The actual cost of their medical services is a mystery to most Americans, but venture-backed Castlight Health Inc. looks to change that. The San Francisco company has built a search engine that enables patients to check prices before they head to the doctor’s office, the New York Times reports. It’s part of a small but growing move toward price transparency that could change how health care is purchased in the U.S. The notion “seems ridiculously simple and obvious, and in any other industry, you would say, ‘Duh, we already have that.’ But in health care, it’s revolutionary,” Alan M. Garber, a professor of medicine and the director of the center for health policy at Stanford University, as well as an investor in Castlight, told the Times. Formerly known as Ventana Health Services, Castlight was founded in 2008 and is backed by Oak Investment Partners, Maverick Capital and Venrock.

First-mover advantage is more important than intellectual property in the biofuels business, according to several executives of start-ups speaking at an investor conference in New York. “This is very much a first-mover game,” Vincent Chornet, CEO of Enerkem Inc., which is planning to construct a Mississippi demonstration facility of its thermochemical gasification process to produce syngas that converts into biofuels and biochemicals said at the Lazard Capital Markets Alternative Energy Investor Summit. Read the full story in VentureWire.

Virtual world Second Life is alive and well, backers say, although substantial changes are afoot. San Francisco-based Linden Lab, which launched Second Life in 2003, is cutting 30% of its 300-person staff as part of a restructuring aimed at strengthening the company. But CEO Mark Kingdon says it has no need to raise more money and expects record revenue this year. VentureWire has more.

Facebook and other social networking websites are under increasing scrutiny from self-appointed watchdogs who monitor them for privacy violations. These monitors tend to be professors, programmers and computer hobbyists looking to warn people before they become identity-theft victims, The Wall Street Journal says. It’s enough to make CEO Mark Zuckerberg keep sweating.