Google Trends was originally released as a tool that let you see visual comparisons between search volume of keywords. That hasn’t changed, but Google now also gives us the keys to more data about actual popularity of websites based on daily unique visitors.

This data is similar to what companies like Alexa already provides, but it’s not ready to be a complete replacement yet. There is not as much data available through Google Trends as there is in other tools. Searches are currently limited to the domain level — so blogs.zdnet.com would translate to zdnet.com before the search happens.

If you have a popular enough website to be included in these results from Google Trends, you may be disappointed to know that there is no way to remove your site if you wanted to. Google doesn’t think that rule should apply to them though, as they have removed all their web properties — searching for things like google.com or youtube.com comes back with nothing.

Most social networking sites aren’t exactly serious places. The most popular ones allow friends to post flip messages on each others’ walls or send festive clip art for special occasions.

On Friday, I met a man who is trying to build a social network he believes could save lives. In fact, he credits his social network with saving his own.

When Keith Schorsch contracted Lyme disease in 2004, a dozen doctors failed to recognize the ailment that had paralyzed his facial muscles and sapped his energy. Specialists suggested arthritis, rare viruses, and even brain damage. They offered to operate.

A second opinion from a friend, however, saved him from the potentially fatal consequence of an ill-advised surgery. His friend recognized that Schorsch had Lyme disease after Schorsch described symptoms that matched his friend’s own ailment. His friend also knew that Schorsch had recently been traveling through suburban and rural areas of New Jersey known as “tick country.” “I was on the cusp of late stage Lyme,” says Schorsch. “If it wasn’t for my friend calling…”

Schorsch got more than a correct diagnosis from his friend’s advice. The former Amazon executive also got the idea for Trusera, an online community where users share health information and experiences with once another. The site fully launched earlier today, June 16.

There is no shortage of health sites on the Internet. In addition to medical information sites such as WebMD and Medstory, Google and Microsoft have aggressively moved into the space with their own offerings. Google is creating a central online repository for individuals’ medical records, while Microsoft is building a platform that enables hospitals, medical devices, and other groups to take medical information digital. All are hoping to cash in on the estimated $500 million to $1 billion health advertising market.

Schorsch believes that none of these sites or programs, however, offer the kind of interaction with other people that proved so helpful in his own case.

Talking to Schorsch in person, it’s easy to see why he believes so strongly in the value of information from the average Joe. (Full disclosure: I met him, in part, through my sister who works at the company.) Friends first told him about using acupuncture to handle the muscle paralysis brought on by his disease. He got advice about how to discuss the fatigue he sometimes suffers by chatting with others coping with chronic diseases. Doctors, Schorsch says, often don’t have the time to discuss such things during a brief visit. “10 to 15 years ago you were in an environment where you had the same doctor and he knew you,” says Schorsch. Now, many people don’t have a regular doctor who takes that kind of time, he says.

Even when the experts are available, sometimes a friend can still know best. “Sometimes you just want a direct connection to someone who has gone through it,” he says.

Imagine a Web where your profile comes with you. Rather than manage contact info, friend lists, and descriptions of yourself across several websites, you’d maintain an overarching account that would be open to whomever you like.

For years, “open Web” enthusiasts have argued the importance and inevitability of a shift away from the “walled garden” atmosphere of social networks such as Facebook, and toward a more connected Web. This way, your information belongs to you, not your social networks.

This month, MySpace, Facebook, and Google consecutively announced their stabs at a more open Web.

MySpace’s Data Availability and Facebook Connect look almost identical: The social networks will share their users’ information with a few partner sites so that when someone updates his profile, those changes are automatically reflected on all the other sites. Friend lists will also follow you, although the details are murky at this early stage.

Google’s Friend Connect looks a bit different: Since the search giant lacks a major social-networking hub, Google has decided to basically lend its programming code to any website that wants social features. A user can go to a participating website, sign in using an account ID (from Googletalk, Orkut, and Hi5 for now – the latter two being popular networks abroad), and view, invite, and mingle with friends through the site.

Google launched a trial of Friend Connect with a few small websites, including the home page of indie musician Ingrid Michaelson.

Before plugging into Friend Connect, Ms. Michaelson’s site was little more than a place holder for information, says Lynn Grossman, the pop artist’s manager. Her music was primarily marketed through social networks, which were great for attracting new listeners, but Ms. Grossman had little control over the information presented to potential fans, not to mention the ads that MySpace and Facebook stick on the pages.

Now that Google has empowered Michaelson’s website, fans can sign in through their social networks and invite friends to check out her music. The increased traffic has encouraged Grossman to put more energy into the website.

Although users could previously post comments on Michaelson’s site, Grossman views the Friend Connect initiative as taking that basic social interaction to the next level.

“The biggest change is that we now lead people back to our website,” she says. “This brings your entire posse with you.”

She anticipates that if Friend Connect is successful, it will make Michaelson less reliant on networks like MySpace to promote her music.

Google clearly is making great friends with small website owners with this move, but it’s not pure altruism. Neither is it the ideal version of an open Web that some have in mind.

“What we are seeing is a brawl over who is going to host users’ profiles,” says Dawn DeBruyn, head of WeMeUs.com, a site that helps professionals manage their connections across various social networks. “The assumption is that this will happen from one central location, with each player trying to lock it down in their site, or services in Google’s case.”

Perhaps that’s why Facebook, initially listed as one of the sites that would work with Google Friend Connect, has suddenly banned the service. And why shouldn’t they ban it? Google is effectively trying to co-opt its status as a dominant directory for user information. Facebook’s official response is that it is looking out “for the privacy of [its] users.”

So what now? The Google initiative may fail, once again separating small website owners such as Michaelson from her network of friends and fans. Facebook and MySpace’s push to extend their fence while still maintaining their walled gardens might eventually lead them toward a public relations backlash.

“Overall I think that all of these companies will have to get over it,” says Ms. DeBruyn, “in spite of their efforts to the contrary, because the movement to the open Web and decentralized storage and distribution of information is inevitable, the only question is how quickly will it happen?”

Facebook thinks Tom Ham and I should be friends. But we’re not. In fact, I’m pretty sure he can’t stand me.

I ticked off the guy more than five years ago, and we haven’t spoken since then (more on that later). But he pops up with disquieting frequency on the “People You May Know” box at the right side of my Facebook page. Facebook compares your mutual friends to suggest connections with people you might not have thought to connect with. The program is called the Friend Finder.

But I call it the Foe Finder. Tom Ham appears there all the time. I don’t really blame Facebook for causing me brief moments of anguish each time it throws up its postage-stamp-sized reminder. Tom and I do have 69 “friends” in common, many related to the video game industry that we both cover. The program is saying, “Look! You like all the same people, so this guy has GOT to be your soul mate!”

This seems to be a common issue among members of Facebook and other social networking services that use computer algorithms to help connect people. For example, LinkedIn, a professional networking site, looks through your online resume to suggest people who worked at the same company while you were employed there. Never mind that it might be the boss who fired you for bringing plants to your cubicle.

When machines do the matchmaking, funny things happen. An acquaintance in San Francisco kept getting paired up with a landlord who evicted his family for refusing to pay an outrageous (and illegal) $1,000 raise in his rent.

Then there are the people …

… who are already on your friend list but turn out to be scheming snakes. One of my friends found out that a colleague had lied to him about a job opening. He’d gladly wipe this person from his Facebook page, but that would cause a minor scandal because the two have a zillion mutual colleagues.

Of course, you can also drop the nuclear Facebomb and ban individuals from seeing your profile. I did this once for an ex- whose very picture made me ill. But I’ve otherwise resisted pushing the red button just so I can see how this online social petri dish evolves.

Anyhow, back to Tom Ham and what I did to earn his disdain. A few years ago, I wrote a story for The Times about “playola” — the junkets and trinkets that video game critics were regularly showered with by companies hoping for a favorable review. Tom was among the top reviewers in the field at that time, and I featured him in the story. He stopped talking to me after it ran. I imagine that my profile picture keeps appearing on his Friend Finder, which can’t be much fun. I e-mailed him to ask him whether it does, and how he feels about it. Not too surprisingly, he didn’t respond.

But I can see some benefits to this Foe Finder thing. An ex-boyfriend I hadn’t talked to for more than 20 years found me on LinkedIn and asked to be in my network. I added him.

As one of my bona fide friends advised, “Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.”

– Alex Pham

For a Web site, it could hardly look less exciting. Its pages are heavy with text, much of it a flat blue, and there are few photos and absolutely no videos.

But LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, is dull by design. Unlike Facebook and MySpace, the site is aimed at career-minded, white-collar workers, people who join more for the networking than the social.

Now, in the midst of Silicon Valley’s recession-proof enthusiasm for community-oriented Web sites, the most boring of the social networks is finally grabbing the spotlight.

On Wednesday, LinkedIn will announce that it has raised $53 million in capital, primarily from Bain Capital Ventures, a Boston-based private equity firm. The new financing round values the company at $1 billion. That heady valuation is more than the $580 million that the News Corporation paid for MySpace in 2005, but less than the $15 billion value assigned to Facebook last year when Microsoft bought a minority stake.

LinkedIn’s investment round delays a rumored initial public offering, which would have finally tested the public market’s interest in social networking.

“What we didn’t want is to have the distraction of being public and to be worried by quarterly performance,” said Dan Nye, the buttoned-down chief executive of LinkedIn, who would not be caught dead in the Birkenstocks and rumpled T-shirts favored by MySpace and Facebook employees.

LinkedIn, which says it is already profitable, will use the investment to make acquisitions and expand its overseas operations.

“We want to create a broad and critical business tool that is used by tens of millions of business professionals every day to make them better at what they do,” Mr. Nye said.

The average age of a LinkedIn user is 41, the point in life where people are less likely to build their digital identities around dates, parties and photos of revelry.

LinkedIn gives professionals, even the most hopeless wallflower, a painless way to follow the advice of every career counselor: build a network. Users maintain online résumés, establish links with colleagues and business acquaintances and then expand their networks to the contacts of their contacts. The service also helps them search for experts who can help them solve daily business problems.

The four-year-old site is decidedly antisocial: only last fall, after what executives describe as a year of intense debate, did the company ask members to add photos to their profiles.

That business-only-please strategy appears to be paying off. The number of people using LinkedIn, based in Mountain View, Calif., tripled in May over the previous year, according to Nielsen Online. At 23 million members, LinkedIn remains far smaller than Facebook and MySpace, each with 115 million members, but it is growing considerably faster.

LinkedIn also has a more diversified approach to making money than its entertainment-oriented rivals, which are struggling to bring in ad dollars and keep up with inflated expectations for increased revenue.

LinkedIn will get only a quarter of its projected $100 million in revenue this year from ads. (It places ads from companies like Microsoft and Southwest Airlines on profile pages.) Other moneymakers include premium subscriptions, which let users directly contact any user on the site instead of requiring an introduction from another member.

A third source of revenue is recruitment tools that companies can use to find people who may not even be actively looking for new jobs. Companies pay to search for candidates with specific skills, and each day, they get new prospects as people who fit their criteria join LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is set to undergo a radical shift in strategy to find other sources of revenue. Instead of catering primarily to individual white-collar workers, the site will soon introduce new services aimed at companies. It is a risky move that could alienate members who prefer to use the networking site to network — without their bosses peering over their shoulders.

One new product, Company Groups, automatically gathers all the employees from a company who use LinkedIn into a single, private Web forum. Employees can pose questions to each other, and share and discuss news articles about their industry.

Soon, LinkedIn plans to add additional features, like a group calendar, and let independent developers contribute their own programs that will allow employees to collaborate on projects.

The idea is to let firms exploit their employees’ social connections, institutional memories and special skills — knowledge that large, geographically dispersed companies often have a difficult time obtaining.