Two Google executives have again assured onlookers that the company is dealing with the situation in China.  While in Abu Dhabi, Eric Schmidt indicated today that something will happen sooner rather than later, and Nicole Wong told politicians in D.C. that leaving China is still an option.

Unfortunately, not a lot of other details and/or promises were forthcoming.  Eric Schmidt's exact words, according to Jerry Dicolo, were "something will happen soon," and whether that's "soon" as a five-year-old would perceive it or in terms of continental drift is hard to say.

We should note: it's already been almost two months since Google stated in an official blog post, "[O]ver the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all."

As for what Nicole Wong, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at the company, had to say, there was less wiggle room.  The AFP reports that she maintained, "We are not going to change our decision on not censoring results anymore."  Also, with respect to abandoning the country, Wong added, "We are prepared to do that."

Google and Baidu investors are sure to remain on pins and needles until the situation is resolved.

The clash between Google and the Chinese government appears to be coming to a head.  Various sources have reported that Google ignored a cut-off date to reregister as an Internet content provider in China, and more importantly, that the company has stopped censoring search results.

Let's get the paperwork-related story out of the way first.  Charles Arthur wrote this morning, "Google missed a deadline to re-register as an 'internet content provider' (ICP) in China last night, which observers say is a sign that it is preparing to shut down its search engine there."

As for the news related to Google.cn and a lack of censorship, something has definitely occurred.  Following some tests, Adrienne Mong wrote, "Web sites dealing with subjects such as the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, Tibet and regional independence movements could all be accessed through Google's Chinese search engine Tuesday . . ."

Other people have seen uncensored results, too, although filters apparently kick in on occasion.

Google's stayed pretty tight-lipped during all of this.  One spokesperson told Arthur that the company actually has until the end of March to reregister.  Another told Mong that nothing's changed.  So it's possible that we're just seeing a case of deadline confusion strike at the same time as some technical problems.

Google may have finally taken a stand with regards to censorship in China, though, and is just daring the Chinese government to challenge its position.

We'll be sure to stay on top of this situation as it develops.

There is no shortage of interesting sessions going on at SXSW Interactive in Austin, but one that was especially interesting was "Can Wikipedia Survive Popular Success and Community Decline?" - a presentation from USC Professor of Journalism Andrew Lih. The session explored factors that contribute to the declining rate of Wikipedia entry editing, although Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation told WebProNews a few months ago, that growth in editing had slowed, and the number of editors was just flat, and not declining.

Either way it's ceratinly not a money issue. The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't appear to have too many problems raising money. "Every year, the number of people donating to the Wikimedia Foundation has increased, and the total dollar amount has increased too," Gardner told us. Google alone recently donated $2 million. Not that the money goes to editors (this is where it goes).

It's quite interesting that Wikipedia's success has come at the price of a community decline (even if in just growth). One of the biggest reasons there has been such a drop off in new editors is that it has simply gotten harder to edit entries. That's not just because of exclusivity reasons. It has actually become more technically difficult to edit entries over the years. There is a huge usability issue, and this is much of what Lih discussed.

Lih talked about how the editorial language has gotten more vague over the years. Wikipedia used to flat out ask people to edit articles. Then it eventually got to where "anyone CAN edit."

Another factor he mentioned is that of eventualism - the belief in the Wikipedia community that people will eventually fix articles. Someone else will get to it.

Yet another factor is that there are way more rules than there used to be. It's not that this is necessarily a bad thing. As Lih says, there is kind of more resonsiblitlity for Wikipedia to be up to quality standards now, as it has become one of the most popular sites on the web, and is often at the top of Google search results. But with more rules, comes less ease and in some cases, less enthusiasm.

If a potential editor does want to go through with playing by the rules, they have to go through an extensive interrogation process in which Lih says they are asked twenty to thirty questions.

Perhaps the biggest reason people don't want to edit Wikipedia articles is that the markup on the actual edit pages has become much more complicated over the years. It used to be simple, and most people could easily figure it out, and now, as Lih explained, it looks like a SQL database. He referred to a usability study from the Wikimedia Foundation, in which every user struggled to get a basic grasp of the editing interface. Users largely failed to make edits correctly without repeated attempts and efforts. Not even the most tech-savvy participants were able to do it right.

Lih presented the idea of looking at lessons from other communities. He focused specifically on DMOZ. "DMOZ chose to place editorial control in the hands of a small cabal of editors, and in doing so made the directory opaque, unresponsive and outdated - the editorial policy of DMOZ killed DMOZ," he said.

Possible scenarios that could play out, as Lih suggested, include a slow, steady quality decline, flagged revisions leading to a quality increase, the inability to update in a timely manner, or the trickling in of spam, PoV/non-neutralcontent.

There is much research being put into Wikipedia and it's continued success. Google's relationship with Wikipedia (whatever the extent of that may be, Lih simply calls it an interesting one and pretty much leaves it at that), appears to be helping keep Wikipedia in the forefront of search results for many, many queries. That's now though. Things change. There are other Wiki-style information sites out there, some of which have much more user-friendly editorial processes. Is it possible that Wikipedia will go the way of DMOZ?

It has become easier for researchers to obtain more data about Wikipedia in the last few years, and researchers are exploring a variety of ways to improve the process. Perhaps Wikipedia will be able to correct some of its issues before they snowball too much.

Read our interview with Gardner here.

In a move that investors and marketers alike should applaud, Google's figured out another way to make money off the site it bought for $1.65 billion three and a half years ago.  Today, Google explained that it's come up with a tool to help small organizations advertise on YouTube.

Emily Williams, a member of the Inside AdWords team, explained on the corporate blog, "[W]e're announcing another new feature in Display Ad Builder that lets advertisers use simple templates to create InVideo overlays and companion ads on YouTube."  (FYI: "An InVideo ad is an animated flash overlay that appears at the bottom part of a video that a user is watching.")

Williams later continued, "Now, any advertiser can use Display Ad Builder to turn their image ads into overlays and run a campaign on YouTube in minutes.  Depending on the type of campaign an advertiser wants to run, overlays can be bought on a CPC (Cost Per Click) or CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) basis, and can be matched to YouTube videos based on numerous criteria (like demographics or content categories), or even on a video by video level."

This could prove to be a very popular option, considering that takeover ads on the YouTube homepage are said to be sold far in advance for hundreds of thousands of dollars.  And the move also earns points for being low risk, since it probably didn't take much in the way of resources to execute and doesn't cut any privacy corners.

Now we just get to guess how much Google will actually make from the new feature.  One slightly relevant note: earlier this month, a Citigroup analyst estimated that YouTube will pull in about $1 billion in gross revenue this year.