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It seems we’re in good company, as one of MySQL’s founders, Monty Widenius, the man who spent the past 27 years creating and working on MySQL, is using his personal blog to incite mass letter-writing to the European Commission in order to ensure the open-source future of the popular database. We’re not the only ones who questioned whether MySQL would “succumb to corporate lameness” after a takeover by a major closed-source competitor. In fact, Widenius speculates that Oracle could close or even kill all or parts of MySQL.

Although the U.S. Department of Justice approved Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems earlier this fall, the EC chose to open an investigation of the matter. The DOJ saw no problem with Oracle’s acquiring MySQL and focused instead on Java licensing issues.This was very fast development from.

Widenius, who split from Sun earlier this year after – and entirely because – MySQL was acquired by Sun, wrote in October about how MySQL could be shuttered …

We talk a lot about how big brands are embracing social media as a mechanism to connect directly with customers. Still, it’s much easier to talk about integrating social media into your brand than it is to actually do it.

That’s why IKEA’s recent Facebook campaign is so awesome. The Swedish furniture company opened a new store in Malmo, Sweden and rather than spread the word the old-fashioned way, they decided to go directly to the people using Facebook.

This video describes the campaign in detail …

Smartphone users just got an early holiday treat from Google.

Now, when searching for movies on their iPhones or Palm WebOS- or Android-powered devices, users can get not only theatres, showtimes, and films; they can also get trailers, ratings, and proximity-based information. This way, you can get in the car and peal out of the driveway before conducting a desktop search for movies, thus saving yourself another excruciating 5 minutes of “holiday cheer” with the family …