If you still think that social gaming is irrelevant, guess again! Today Electronic Arts has closed their acquisition of the social gaming startup Playfish, for $275 million in cash. EA also payed $25 million in stocks, as well as $100 million in earnouts, which comes to a $400 million total deal.

Playfish is based in London and has developed games for Facebook, MySpace, and number of other social media sites. They claim to have some 60 million monthly users, and their top games include Pet Society, Restaurant City, and who has the Biggest Brain.

The EA acquisition of Playfish shows a serious shift in the direction of gaming. Social gaming has become more and more popular with the growth of social networking. EA will be one of the first major console publishers to step into the social gaming realm. Many more may be soon to follow.

A few of the other top social gaming companies include Zynga and Playdom.

TechCrunch

Although Lists were officially rolled out on Thursday, Twitter had to disable them due to technical issues. Yesterday the list feature was only available to about half of the Twitter community. Today however, all Twitter users are now enjoying the feature.

You are now able to build your own lists on the micro-blogging site, as well as see which lists you are being included in. One of the top trending topics for days, Twitter users were a bit discouraged when Lists were delayed. The feature is up now and ready, so you can stop writing your nasty letters to Twitter.

Now that the Lists feature is available what do you think of it? Like it, or hate it? Have you been included in a list? Have you started any of your own? Let us know what you think.

Cisco Systems announced today that they have plans to purchase security software company ScanSafe. The Web-based security company will be purchased by Cisco Systems in an all cash deal for $183 million. The deal is expected to close in Cisco’s second quarter, which ends in January 2010.

ScanSafe is a Cloud-based security service that allows customers to license their service on demand. Cisco intends to use their service to improve IronPort, which they purchased in 2007. They will also be using ScanSafe’s data centers to provide new cloud security services.

This is the third acquisition that Cisco has announced for this month, and CEO John Chambers has stated that the company is intending to make even more. So far they have purchased wireless equipment maker Starent Networks, and video conference equipment maker Tandberg.

CNET

Some of you may remember that last we spoke about two search giants incorporating social media into their search results. One of those search giants was Google, and at the time details on how social media would work into their search results were somewhat vague. Today Google is officially announcing Social Search and is answering some of the questions we were asking about it.

In the video above Google demos how Social Search will work. As you can see your keyword searches will yield social updates in Social Search results. The way you are able to get social results for your queries is by being logged into your Google profile. If you are not logged in you will not get any social results, because Google pulls the relevant info via your profile.

The question that you may still be having is what social media sites will be included in your search results. As you know Twitter, and Friend Feed are included but where is Facebook? At this time Social Search is still in the labs. As far as we know Google has not indicated that Facebook will be included in Social Search but that may change in the future.

Google Blog

In an ever changing Internet landscape we see a major shift in the way people gather news. Rather than go to a search engine and type in a keyword, they are going to sites like Twitter and Facebook to get news.

So what is it that is pulling people form search engines to social media sites? It seems the main driving force is the desire for real time. Google and Microsoft know this, because they both have made announcements this week that they plan to integrate real time updates from social media sites into their search engines.

Microsoft has already integrating Twitter “tweets” into Bing search results at bing.com/twitter. Microsoft will also be integrating Facebook updates as well. Google has plans to bring Twitter to its search as well but have made no announcement for integrating Facebook updates.

Google and Bing both have focused on search a great deal and a heavy social integration is most likely the next step. Bing has already integrated “tweets” in their search results, Google has plans to include them soon.

CNET

Whether you think it is odd or not, it is true! Finland has made broadband access a legal right, and it is the first country in history to do so. According to local sources, the Ministry of Transport and Communication has passed a law that forces internet providers to offer high speed internet to all of Finland’s 5.3 million citizens.

Finland has one of the highest connection rates of any country, with 96 percent of its citizens on-line. The decision to make internet broadband connection a legal right was motivated by the desire to make internet access available to the countries in rural areas. Finland communications minister Suvi Linden stated that high speed access will improve the quality of life in some of the country’s most isolated areas.

Finland is now the only country on the planet that has made broadband access a legal right. Linden has also promised to significantly increase broadband for all of its citizens by 2015. This move is one of many that the country has made to upgrade its broadband infrastructure.

Guardian Tech

It was during the summer that Google launched a project known as Google Squared. It is an attempt to extract the most relevant information from messy search results and place them into nice neat tables. When using Squared you will be given a square with the most relevant facts about your query within it, rather than seeing a list of relevant websites.

Friday Google has announced that they have improved upon Google Squared, and outlined some of the new features they have added. When using the current version of Google Squared you can view up to four times as much data as the previous version. The search results have improved as well, in terms of relevance and quality. Squared can actually learn from your edits and tweaks so your results will be more accurate as to what you are searching for. You can also rank your results, and export them into Google Spreadsheet.

Google Squared is not quite ready for the public yet and it will be spending a good stint in the labs for awhile. Google’s focus on search and improving upon it is said to be motivated by Bing and the popularity it has garnered. Although Bing’s stats have dipped of late, it is projected to acquire 25 percent of the search market, which is an excellent start for the fledgling search engine.

Google Blog

Today Twitter has reached a milestone. The real time micro-blogging site is set to raise $100 million, which will give the company a total valuation of $1 billion. A major achievement for a company that has yet to generate revenue.

Although Twitter has been criticized for not developing a business model, its value is clear. Microsoft, Google, and Facebook have all reportedly extended offers to acquire the company, which alone speaks volumes of its potential. It currently attracts 54 million visitors a month, and receives non-stop media attention.

The investors putting up the $100 million include Insight Venture Partners, T. Rowe Price, Institutional Venture Partners, Spark Capital and Benchmark Capital.

Getting traffic and media attention has not been a problem for Twitter. The issue is how do you turn that into money? One way is to allow advertising, which Twitter will reportedly be doing in 2010. Other than that, we will have to wait and see what other plans are in the pipe line for creating revenue.

The New York Times

According to a number of reports a rare and vicious phishing scam is spreading through Twitter. It comes in the form of a DM, which links to a replica of the Twitter homepage, which you must login to. Once you supply your login info it can be used to send the same malicious DM you received to your friends.

There have been numerous worms to hit Twitter before but this is a particularly dangerous one, because it targets people through DM’s which are supposed to only be from trusted friends, and the Twitter replica page it redirects you to is very convincing.

If you receive a DM message reading “rofl this you on here,” accompanied by a video link, do not click it. If you have already been infected you can fix the problem easily by creating a new password. Twitter is currently combating the problem.

Mashable

Announced at a press conference today in New York City, Yahoo unveiled a new ad campaign aimed at re-branding itself. CEO Carol Bartz made the announcement and outlined Yahoo’s new focus with the campaign.

Yahoo will be spending over $100 million in an effort to change its image. The global re-branding will run with the tag line “”It’s Y!ou,” and will start in the U.S. next week. Its primary focus is to make the Yahoo portal feel more personal to the average user.

This news comes during an uncertain time for Yahoo. The company took some serious hits after the downturn of the economy. The re-branding effort they are undertaking is what Yahoo hopes will create a turn around.

Guardian Tech