggestions for your upcoming journey.

TripoRama - A travel planning service specializing in group trips. Similar to other sites, this service can make suggestions and share useful information for any type of trip you want to experience with your loved ones.

For information on finding cheap flights, check out “30+ Tools for Finding Cheap Travel Accomodations.”

Navigating Your Way

Yelp - Want to know where the best place to eat is? This free app can show the highest rated establishments wherever you are.

SayNDrive - Tell this free iPhone app where you need to go and it will tell you how to get there.

Trapster - This free iPhone app warns you of “speed traps” and traffic cameras, helping you avoid fines and points on your driver’s license.

AroundMe - A free iPhone app that shows you a list of essentials you might need on your trip. From coffee to ATMs, this app has you covered.

For more info on more free iPhone navigation apps, check out our previous coverage here.

Managing Your Trip

Yahoo! Travel - Yahoo lets you track your flights using its travel service.

My Travel Checklist - This Facebook app helps you to not forget to pack or miss anything critical before your upcoming travel plans.

Travel Calendar - This Facebook app helps you manage your travel schedule and share it with family and friends.

TripCost - A free iPhone app that helps you keep track of your expenses to ensure that you’re staying within your budget.

TripIt - Works on the iPhone, Treo, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. Well-known by business travelers, TripIt can also assist family travelers with its ability to track itineraries and all related details for a trip.

Recording Family Memories

Qik - Stream family videos from your trip with your mobile device.

Flixwagon - Broadcast family videos of your trip live from your mobile phone.

Stickam - Like Qik and Flixwagon, Stickam lets you stream live videos of your vacation from your mobile device.

Shozu - Upload mobile photos and share them with all of your photo and social networking sites.

Juicecaster - Instantly share your vacation photos and videos from your mobile phone.

Treemo - Create a personalized mobile page where you can store all of your vacation photos.

For more mobile photo sharing services, be sure to check out “30+ Mobile Photo Sharing Tools.” Also, remember to put your vacation photos online to share with family and friends once you return. There are a number of great sites for this, such as Flickr, Photobucket, and Shutterfly. You can also create an online scrapbook of your trip using these scrapbooking services.

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, Pixhook

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What are you looking for from an image editor when you go online?

Alilg.com

Alilg.com - A simple and free editor that looks a lot like Photoshop, but without as many tools and effects.

Aviary Phoenix

Aviary Phoenix - Allows you to import from photo sharing sites such as Flickr and Facebook, work with layers and other tools.  Offers free editing with the addition of a small watermark, as well as subscription plans for more advanced work.  You can read more about Aviary here on Mashable.

DrPic.com

DrPic.com - Upload your image to this free image editor and take advantage of their numerous tools and then save it either to your disk or to the Web in your choice of formats.

FlantR.com

FlantR.com - FlauntR is big on backgrounds, fake magazine covers and basic editing tools.  Gives you the chance to purchase prints of any of your creations.

FotoFlexer.com

FotoFlexer.com - A completely free editor with numerous tools such as distortions, layers, effects, smart scissors and a whole lot more.

Lunapic.com

Lunapic.com - Is a bit rudimentary and not quite as smooth as some of the other options out there, but it is free and simple to use.

MyImager.com

MyImager.com - This editor has a rather odd interface in that everything is done using a dropdown menu which causes the page to reload when you make a change. The service only accepts GIFs and JPGs, and is free, but advertisement heavy. You can remove the ads for $1 a month.

Online-Image-Editor.com

Online-Image-Editor.com - Good for minor editing, and obviously directed at the social networking crowd since it has a tool named “Glitter Wizard.”

OnlineImageEditor.info

OnlineImageEditor.info - A subscription-only image editing solution that offers some advanced tools and the ability, upon subscription, to install image editing on your own site if you choose.

Phixr.com

Phixr.com - Offers up basic photo editing tools that are easy to use. You can save to popular formats and upload your finished images to all of the popular photo services.

Photoshop.com

Photoshop.com - Adobe finally brought their famous photo editor to the online world.  It doesn’t have all the features of its offline sibling, but it does offer a wealth of handy and easy to use tools as well as 2 GB of free online storage.  So far it only accepts JPG files for upload.

Picture2Life.com

Picture2Life.com - Picture2Life offers numerous tools and shows you an automatic preview for each one as soon as you open them up.

PikiPimp.com

PikiPimp.com - PikiPimp offers very simple editing tools, but is heavy on adding “bling,” text, glitter and animations.  Will also let you put your creations on items in your PikiStore.

Pixenate.com

Pixenate.com - Pixenate offers a lot of tools for touching up personal photos, including one specifically for tooth whitening, which is a new one we haven’t seen before.

Pixer.us

Pixer.us - A free editor with preview and a handful of effects such as colorfix, blur & sharpen, sepia tone and more.  Very straightforward and easy to use.

Pixlr.com

Pixlr.com - Free image editor that might remind you of the offline version of Photoshop.  Available in numerous languages and has an API that is free to use.

Picnik.com

Picnik.com - Import images from sites such as Photobucket, Picasa, Webshots and more.  Also offers numerous tools, fonts and shapes for free. More tools are available with a premium subscription of $24.95 a year.

Snipshot.com

Snipshot.com - Allows you some basic editing tools and the ability to save to the Web or your computer. You can open any image from the Web you have a URL for and more effects and tools are available for a premium subscription fee.

Splashup.com

Splashup.com - Splashup offers a full featured online editor, but you can also download Splashup Light for mobile computing and simple editing on the go.

Webresizer.com

Webresizer.com - Offers you extremely simple tools to resize an image, crop it, optimize it and make the image more usable online.

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, PicWorks

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