For well over a decade, Google has occupied the monopolistic spot in the gargantuan search market. The NFL of the search engine world, it looks down on the efforts of the semi pro, arena and alternative league competitors as the rank amateurs that they are. Just like the NFL is seemingly immune to anti-trust actions, the Googleplex keeps optimizing its plays, executing direct hits, never uttering a stop word in the huddle or making a false drop and scoring touchdown after touchdown.

Technology has come a mighty long way since 2008. That is the year the Republican party was outpaced by the internet-driven assault launched by their democratic rivals. Technology is sure to play an even bigger role in the 2012 Presidential Election, and this time around, the GOP is not being left behind - at least it hopes.

The US government seems to be adopting the attitude that it is an omniscient entity divinely bestowed to pursue its sacrosanct goal to mess up the internet. The defenders of online freedom were still dancing on the grave of SOPA/PIPA when from the depths of the unmitigated paranoia that begat those evil twins arose an aberrant cousin CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act), a bill whose drafters learned well from the failure of its predecessors.

Since its inception, Microsoft’s Bing has been slammed as a Google wannabe, and their latest social media foray does little to dispel the perception. Bing is now issuing Webmaster Tools videos where a software engineer dispenses weighty advice on the inner workings of the search engine algorithms to help websites rank higher in a purely organic fashion. If that brings up images of Google’s Matt Cutts, who originated the concept and has brought it to a high art, then you’re catching the drift.

The old proverb that, “When you leave the old road for the new, you know what you’re leaving but you don’t know what you’ll find,” is proven by Facebook’s recent adoption of the Timeline. The more social media-savvy online brands accustomed to piling on striking functionality onto their important first pages now find that they are are limited to a billboard: A static wide-aspect ratio image with a small inset on the lower left-hand side.