…and other stories from Yahoo! and the blogosphere

We like lists — five reasons to use display, seven linkbait tips, and lots more — so Jen Slegg’s 52 easy ways optimize your blog while on your coffee break makes us positively giddy. So many tips! Now we just have to go check the ways we’re not optimized. On our coffee breaks, of course.

MyBlogLog has some nifty new widgets that make it easier to let your readers know what’s happening with you. The idea is that even if you’re too busy to update your “about me” section, the widgets will look at what you’re posting or bookmarking across the web and update your information for you.

Speaking of widgets, you might already be using some of the applications that pop up all over the social media world. Yahoo! has joined forces with Google and MySpace to form the OpenSocial Foundation, which wants to provide “common ‘plumbing’ that lets social applications run on many different websites.”

And we couldn’t leave you without some pop-culture proof that Yahoos are smart: Dave Sikula, one of the “surfers”who built the Yahoo! directory, has won a slot on Jeopardy  — and $15,000 in his first night there. Needless to say, Dave will be buying lunch in the Yahoo! cafeteria for a while.

– The Team