Sorry should have opened my eyes a little. From the link of the OP:

"Microblogging automation" - AUTOBLOGS OR SUBMISSION BY EMAIL FROM FEEDS

"a new generation of RSS content building" - MAYBE SOME RSSMIX OF YOU SOCIAL SITES AND BLOG FEEDS AND PINGING

"automated blogging across non-standard hosts" WORDPRESS MU???

"unreleased keyword research library" - HE SEEMS TO DO ALL HIS STUFF USING GOOGLE RELATED AND JUST PLAIN OLD DIGGING AND NOTE TAKING

"distributed / automated social bookmarking" - BMD & PING

"web 2.0 profile generation" - SENUKE OR SIMILAR???

"rich media distribution to non-video sites" - ???? SPUN/SCRAPED ARTICLE SUBMISSION ????

"Google Universal Search lab" - ????

and more that I can't even describe here. ????

Not really automated but more streamlined than doing it all manually. I suppose once you get the system down can outsource that. Howie says that he does the niche research and outsources everything else.

Any input from knowledgeable sources on the specific tools in the "Lab" would be appreciated. Even better would be ideas how we can replicate these.