Leaders are increasingly using social technology to open up lines of communication, create feedback loops, and talk directly with customers and new markets. It’s important that proactive leaders keep updated on what’s trending in the world of social networking. This week, don’t miss these stories:

1. Google Buzz is an amalgamation of Twitter, Facebook, and your Gmail account. Good luck “just” checking your email. Find out more in this video.

2. Google’s planning to offer “ultrafast internet” to some of it’s consumers–putting phone and cable companies under pressure. The new super-internet would allow users to download a full movie–in a few minutes.

3. Facebook is 6 years old this month (along with Flickr). Turn to this chart to visualize Facebook’s amazing growth and success.

4. Meetings, deals, and even classes are done through Webinars. However, they demand a different way of public speaking. Here are some great tips.

5. Does your company have a social media policy? Don’t worry you’re hardly alone, according to Manpower.

6. Personal and company blogs often lose sight of their ideas and instead focus on the ‘traffic’–the ever rising and falling number of visitors. Here are 7 tips that will help you increase ‘traffic’ without forcing you to lose focus on your ideas.

7. It’s been a busy month for Google: they’ve also introduced a Labs feature in Google Maps. The new labs will let you play around with Google Maps in a whole bunch of different ways. With some imagination, the labs will prove invaluable for some businesses.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeleeorg/ / CC BY-NC 2.0