Today, Fortune magazine released its annual “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” and, as usual, it had its share of tech execs on the list.

And off it, too — first and foremost being ousted Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, who was jacked completely from her 2010 No. 10 rank. She was No. 8 in 2009.

In her place: Newly designated Hewlett-Packard CEO and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman grabbed the No. 9 spot.

Also on the list: fast-rising IBM sales, marketing and strategy exec Ginni Rometty at No. 7; Xerox CEO Ursula Burns at No. 8; Oracle President and CFO Safra Catz at No. 11; Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at No. 12; Google execs Susan Wojcicki and Marissa Mayer at No. 28 and No. 38, respectively; IBM North America GM Bridget Van Kralingen at No. 39; and Best Buy Americas President Shari Ballard.

Catz was the highest paid of the group, with $42.1 million in total 2010 compensation.

And also taken off this year: 2010 No. 14, HP’s Ann Livermore, who left her top job there, but still is on the tech giant’s board; 2010 No. 28 Cathie Lesjak, CFO of HP; 2010 No. 44 Lorrie Norrington, a former president at eBay; and Apple’s communications head Katie Cotton (she was robbed!), who was No. 50 in 2010.

The new list will be in the magazine on Monday, which is when a related conference will take place in Southern California. (I will also be in attendance there, along with other less powerful ladies.)

Whitman is scheduled to speak at the conference in the afternoon on Tuesday, October 4.

In the No. 1 spot was the California District Court ruling on gay-marriage voter initiative Proposition 8. Uploaded by GoodAsYou.org shortly after the ruling came out in August, the document was Scribd’s most viral ever. The start-up provided a timeline showing how it was spread (image embedded; click to enlarge).

We should note that Scribd did not provide a list of docs ranked by number of views. CEO Trip Adler said such a list would be dominated by random items that have good search engine optimization, like a scan of an Indian phone book that has long been one of Scribd’s most-viewed documents of all time. Scribd, which now has 60 million monthly uniques, attributes much of its growth to its improvement of social sharing features.

The No. 2 most-shared doc on Scribd in 2010 was the surprising claim of proof of the computer science problem P ? NP from earlier this year. Uploaded by Vinay Deolalikar of HP Research Labs in August, the paper seemed to show that a class of computationally intensive problems could not be solved using simple algorithms.

In the third spot was the Republican political platform “GOP Pledge to America,” uploaded in September by CBS News. The draft lays out policy principles on the economy, healthcare and national security.

I find it interesting that Scribd’s most social documents are more often notable for newsworthiness than timelessness. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments earlier this month appealing the Prop 8 decision that was posted on Scribd. And as for P ? NP, while many computer scientists believe the claim in the paper on Scribd is correct, the proof itself is not seen as conclusive.

The rest of Scribd’s 2010 social docs list is a similar mix of newsworthy documents and research, as well as a little levity, including a list of 25 macaroni-and-cheese recipes.

1. California Prop 8 Ruling (Good As You)
2. PNP 12 pt (Angelica Lim)
3. GOP Pledge to America (CBS News)
4. Scribd in HTML5 (Scribd)
5. A Statement to the Viewers of Countdown (Brian Stelter)
6. Marijuana Is Safer (Chelsea Green)
7. Cognitive Biases–A Visual Study Guide (Efern211)
8. Using Facebook to Move Your Business Forward (Facebook)
9. 25 Mac & Cheese Recipes (Gooseberry Patch)
10. Influence and Passivity in Social Media (Hewlett-Packard)

25 Mac & Cheese Recipes by Gooseberry Patch

We’ll also see what they have to say about the Yahoo search partnership and its efforts to catch up with Google (and trip them up with antitrust headaches).

Liveblog

Okay. I’m onsite and nearly caffeinated. Yes, there are donuts, but Mobilized is going for the savory option.

10:03 am: Still waiting for things to get started here.

10:04 am: Microsoft search engineering head Satya Nadella comes out. “Okay, let’s get this thing underway.”

10:06 am: First up, some momentum stuff. Share is at 11.8 percent per comScore numbers released yesterday, up another 0.2 percent from October. Overall up 48 percent since launch. “We’re very, very happy with that growth.” Now over 90 million users, but the big deal, he says, is more heavy searchers. “We never had the fans of Bing and the heavy users,” Nadella says.

10:08 am: Nadella says Bing is still getting a larger percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds than its share of searchers as a whole.

10:09 am: “These are footholds that we have in the marketplace,” Nadella says.

10:11 am: Continued focus on specialized verticals (like travel, music, health, image search etc). Overall, such searches account for five percent of all queries, but specialized search makes up of 10 percent of Bing’s searches.

10:12 am: Partnerships: Yahoo is obviously the big one, but Nadella shows slide with Facebook, Twitter, Verizon., BlackBerry, Apple, Android, Foursquare and other logos.

There ave been 5.5 million downloads of the iPhone app.

Nadella says the toolbar deals are also important: They just give us a shot at acquiring the users. They have another one coming with Conduit. Also, they are now at least an option on iPhone and Firefox.

10:16 am: Nadella says the engineering team is focused on three areas, beyond the “arms race” of overall search quality–increasing the visual organization, task-centered nature and social elements of search.

“We’re neck and neck in terms of search quality and we are able to maintain it,” Nadella says.

10:18 am: Lots of talk about the ins and outs of search tech. Nadella says Microsoft has moved from a “neural net” approach to “boosted decision trees.” (No idea what that means.)

10:22 am: Effort to make search more social is important, but just beginning. “This is a journey we are at the very beginnings of,” Nadella says, but says social will change search in terms of how results are discovered, formulated and answered.

10:24 am: Nadella is talking about the importance of visual highlighting to call out various results as well as boosting interactivity, such as including forms within results so users can take action.

Still waiting for any new stuff, but we’re told it’s coming.

Nadella says the company has broken down a list of the tasks people are trying to do when they are trying to do more than just navigate to a particular site.

“We have a pretty granular understanding just looking at the query stream of what people are trying to get done.”

Microsoft has broken it down to some 150 categories, but here are some of the top ones: 4.6 percent of searches are music related, 1.8 percent clothing and shoes, 1.6 percent consumer electronics, 1.1 recipes, 1.3 percent home furnishings.

10:29 am: On to some new stuff.

New image search launching today, but first Microsoft is talking about visual search for things like finding movies and giving direct answers for some new types of queries.

10:31 am: Microsoft is talking about any sort of non-search result as “answers.”

In one case, an “answer” for the query “let’s make a deal” would be video episodes of the game show.

But Microsoft says that automatically putting it at the top is not necessarily best. What the company says it should do instead is put it below the first two results, such as the show’s homepage, which get more clicks than the video.

10:35 am: Also when a user searches flights from Denver to Las Vegas in June, Microsoft pre-populates the fields in a flight search with a guess at the dates, in this case the first weekend in June.

10:38 am: New image search represents first major changes in a year. Biggest shift is white space is gone with just a ton of tiles of images, with some categories at the top.

For example, search “Casablanca” and you get an option for the city in Morocco, another for the movie, a third for the style of wedding dress and another for the Casablanca Lily flower.

10:40 am: On to shopping. Quadrupled the number of products in its database.

10:43 am: Bing is adding a new focus on places as “destinations” with all the potential content from booking a flight or hotel to maps and attractions.

Which is nice, because I’m ready to go on a vacation right about now.

They use weather data to show times to go to and times to avoid a particular place.

10:45 am: Microsoft is beefing up event listings with partnership from FanSnap and other partners. You get ticket info, diagram of stadium, etc.

10:50 am: Back to social. Nadella says search can change by using one’s social graph to influence search results.

First example, you will start to see when your Facebook friends “Like” a page that is in search results.

For now, such results will only come up fairly infrequently, but Nadella says it will be a big deal when you do see pages that your friends have liked.

Search allows the data your friends share on Facebook to come to you when you actually want the information.

“In a way you are taking your friends with you,” says Microsoft’s Paul Yiu.

An example is when you are shopping for a product or going to visit a place–that’s a time when you really want to know what your friends think.

(Seems pretty cool, but wondering just how infrequently this will show up.)

10:57 am: Another example Yiu gives is a search one might do at 3 am for what will make your baby stop crying. There are lots of results, but one that your friend likes might be worth trying first.

11:00 am: Bing is also using one’s Facebook social circle to rank results in people search–i.e., if you have a friend in common, it will rank that “John Doe” higher than one you don’t know.

11:01 am: Nadella is back to talk about local and maps and how that integrates with mobile. Behind him Blaise Aguera y Arcas is pulling out several phones to do a demo. (And they look like iPhones.)

11:03 am: Aguera y Arcas takes the stage to show some changes coming to maps, first on the desktop. He notes the recent shift away from putting its most powerful map features on a Silverlight-powered site. Now it is moving that all to an HTML5-based site that needs no plug-ins.

11:07 am: Bing is bringing the “tasks” concept to searches within maps. A search for a restaurant now brings up not just a map, but more info on the eatery and also the ability to make reservations via OpenTable.

11:09 am: Aguera y Arcas switches to the iPhone. Shows how people can add their own panoramas to maps using a cellphone.

11:13 am: iPhone demo over 3G is going really slow. Aguera y Arcas asks how many of the reporters in the room are using 3G.

11:15 am: Although its going painfully slow, looks like Bing app starts to recognize a restaurant search and pops up options like types of cuisine and price. The goal is to save keystrokes.

Other options are things like get a map, make a reservation, menus, etc.

Still R-E-A-L-L-Y S-L-O-W.

“This bandwidth situation is really going to suck for what I have to demo next.”

He switches to a first-person StreetSide view, but all we see are dots.

“This is so sad,” Aguera y Arcas says, lamenting that we aren’t able to see all the cool stuff. There does seem to be some new StreetSide view stuff on the iPhone app that could be neat, assuming it runs faster on the street than inside this demo room.

11:23 am: We’ve reached a new low. “Close your eyes and imagine….” Aguera y Arcas says, and then describes what the app would do if we could see it.

11:23 am: And they have switched to Wi-Fi. “This is so exciting,” Aguera y Arcas says. Now he’s going back to StreetSide. “That’s so much nicer.”

As for directions, Bing now has bus directions with schedule info in addition to driving and walking directions. “It’s about time,” he says. “I’ve been waiting for this one myself.”

Another feature reminds you to do something when you reach a certain place, like call someone or check-in to FourSquare or Facebook.

11:29 am: Aguera says we are in Search 2.0–where you do more than just search and get results.

Image search is an example. Shows the coming ability to search for something by using a camera to start a search. Basically you can shoot a picture of a page and use any of the terms there to start searching (It uses character recognition in the background).

Questions and Answers

11:32 am: How big a deal is Google Instant?

“We are absolutely studying Google Instant,” Nadella says. Says they could match it. It’s a question of whether it makes task completion easier. “Is it a value or a distraction?” Doing studies and so far Microsoft’s research says it is mixed at best.

“It’s not a game changer. It’s a nice feature at best.”

He hedges a bit on whether it is something Microsoft needs to match.

11:39 am: Mobile features were demoed on iPhone. So when will they come to Windows Phone 7 and other platforms?

Nadella says they now have software for most major phone operating systems, including Android.

“The different devices have different schedules,” he says.

11:42 am: And we’re out of here….Thanks for tuning in.

(Of course, Twitter hasn’t revealed the secret formulas that helped it aggregate, tabulate and rank these topics.)

In the Twitterverse, after the BP oil spill and soccer, the next most popular topic of conversation in 2010 was the movie “Inception,” followed by the Haiti earthquake and the vuvuzela. The iPad, Android, Justin Bieber, Harry Potter and Pulpo Paul round out the top 10. It’s an odd list, indeed.

The person most discussed on Twitter in 2010 was obviously he of the dedicated servers, Mr. Bieber. (It’s somewhat shocking that world events and tech gadgets were able to keep the teen phenom out of the overall top spot.) Beating out her royal highness Lady Gaga, the No. 2 person on Twitter was Brazilian president-elect Dilma Rousseff (pictured).

Here’s the full 2010 list, courtesy of Twitter, followed by 2009′s list for comparison.

2010 Twitter Trends

Overall Top Trends:
1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

News Events:
1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. Haiti Earthquake
3. Pakistan Floods
4. Koreas Conflict
5. Chilean Miners Rescue

People:
1. Justin Bieber
2. Dilma Rousseff
3. Lady Gaga
4. Julian Assange
5. Mel Gibson

Movies:
1. Inception
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
3. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
4. Despicable Me
5. Karate Kid

Television:
1. MTV Video Music Awards
2. Pretty Little Liars
3. True Blood
4. Walking Dead
5. Grammy Awards

Technology:
1. Apple iPad
2. Google Android
3. Apple iOS
4. Apple iPhone
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops

World Cup:
1. FIFA World Cup
2. Vuvuzela
3. Pulpo Paul
4. Dunga
5. Diego Maradona

Sports:
1. LeBron James
2. Wimbledon
3. Manchester United
4. Brock Lesnar
5. Celtics

Hash Tags:
1. #rememberwhen
2. #slapyourself
3. #confessiontime (hash tag started by Usher)
4. #thingsimiss
5. #ohjustlikeme

2009 Twitter Trends

News Events:
1. #iranelection
2. Swine Flu
3. Gaza
4. Iran
5. Tehran
6. #swineflu
7. AIG
8. #uksnow
9. Earth Hour
10. #inaug09

People:
1. Michael Jackson
2. Susan Boyle
3. Adam Lambert
4. Kobe (Bryant)
5. Chris Brown
6. Chuck Norris
7. Joe Wilson
8. Tiger Woods
9. Christian Bale
10. A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez)

Movies:
1. Harry Potter
2. New Moon
3. District 9
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Star Trek
6. True Blood
7. Transformers 2
8. Watchmen
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. G.I. Joe

TV Shows:
1. American Idol
2. Glee
3. Teen Choice Awards
4. SNL (Saturday Night Live)
5. Dollhouse
6. Grey’s Anatomy
7. VMAS (Video Music Awards)
8. #bsg (Battlestar Galatica)
9. BET Awards
10. Lost

Sports (Teams, Events, Leagues):
1. Super Bowl
2. Lakers
3. Wimbledon
4. Cavs (Cleveland Cavaliers)
5. Superbowl
6. Chelsea
7. NFL
8. UFC 100
9. Yankees
10. Liverpool

Technology:
1. Google Wave
2. Snow Leopard
3. Tweetdeck
4. Windows 7
5. CES
6. Palm Pre
7. Google Latitude
8. #E3
9. #amazonfail
10. Macworld

Hash Tags:
1. #musicmonday
2. #iranelection
3. #sxsw
4. #swineflu
5. #nevertrust
6. #mm
7. #rememberwhen
8. #3drunkwords
9. #unacceptable
10. #iwish

The engine for that spike in sales? Samsung’s Galaxy S phones, which the company distributes through six U.S. carriers, among them AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. Samsung says it has now shipped three million Galaxy S smartphones since the line’s mid-July launch.

And how did other Android vendors fare in Gartner’s rankings? Motorola placed second, HTC came in a close third and LG a very distant fourth.

U.S. RANKINGS: ANDROID

1. Samsung
2. Motorola
3. HTC
4. LG

Seems Motorola’s alliance with Verizon is finally beginning to cost it a bit of market share.

“Motorola, by launching its key Android devices on Verizon Wireless, was able to gain significant market share in the U.S. but is now in a difficult position as their Android business is too reliant on Verizon Wireless with roughly 40-50% of their worldwide Android sales coming from Verizon,” Gartner analyst Hugues De La Vergne told me. “With a rumored iPhone coming to Verizon in Q1, Motorola is the hardware vendor that has the most to lose.”

Microsoft bigwig Bill Gates got hip-checked off the top perch as the richest man in the world by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim (pictured here), on the annual Forbes list of the world’s Richie Riches.

Slim came to the rescue of the New York Times (NYT) a year ago, forking over $250 million to help the cash-strapped media company.

Often in the No. 1 spot, Gates actually got shoved off in 2008 by megainvestor Warren Buffett (now No. 3), with whom he is good friends.

Gates returned to the top rank in 2009, and now Slim–a telecom-and-more tycoon–has surpassed Gates’s net worth of $53 billion slightly with a $53.5 billion kitty.

Here are some of the other U.S. tech dudes–mostly based in Silicon Valley–on the list, in the Top 100:

No. 6: Oracle (ORCL) CEO and founder Larry Ellison ($28 billion)
No. 24: Google (GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin ($17.5 billion)
No. 24: Google co-founder Larry Page ($17.5 billion)
No. 33: Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer ($14.5 billion)
No. 37: Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen ($13.5 billion)
No. 37: Dell (DELL) CEO and founder Michael Dell ($13.5 billion)
No. 43: Amazon (AMZN) CEO and founder Jeff Bezos ($12.3 billion)

Both Apple (AAPL) CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs (No. 136 with $5.5 billion) and Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg (No. 212 with $4 billion) rank in the longer list.