The latest study from Pew Internet analyzes the news Americans are consuming and various different ways they find news. Based on a sample of 2,259 adults, the study reveals that three fourths of the people (75%) who find news online get it either forwarded through e-mail or posts on social networking sites, and half of them (52%) forward the news through those means.

This translates to a large portion of all Americans. According to the report, 59% of those surveyed get news from a combination of online and offline sources.

However, the study also shows that very few people nowadays (7%) are getting information from a single media platform. In fact, nearly half of Americans (46%) claim they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day. And while TV is still the biggest source of news (78% of Americans say they get news from a local TV station), Internet sits at second place (61% of users get news online), ahead of radio and newspapers. Interestingly enough, relatively few people — only 17% — claim they read news in a national newspaper such as The New York Times or USA Today.

Also interesting is the division between news consumers according to their relationship to news. Thirty-three percent of cellphone owners now access news on their phones, and 28% use personalized news, meaning they have a customized page that includes news from sources they’ve chosen. Perhaps most importantly, news consumers today participate in the creation of news; 37% have contributed to news creation, commented on news or shared it via social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter.

The entire report is available here.

Google has announced that it has added a new content source to its real-time search feature: Facebook Pages.

Google launched real-time search in December, providing a real-time feed of information from Yahoo Answers, Twitter, blogs, news websites, and other sources for hot or trending search results.

Two integrations have lagged though: MySpace andFacebook. Eight days ago, Google added MySpace updates to its stream. And now Google has added Facebook Pages to the mix.

Still, Google’s stream doesn’t include public Facebook profiles, something only rival search engine Bingcan access. This limits the usefulness of today’s update, but we still welcome the addition.

What This Means for Business

More ways to get found when you use our service.

More visibility for your campaign , a plus for your Facebook profile.

It’s official: Apple has broken the 10 billion song barrier. Just a few minutes ago, Apple’s song download counter hit the mark, something it has been counting down to for the last two weeks.

Apple has been hitting some nice milestones recently. Just last month, Apple’s app store surpassed three billion downloads, a massive feat especially when you consider that iTunes has also been around longer than the app store.

The 10 billion mark is an important reminder of just how powerful Apple has become in the music industry, though. That’s billions in revenue that Apple has generated for the music industry, but also billions that Apple has pocketed for itself. And while digital competitors have popped up, none have come close to Apple’s music dominance.

How long until iTunes breaks 20 billion song downloads? We invite you to post your guesses in the comments!

Every week, we pit two web apps or companies against each other in our web faceoff series. In the past, we’ve put Android vs. iPhone, Digg vs. Reddit, and Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopardorder to see which one was truly the people’s choice.

This week, we’re tweaking the competitors a bit. Over the last few weeks, you may have heard about a battle brewing between Adobe and Apple. It all started when Apple slyly revealed that the iPad would not support Flash.

This quickly broke out into a heated debate: Should we be abandoning Flash for HTML5, the new version of the web’s mark-up language that can support video, audio and more? Steve Jobs certainly thinks so.

Now with more people chiming in, we think it’s time to take the pulse of the people.

Which will eventually win out in the end: Adobe Flash or HTML5? Which is better for the future of the web? Do you think Apple has the muscle to take down Adobe’s widely used plug-in?

Make your choice in the poll below, which will close on Friday, February 27, at 12:00 p.m. PT. Then let us know your opinions on this matter in the comments.

Faceoff Series: Overall Results

Week 1:
- Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome
- WINNER: Firefox, 4600 votes (Chrome: 3310 votes, Tie: 911 votes)

Week 2:
- Tumblr vs. Posterous
- WINNER: Tumblr, 1809 votes (Posterous: 1496 votes, Tie: 256 votes)

Week 3:
- Pandora vs. Last.fm
- WINNER: Last.fm, 1187 votes (Pandora: 1156 votes, Tie: 122 votes)

Week 4:
- Twitter vs. Facebook
- WINNER: Facebook, 2484 votes (Twitter: 2061 votes, Tie: 588 votes)

Week 5:
- WordPress vs. Typepad
- WINNER: WordPress, 2714 votes (Typepad: 267 votes, Tie: 357 votes)

Week 6:
- Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard
- WINNER: Windows 7, 3632 votes (Snow Leopard: 3278 votes, Tie: 121 votes)

Week 7:
- TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop
- WINNER: TweetDeck, 3294 votes (Seesmic Desktop: 1055 votes, Tie: 260 votes)

Week 8:
- Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs
- WINNER: Microsoft Office, 1365 votes (Google Docs: 994 votes, Tie: 315 votes)

Week 9:
- Apple iPhone vs. Google Android
- WINNER: Google Android, 3323 votes (Apple iPhone: 1494 votes, Tie: 228 votes)

Week 10:
- AT&T vs. Verizon
- WINNER: Verizon, 1161 votes (AT&T: 538 votes, Tie: 118 votes)

Week 11:
- Google vs. Bing
- WINNER: Google, 2180 votes (Bing: 519 votes, Tie: 97 votes)

Week 12:
- iPod Touch/iPhone vs. Nintendo DS vs. Sony PSP
- WINNER: iPod Touch/iPhone, 704 votes (Sony PSP: 639 votes, Nintendo DS: 482 votes, Tie: 108 votes)

Week 13:
- Digg vs. Reddit vs. StumbleUpon
- WINNER: Digg, 14,762 votes (Reddit: 11,466 votes, StumbleUpon: 2507 votes, Tie: 1032 votes)

Week 14:
- Old versus new Twitter retweets
- WINNER: Old style retweets, 1625 votes (New style retweets: 699 votes, Tie: 227 votes)

Week 15:
- Gmail vs. Outlook
- WINNER: Gmail, 3684 votes (Outlook: 980 votes, Tie: 590 votes)

Week 16:
- Boxee vs. Hulu
- WINNER: Hulu, 626 votes (Boxee: 591 votes, Tie: 106 votes)

Week 17:
- Nexus One vs. iPhone 3GS
- WINNER: Nexus One, 6743 votes (iPhone 3GS: 2818 votes, Tie: 592 votes)

Week 18:
- Foursquare vs. Yelp vs. Gowalla
- WINNER: Foursquare, 1182 votes, (Yelp: 661 votes, Gowalla: 509 votes, Tie: 143 votes)

Week 19:
- AIM vs. GTalk vs. FbChat
- WINNER: GTalk, 2189 votes, (AIM: 1257 votes, FbChat: 511 votes, Tie: 203 votes)

Week 20:
- Music Ownership vs. Music Subscription
- WINNER: Ownership, 533 votes (Subscription: 299 votes, Tie: 237)

Week 21:
- Match.com vs. PlentyofFish
- WINNER: Plenty of Fish, 430 votes (Match.com: 334 votes, Tie: 187 votes)

Week 21:
- Google Buzz vs. Facebook Vs. Twitter
- WINNER: Facebook, 3353 votes (Twitter: 1828 votes, Google Buzz: 1298 votes, Tie: 651 votes)

New stats released today by Twitter reveal that users now send out over 50 million tweets per day. That means every second, 600 tweets fly through Twitter’s network.

As we reported two weeks ago, Twitter saw more than 1.2 billion tweets in January, or around 39 million tweets per day. These numbers came from Royal Pingdom and not Twitter itself, though.

The new numbers blow past Pingdom’s stats. Some of the highlights:

- In 2007, around 5000 tweets were sent per day.

- By 2008, the number grew to 300,000 tweets per day.

- By 2009, around 2.5 million tweets were sent through Twitter every single day.

- Tweet growth shot up by 1,400% in 2009, reaching 35 million tweets per day by the end of the year.

- As of now, Twitter sees 50 million tweets created per day.

These numbers are definitely noteworthy and provide evidence against the perception that Twitter is not growing

Twitter, as a platform, played a big role in the instantaneousspread of information following the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January. Today the microblogging site is officially supporting the exchange of real-time information and offering free SMS tweets for Digicel Haiti customers.

As of now, Digicel Haiti customers won’t incur charges for the SMS tweets they send and receive through Twitter’s 40404 short code. The bottom line is that Haitians can now experience an entirely free, mobile version of Twitter.

In Twitter’s blog post on the matter, Biz Stone writes:

“Kevin Thau and our mobile team have recently arranged free SMS tweets for Digicel Haiti customers. To activate the service, mobile phone users in Haiti can text follow @oxfam to 40404. Accounts are created on the fly and any account can be followed this way.”

Twitter’s move to make SMS tweets free of charge comes more than a month after the earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, but it’s yet another great example of how the web/tech industry is stepping up to help Haiti.

GMAIL USERS: You’re welcome to join the discussion over on Mashable’s Google Buzz account.

Google Buzz is not a rival to Facebook or Twitter, says Google exec Bradley Horowitz — instead he sees it as a platform for conversation, and hopes other services will be able to flow in and out of Buzz.

In an eWeek interview earlier this week, Horowitz, Google’s VP of product management, was asked whether Buzz was intended as a challenger to Twitter and Facebook. He replied:

“Absolutely not. Per what I just said, this is creating a new category of communication. It’s filling a niche, which is not currently met in the market. I think something unique is happening on Buzz that will continue to evolve. It’s hard to create a trend line or extrapolate too much from six days of use, but certainly conversation and the conversational Web is a place where Buzz has excelled. I think it is unique and offers a compelling interesting experience.”

Conversation Is Key

Horowitz also explained that Buzz goes beyond updating your status (like Twitter) or checking in (likeFoursquare) — it’s about engagement:

“It’s not just status-casting. It’s not just checking in. It’s really meaningful interactions around meaningful topics within Buzz and it’s reaching the right audience and people are engaged. That kind of value proposition is I think unique to Buzz. I’ve heard that again and again. In the realm of positive feedback, I think that people are finding that the conversational mode of buzz is very, very powerful and the quality of audience is also great.”

Buzz: An Open System

Google’s plan, it seems, is to create an open platform for social messaging, such that Google Buzz is integrated with services all around the web. Horowitz aims to create the “most open, well integrated, well behaving social network in the industry.”

This technical openness could create the kind of developer stampede that made Google Maps, Twitter and Flickr take off. The only unknown is whether technical openness could be in opposition to the private nature of our e-mail inboxes.

How do you use Twitter, Facebook and Buzz? Let us know in the comments.

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

We often say that social media is a conversation, and what we mean by that is unlike traditional broadcast and print mediums, which are often one-directional, social media is very much a two-way channel. Not only can businesses communicate with their customers, but their customers can communicate with them and with each other, as well. By and large, this type of communication is a good thing — businesses can form more personal relationships with customers and customers can become part of a community around the brands and businesses they want to support.

However, when you open the conversation up to anyone, you can also potentially invite negative criticism that you need to be prepared to deal with. Here’s a quick guide to dealing with negative feedback on social media.

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Identify the Type of Feedback

The first step to dealing with negative feedback is determining what type of feedback you’ve received. Negative feedback comes in a few different flavors, each of which is best dealt with by a different type of response. Determining which type of feedback you’re dealing with is an essential first step toward figuring out what is the appropriate response.

Straight Problems – Someone has an issue with your product or service and has laid out exactly what went wrong. This type of feedback is negative in the sense that it paints your business in a poor light, but it can be helpful in exposing real problems that need to be dealt with.

Constructive Criticism – Even more helpful is when the comment comes with a suggestion attached. Many customers — including some of your most loyal — will use social media to suggest ways in which you can improve your product or service. While this type of feedback may point out your flaws, and is thus negative, it can be extremely helpful to receive.

Merited Attack – While the attack itself may not be merited, the issue that catalyzed it does have merit in this type of negative feedback. Essentially, you or your company did something wrong, and someone is angry.

Trolling/Spam – The difference between trolling and a merited attack are that trolls have no valid reason for being angry at you. Also in this category are spammers, who will use a negative comment about your product or service (whether true or not) to promote a competing service.

Decide How to React

Once you’ve figured out which type of feedback you’ve received, your next step is to determine the type of response necessary. The number one rule when responding to all criticism, even the negative type, is to stay positive. Adding more negativity to the conversation by letting yourself be drawn into a fight with a customer or user will only reflect poorly on your business.

When dealing with Straight Problems, a response is almost certainly necessary. Whether that response is personal or a broad public-facing message depends on how widespread the problem is and how many people reported it. Regardless, if a real problem exists, steps should be taken to fix it and customers should be notified that those steps are being taken. Remember that there will be times when such criticism is the result of a perceived problem rather than an actual problem (e.g., someone who just doesn’t like the method by which you do something). Even this type of complaint should be given a response, if only to say, “Thanks for bringing it to our attention, but here’s why we do it that way.”

Similarly, Constructive Criticism also requires a response. Certainly there will be times when you won’t want to implement the suggestion given — probably most times you won’t — but you’ll build loyalty and trust by responding to criticism with a positive message. It is well worth the effort to thank those consumers who took the time to provide you with a suggestion or point out your product’s flaws.

Merited Attacks are a bit tougher to deal with, because they’re more likely to feel personal. You should always try to keep in mind that this type of feedback, as harsh as it may be, has a basis in a real problem. It is best to respond promptly and with a positive vibe (e.g., thank the commenter for the feedback and assure them that steps are being taken to correct the issue or mitigate their problem, such as offering a partial refund).

The final category is the only category of negative feedback that does not require a response. In fact, it is almost always best not to respond to Trolling or Spam. This type of feedback isn’t really feedback at all. It is designed either to bait you into an unnecessary and image-damaging fight, or to siphon off your customers using underhanded tactics. You should always ignore this variety of feedback, and when appropriate, remove it as soon as you spot it.