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Each week we wrap up our top ten stories, and this week half of our most read stories were those that dissected and discussed the billion dollar purchase of Instagram by Facebook. Learn more about this story and many more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

Facebook's Real Mobile Question, Post-Instagram: Can It Challenge Apple and Google?

Clearly the Instagram purchase was huge news this week, dominating our Top Ten. We dissected the story in detail, looking at how the purchase affected current Instagram users, what it meant for potential Facebook investors and even what we could learn about Facebook's mobile monetization strategy. The sizable purchase makes a great deal of sense, and inspired us to ruminate on both the value of Path and the strategy of Pinterest, and what other companies might be on a Facebook shopping list. I don't think anyone would argue though that it's the normal exit for a mobile app like this, despite Instagram's amazing growth story. Instagram won the lottery this week.

Top Posts:

15 Clever Responses to Facebook Buying Instagram

By now you've heard the news. Earlier today Facebook announced it had acquired Instagram for a meaty sum of $1 billion. We've written about who the sale is really about (it's the investors) and how to get some more followers. But what does the Twitterverse say about this? Here are a few insightful tweets about this whole shabang. Read on. More

8 Things Instagram Did Right

With its billion-dollar sale to Facebook, Instagram instantly became the latest poster child for startup success. In just 551 days, the photo-sharing mobile app zoomed from zero to 30 million-odd users, and 10 million U.S. visits by March 2012, up 1000% since December 2011. Its valuation outstrips that of the 116-year-old New York Times.. More

[Infographic] How the App Stores "Really" Stack Up

If you liken app stores to race horses, Apple is the biggest, baddest thoroughbred in town. Google Play is a fine specimen with some distinct qualities but has a lot of work to do in the practice yard before catching up. Everything else is an also-ran. Windows Phone has been growing rapidly, increasing from 40,000 apps in Nov. 2011 to 70,000 at the most recent count. Then there is BlackBerry App World. For all of Research In Motion's troubles, its app repository is tied with Windows Phone at 70,000, which includes 15,000 specifically designed for the BlackBerry PlayBook. There are no tablet apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace, mostly because there is no Windows tablet (well, one worth anything). More

Jack Tramiel Remembered: The Legacy of the Commodore Founder and PC Pioneer

Quite a few people have been retroactively credited with the invention of the personal computer. One man who never claimed credit himself, but who would certainly be listed among Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Clive Sinclair, Adam Osborne, and John Roach as original creators of the personal computer industry is Jack Tramiel - who passed away today at the age of 83. More

SAP Plans to Dominate Enterprise Mobile Apps with HTML5 and New Partnerships

One of the largest software companies in the world just made a series of moves that could make it one of the most powerful enterprise mobile developers in the world. Hidden within SAP's Hana database platform announcement yesterday was the fact that the company signed three strategic partnerships with leading U.S. mobile development firms, signaling what could be a huge shift in the balance of power in the race for enterprise mobile dollars. More

To Pivot Or Not To Pivot: Instagram vs. Pinterest

One of the more intriguing aspects of Instagram's $1 billion payday from Facebook is that photo sharing was Plan B. Compare that to the other social startup darling of 2012, Pinterest, which has stayed true to its original mission from Day 1. More

How to Create Your Own Social Media Playbook

If you are trying to plan out your enterprise's social media activities, it helps to have a playbook. Several companies have produced such a document, ranging from a few pages to more extensive tomes, and I wanted to give you some tips to preparing your own, as well as talk about best practices. More

New Analytics Dashboard for Infochimps.com

This morning the Big Data online marketplace vendor Infochimps announces a new analytics dashboard for their services called Dashpot.

Dashpot lets users configure their dashboard with exactly the information they need. For example, users can visualize their data in the form of line graphs, heat maps, geographic maps, counters, pie charts, or lists. You can also customize with selects, filters and sorts, to let users setup drilldowns for zooming in and out on their data, too.This lets users of different types and skill levels create multiple views depending on who is interacting with a given dashboard, and also specify what information each view should show. More

5 Things the Experts Say You Need to Know About the Facebook-Instagram Merger

Depending on which hastily pasted-together analysis you believe, Facebook's $1 billion acquisition Monday is reason enough to close your Instagram account, and Facebook is going to ruin Instagram. We're not buying it, so instead we spent Monday interviewing a dozen experts for their thoughts and opinions on the deal. More

Life After Death of the Check-In

The first generation of location-based apps has fallen short. Most consumers don't even know location apps exist, and only a tiny minority actually use them. Today's apps focus on benefits for businesses, like being discovered by nearby shoppers, but they've failed to stir customers. Can next-generation companies like Geoloqi show us why location is valuable? More

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Does the rise of the read-later apps mean that users don't want the experience of using your site at all? Jon Mitchell explores that question in this week's top story, Websites Have to Get Better. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

Websites Have to Get Better

When you take content written by someone else, strip it of its chosen monetization methods, and present it back to readers without the publisher's permission, that publisher is not going to be happy. Unfortunately for publishers, that's exactly what many of the read-later apps are doing. But is this because readers want to be able to read offline, or is it because they simply don't like using our sites? Read Jon Mitchell's take on this issue in Websites Have to Get Better.

From our readers:

Jaap Willem Online Marketeer and Photographer -- That's true.
The reading experience is very important indeed, but so is the time shifted reading and the different device when you read the content.

The big break through for Instapaper was with the iPhone and I think it´s still their main scanning (in your words scraping/parsing) device while the iPad is the main reading device.

I don´t have the exact numbers for this but when I hear Marco Arment speaking, I have this idea.

Furthermore I do hope indeed that the websites will continue to improve and that in general the reading experience will be improving every time

Keep up the good work here at RWW :)

More Top Posts:

The Nokia Lumia 900 Could Be Today's Best Smartphone, But...

When it hits AT&T stores next week, the Nokia Lumia 900 could be the best smartphone on the market. If Apple released a piece of hardware as sleek and beautiful as the Lumia 900, the world would bow at its feet and marvel at Cupertino's latest masterpiece. But that is not going to happen with the Lumia 900. More

5 Ways to Keep Your Google Browsing Private

Google's one unified privacy policy went into effect on March 1. We spoke with two security experts, Security Evangelist Stephen Cobb of security solutions provider ESET, and Alisdair Faulkner, chief products officer of cybercrime defender platform ThreatMatrix, to get a better idea of what you can do to keep your browsing history as private as possible. More

New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for March 2012

It has been a great month for apps. Both iOS and Android had big markers in March, as Apple released the new iPad and Google rebranded the Android Market as Google Play. Developers have been hard at work creating apps for each platform and some great games, social apps and utilities have been recently released. Whether you are looking to draw on your iPad, make VoIP calls with your Android or just learn a new language, the ReadWriteWeb Apps of the Month for March has a little something for everybody. More

Eye Movement Study Reveals Six Must-Know Things About Facebook Brand Pages

The Facebook Timeline that brand pages were forced to switch over to last week is "flawed," according to an eye movement study of six brand pages by SimpleUsability, with many of the new features going unnoticed or being misunderstood. More

Windows 8: The OS/2 of Today

After watching Microsoft lurch toward completion of Windows 8 and trying out a few of its early versions, I am struck by a tremendous sense of déjà vu. It took me some time to figure out why I was feeling this way, and then it hit me: Win 8 is on track to become the OS/2 of today, and suffer a similar and ignominious fate. More

The Future of Photo-Sharing Apps

The tiny Instagram app grew to a gigantic 27 million users during its first year in the App Store. It has inspired real-life Instameet-ups, Instagram art shows and a community based on love for the image, where users can post and receive feedback from other visual thinkers. Instagrams are not only the new Polaroids when it comes to party pics, they've become a way for users to communicate visually, sharing inspiration and ideas (well, iPhone users anyway - the Android app is due out soon). More

The Future of Newspapers May End Up Looking a Lot Like... Newspapers

It's a bit of a role reversal at the college newspaper where I am the faculty adviser: I, playing the role of old ink-stained curmudgeon, keep insisting the students need to think about improving their website and developing multimedia reporting skills, while they insist they love putting out a dead-tree product each week. More

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The Android Marketplace is rebranded as Google Play. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

For Google, to Play Is to Fight the Commoditization of Android

When you think of Android, do you think of Google? No, probably not. Android as a brand conjures up associations with the little green robot, the sound of your phone's Droid tone, Motorola, Samsung and even Verizon, but rarely Google. For that reason, Google has rebranded the Android Marketplace as Google Play. Is it too little too late or is it a smart move to lessen brand dilution? Dan Rowinski takes a look at the reasons for the rebrand and its hope for success in this week's top story, For Google, to Play Is to Fight the Commoditization of Android.

From our readers:

Jay Godse - Android is not a strong enough brand to do what it needs to do for Google. It is valuable to developers as a technology brand. It is valuable to handset makers and carriers as a customer attraction brand. It is valuable to consumers as a place to buy apps for Android phones,i.e. a commerce brand. In the long run, Android cannot be all three things. The weakest brand facet of Android is the commerce brand, so it is a good decision to separate it from the technology and customer attraction brands in the form of Google Play.

Personally, I don't think that the name "Google Play" captures the right value proposition to customers of the Android marketplace. "Google Market" might have been a better choice. However, at least the brand is separate from the technology and customer-attraction brand facets of Android.

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Google's Go Programming Language Grows Up: Now What?

Does the world really need another C-ish programming language? Apparently Google thought so in 2009, when it channeled the Ramones and introduced Go. Now the Go team has reached a stable point they're calling Go 1 and sending it out into the world for "creating reliable products, projects and publications." Now, what's the world going to do with it? More

I Quit Path

There are too many apps. "There's an app for that" has passed the point of cliché and become some strange kind of axiom. Path is the perfect example. We have an app for staying in touch with friends: Facebook. We have an app for sharing pretty photos: Instagram. We have an app for checking into places: Foursquare. We have approximately 9,182 apps for auto-tweeting what song we're listening to right now. And yet, Path. More

5 Apps for Working From the iPad

Let's be real about this. You can't do everything on an iPad. As Shawn Blanc pointed out the other day, you can't make iOS apps on it, for example. But you might be surprised by how much real work you can do on it with the right tools. If your work requires generally office-like capabilities, there are definitely iPad solutions. More

10 AirPlay-Ready iPad Apps That Make Apple TV Worth It

When I first unboxed the new 1080p Apple TV and plugged it in, I wasn't blown away. Having used a Boxee Box for the last 16 months, I've come to expect flexibility and a broad selection of content sources from my streaming set-top boxes. In fact, after several minutes of playing around with it, I was tempted to box it back up and send it back. More

The Unspoken Etiquette of Facebook Photo Tagging

That afternoon, the Facebook notifications just kept rolling in, one after the other. You've been tagged in a photo, the social giant eagerly announced via email, again and again. The subject of many of those photographs - we'll call her Stacey, as she has requested anonymity - was not expecting these images to be published online, to say the least. More

The End of RIM As We Know It

BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion shares are down tonight after reporting a terrible quarter: Sales are shrinking at a time when its main competitor, Apple, saw iPhone sales more than double. RIM is no longer profitable. And now it is looking for a new plan. More

Google Is Now a Graphing Calculator

Google has decided to make its simple search box into yet another thing. It's now a WebGL-powered 3D graphing calculator. If you type in a two-variable function, Google's search box on the desktop will graph an animated, interactive, 3D plot right in your browser. More

New Ways to Do Disaster Recovery Using Virtualization

Remember your father's disaster recovery (DR) process? Chances are it involved using a bunch of data tapes and rotating them between home and work, or different offices. Tapes were cheap, but notoriously unreliable. And getting them restored on a server took a lot of work. There are better solutions for today's DR, including using one of a number of newer virtualization technologies that makes it easier and a lot faster to bring up a server from a backup. Let's look at some of the alternatives. More

How to Jailbreak According to chpwn

When you jailbreak an iOS device for the first time, you have a lot to learn. That's just the first of many ways jailbreaking is unlike the out-of-the-box Apple experience. To get a better sense of the purpose and potential of jailbreaking, I talked to one of the best. More

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With unemployment hovering at 8.3%, some employers feel they can ask for the unreasonable. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

What Should You Do If Your Employer Asks For Your Facebook Password? HOT TOPIC

Sure, you sacrifice some of your rights to privacy when you enter the workforce, but asking for social passwords seems to be an extreme request. Employees are advised to be proactive and ask about social media policies and, of course, assert their rights to privacy in non-work activities.

What would you say if your boss asked for your Facebook password?

From our readers:

Christiaan Conover -- An employer asking for your Facebook credentials is tantamount to asking for permission to read your personal (delivered to your house) mail, read your personal email or listen to your personal voicemail messages. They have no business gaining access to something that has no connection to the employer and violates another company's terms in the process.

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New York City Subpoenas Twitter For Occupy Wall Street Protester Data

U.S. activists who thought Twitter was a secure way to communicate during demonstrations may have another thing coming. The New York District Attorney's Office has begun sending subpoenas to Twitter seeking data on protesters arrested during the Occupy Wall Street protests last year. More

Best Wiki Ever? Hackpad Just Might Be

After catching a note about the wiki for SXSW being edited with Hackpad, I thought it might be worth a look. Then I caught the tagline, "best wiki ever." Well, that's a bold statement. Then I noticed that Tomboy creator Alex Graveley was part of the team behind it and thought maybe it really is. After a short test drive, I'm even more impressed. Hackpad combines the simplicity of Tomboy with real-time collaboration features that make it a great lightweight tool for teams. More

Google Semantic Search: Bad for SEO, Good for You

The Wall Street Journal reported today on some changes coming to Google search, but the article seems a bit confused about what they are. The lead item is that "[o]ver the next few months," Google "will begin spitting out more than a list of blue Web links," providing direct answers to questions instead. That's not new at all. More

How Windows 8 Succeeds From Here: A Prognosis

We live in a post-something era. This much, Microsoft is willing to concede; the iPad's thundering success changed the landscape. It has shown that the buyer is willing to imagine a different form factor than the PC commanding her principal information delivery platform. Apple has yet to conquer that platform, but it has fired its third round of volleys and the castle walls have been breached. More

[Poll] What Company Provides the Best HTML5 Framework and Toolset?

HTML5 and the mobile Web is starting to catch up with native apps, at least in terms of developer attention. Many developers are rushing to create HTML5-ready mobile websites or hybrid apps and need the proper tools to create dynamic apps that will function across platforms. As such, there is an arms race in the HTML5 ecosystem to create tools that developers will need to produce quality apps and content for the mobile Web, Android and iOS. More

Death By Wikipedia: Encyclopedia Britannica Stops Printing

So many things about printed encyclopedias seem insane now. The space that dozens of volumes takes up. How much an entire set weighs (well over 100 pounds). The fact that many middle class families used to have to pay for them in regular installments. How slowly they are updated with new information.

Today, we have a reservoir of infinite knowledge, most of which is virtually free to access. It takes up no more physical space than the tiny devices we use to view it. More

Stephen Wolfram Thinks Instagram is "Completely Nuts" For Writing Its Own Photo Filters

The easy news at South by Southwest yesterday was that Instagram has reached 27 million users and has indeed built the expected Android version. The hard news is that it may have wasted lots of time and effort along the way.

In a talk today entitled "Computation and Its Impact on the Future", Stephen Wolfram took a rapt audience on a tour of Wolfram Alpha and the Mathematica kernel that underlies it. To demonstrate Mathematica's capabilities, he wrote some software right in front of us to upload and filter photos. It took 10 seconds and two lines of code. More

5 Things I Learned About the Future from Stephen Wolfram

Lots of the knowledge dropped at South By Southwest Interactive is vertical. In the sense that tech people use that word, "vertical" means focused on a particular market or problem and all its implications from top to bottom. Talks tend to be about the business of this or that, or the makers of one app will talk about how they did it. More

[STUDY] Why Do People Use Instagram?

Instagram is the iPhone photographer's app of choice, and it's not just because of those slice and dice filters. Are Instagram users hasty and lazy, or do they actually take time to craft the photos before uploading them? A study done back when Instagram was fairly new suggests that the hardcore users of the Instagram app are anything but lazy. In fact, they might be using this tiny app to create art and build beautiful new communites. Before Zachary McCune joined @piictu as a community manager, he found himself in the UK on a fellowship studying the software users of Instagram. More

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The new iPad isn't a large step forward in terms of features, but it will be huge for Apple. Netflix didn't realize it was advertising on the Rush Limbaugh Show. And, Google started selling airfare to searchers. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

Why the New iPad is So Huge for Apple HOT TOPIC

Most will agree that the new iPad, launched this week, isn't a huge step forward. That being the case, Dan Frommer still believes it will be of enormous significance for Apple this year. 2012 may well be the year of the iPad.

From our readers:

Netflix: No, We Don't Advertise with Rush Limbaugh HOT TOPIC

Did Netflix advertise on the Rush Limbaugh show? Yes. Did they mean to do this? It's complicated.

The answer is really more of a primer in the way radio advertising works. Joe Brockmeier shares how buying general airtime is different than specifying a particular show in your ad buy. He also explains why those general ad buys may not be a good idea if you are advertising on a network that airs controversial content.

From our readers:

Jason -- I see Netflix has continued to run ads on Rush today - and not just any station, on flagship Rush station WABC.

I understand network buys. I also understand a company has the right to demand "no controversial programming" with those buys.

Obviously, all but Netflix have made this demand. There are no major buyers airing during Rush except Netflix now.

So, do you think you've been used? I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

Google Gets Into the Airline Ticket Business

Just in case it wasn't clear Google is going into the business of selling airline tickets. It's starting small with Cape Air, an independent New England-based regional airline.

The websites for Cape Air and Nantucket Airlines now have new booking software under the hood powered by Google-owned ITA Software, one of the "Ten Most Innovative Companies in Transportation," according to Fast Company.

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Sencha Touch 2 Allows Developers to Code iOS Apps With Windows PCs

Mobile HTML5 developer framework Sencha wants to be more than just a tool to develop hybrid mobile applications. The company's roadmap for 2012 is to become an end-to-end solution for designing, developing and deploying HTML5 applications and is taking its first steps toward that goal today by releasing Sencha Touch 2 out of beta. Sencha Touch 2 gives developers a better user interface for developing HTML5 that will give consumers a more robust user experience. More

Google Slashes Storage Prices: Still no GDrive

Google announced today that it's dropping its pricing on Google Cloud Storage and its integration with several enterprise storage offerings. Google's updated pricing scheme puts it roughly in line with Amazon's S3, but what else does Google have to offer except a new pricing scheme?

I spoke to Google's product manager for Cloud Storage, Navneet Joneja on Monday about the pricing change and how Google stands out in storage. More

The New iPad: The Perfect Tablet at the Perfect Time HOT TOPIC

So, Apple just threw a bunch of numbers and specifications at you. Yeah, it is a new iPad. So what? Nothing about the rumor cycle heading into the third generation iPad had me excited. Honestly, I am probably not going to buy the new iPad. Well, not anytime soon. But, as we noted earlier today, you probably will. My colleague Dan Frommer will explain later today why the third generation iPad will be the most important product Apple releases this year and will sell two to three times better than the previous two iPads ... combined. If you have never bought a tablet before, this is likely going to be the one that you do buy. More

[Infographic] How to Write the Best Call to Action Emails

The folks at Litmus.com have prepared this interesting infographic about to boost the results from your email campaigns. Who knew that your readers would be more likely to click on your messages if a button included an arrow icon? And that because of image-blocking features on most email programs, make sure that you use what they call a "bulletproof" button by combine HTML and background codes so that the button will be visible when images are enabled. More

How Social Networks are Killing the Internet HOT TOPIC

Share this on Facebook! Tweet this to your followers! Pin it to Pinterest! Submit the link to StumbleUpon and drive tons of traffic to your site! Digg it and hopefully more eyeballs will see it (and then it will end up on Facebook through the Digg Social Reader). Isn't it great? You can cross your fingers and hope that the entire social Web sees something you like if you share it to all of your social networks. After all, we are what we share. More

Amazon Leads Price War: Drops AWS Pricing Again, Leans Heavy on Reserved Instances

According to Amazon's blog today, the company is now on their 19th price cut since AWS debuted, but who's counting? Well, they are, apparently. The company is lowering pricing on EC2 instances, ElastiCache, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) and Amazon Elastic Map Reduce are all dropping significantly. Significantly, Amazon is heavily emphasizing its price cuts on Reserved Instances. More

Apple, That iPad Will Never Get the Network Speed You Claim HOT TOPIC

When Apple executives rolled out the new iPad yesterday, there was a lot of hyperbole and cheerleading on stage. Hey, these things happen, it is a launch event for one of the year's biggest products, after all. Yet, those with a critical eye noted something peculiar with Apple's announcement of its 3G and 4G LTE announcement: the speed numbers that executives touted are nowhere near what consumers will find in the real world. More

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Alicia Eler explores the "Not On Facebook" movement. Jon Mitchell explains why Google Drive won't be a Dropbox clone. Path uploads your entire address book to their servers without permission. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

Now is the Time to Quit Facebook

The number of people quitting Facebook is still small, but they are a vocal minority. Alicia Eler explores why they are leaving, shares the farewell stories of a few and explains why they felt a need to band together. Read Now is the Time to Quit Facebook to learn more about the "not on Facebook" movement.

Fabled Google Drive Won't Be Another Dropbox

Some may be expecting the fabled Google Drive to compare closely to Apple's iCloud or Dropbox, but Jon Mitchell explains why he expects the long rumored product to be a very different beast. Check out
Fabled Google Drive Won't Be Another Dropbox to learn more.

The Price of Free: Path Uploads Entire Address Book To Its Servers

Path has gotten a great deal of attention because it has a great user experience, but this week it got some bad press over a privacy issue. You might not expect the app to upload your entire address book to it's servers, but that's exactly what one smart hacker discovered. Path has since apologized but there is a great deal of damage done. Is the price of a free app worth the loss of privacy? Learn more about Path's privacy issue in The Price of Free: Path Uploads Entire Address Book To Its Servers.

From the comments:

Alan Langford - "The open source community has long distinguished between free as in no cost, and free as in freedom. One can expect that anything in the commercial sphere that comes at no monetary cost will do so by restricting one or more freedoms."

Tiago Sartor - "There's saying that goes like this: if something is free, then you are the product."

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First Glimpses of Office 15 Are Minus the Ribbon

As Microsoft adopts a new usage model with elements gleaned from the "Metro" style, will Office be moving away from the ribbon? The first clips of the new Office in action deliberately obfuscate the answer. More

Since 2009, Mobile Internet Usage Has Doubled Every Year

The growth of the mobile Web is on a steady rise. While pundits throw around words like "explosive" and "outrageous" the more precise word is probably "consistent." According to analytics firm StatCounter, users accessing the Web through mobile devices has almost doubled every year since 2009. In its latest report, StatCounter says that global Internet usage through mobile devices rose to 8.5%, nearly doubling the 2011 figure of 4.3%. More

New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for January 2012

2012 started with a flourish of new apps across iPhone, iPad and Android devices. The holiday season is the busiest time of year for app publishers but the follow up in January was equally impressive. That is a testament to the growing app ecosystem and the number of developers starting to program for mobile platforms. We take a look at some of our favorite new apps from last month below. More

Q&A: Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley on What He's Learning From Twitter and What's Next

Foursquare, about to celebrate its third birthday, is big but not huge. It has signed up 15 million users, hired over 100 employees and now boasts several million check-ins per day. That is impressive work for three years, but it must keep growing. More

Iran Blocks HTTPS, Cutting Off Gmail, Yahoo and Other Major Sites

The Iranian government isn't exactly known as a champion of free speech and access to information. Thus, it's never shocking to hear about Internet censorship in the country, the state of which appears to be getting worse all the time.

Today, news surfaced that the country is blocking access to websites that use HTTPS. That means that a number of popular, secure websites like Google, Gmail, Yahoo and even online banking sites are inaccessible. More

Microsoft Looks For Ways To Use Kinect In Business Applications [UPDATED]

The company launched Kinect for Windows this month, which is the first Kinect sensor licensed for commercial use. Microsoft Dynamics, the company's unit that develops enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management (CRM) software applications, is currently exploring business scenarios that could benefit from the use of Kinect technology. More

Facebook Bans Breast-Feeding Photos

Breasts. They're complicated.

Facebook states that breast-feeding pictures are okie dokie, just as long as there's no "exposed breast" that doesn't feature the child actively nursing. In other words, if there's no suckling, there's no posting. Today breast-feeding activists are using Facebook to coordinate "nurse-ins" outside of of the company's headquarters worldwide, including its homebase Menlo Park headquarters. More

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• The Online Ad Fails at the Super Bowl
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Flowtown releases a great social media cheat sheet for those new to social media. Dan Frommer wonders if downloads or discs are more applicable for the next gen XBox. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

[Infographic] The SMB Social Media Cheat Sheet

Make sure the social media noobs in your company check out The SMB Social Media Cheat Sheet from Flowtown. The infograhic includes instructions on how to use various social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Tumblr and Digg. LinkedIn is notably missing, but other that it's a great infographic and one that's sure to be helpful in your office.

Why Does the Next Xbox Need Discs At All?

Kotaku reported that the next generation of Xbox might not play used games. Dan Frommer wondered about the future of discs for the gaming industry as a whole.

The future is probably downloadable or streaming games, but until we get better bandwidth, it's not practical for everyone yet.

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[Infographic] PHP vs. Python vs. Ruby

Udemy has put together an infographic that compares Ruby, PHP and Python. This looks (briefly) at the history, popularity, ease of use, demand for programmers, benchmarks and more for each language. If you're job-hunting, Udemy says that you probably want to know PHP above Ruby or Python. More

Nearly 1 Million People Jailbroke Their iPhone or iPad Over the Weekend

People sure do love jailbreaking their iOS devices. In fact, after Friday's launch of the Absinthe A5 tool, jailbreaking iOS 5 on A5-powered devices was almost as popular as the iPhone 4S itself when it first launched. More

Apple's Growth Rate Is Simply Incredible... And It's Accelerating

There are plenty of impressive stats in Apple's December quarter earnings report, such as 37 million iPhones shipped, $46 billion of overall sales, and $13 billion of profit. More

A Brief History of the BlackBerry

Back in the early 1990s, we didn't have BlackBerries or any kind of wireless data devices. Phones weren't very "smart," and dial up still ruled the land. Then a trio of companies came together to invent the Viking Express which was a combination of an Ericsson Mobidem wireless data modem that was the size of a small brick, an HP 100 pocket-sized computer that looked more like a big calculator, and software from a company called Radiomail that ran on the DOS operating system of the HP. The world of wireless hasn't been the same since. More

[UPDATED] Twitter May Censor Certain Tweets In Certain Countries

Twitter will censor tweets in certain countries while still publishing them throughout the rest of the world, the company said Thursday on its blog.

"As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there," the company said. "Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content." More

Community Manager Appreciation Day 2012

Today is the 3rd Annual Community Manager Appreciation day. Originally founded back in 2010 by Jeremiah Owyang, the 4th Monday of January has since become a day to both thank Community Managers and to enjoy some great community-themed content. More

Priceline's Shatner "Negotiator" Makes His Last Deal Today

Perhaps not since "The Sweet Hereafter" has there ever been a more pivotal bus crash shown on TV or in the movies. Today Priceline begins a new ad campaign that shows the death of its William Shatner "Negotiator" character. For those of you that haven't seen "The Sweet Hereafter," a movie based on a Russell Banks story, it is worth renting just for Ian Holm's wonderful performance. But back to Priceline and Shatner. More

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• QR Codes on the Rise in Print Magazines
• How Will Free Wikipedia Access Change Africa and the Middle East?
• EU Commissioner: Rights of Media Could Trump Rights of Individuals

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• Like a Gangly 8-Year-Old, the Mobile Web Needs to Grow Up
• Rise of Mobile Web Apps Will Give webOS A Time to Shine
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• How Salesforce Chatter Connect Ate the Social Network
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• [Infographic] PHP vs. Python vs. Ruby
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Google personalizes search and lets you decide it you want to use it or not. Dan Rowinski releases his app roundup for December. Several hundred Foxconn employees threaten suicide. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

They Did It: Google Personalizes Search & It Is Not Evil

Google launched Personalized Search, just a week after Jon Mitchell lamented that Google+ was going to mess up the internet. First impressions were better than expected.

New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for December 2011

Dan released his list of December apps, including Google Currents, Skyscanner and Final Fantasy III, among others.

Foxconn Workers Threaten Mass Suicide [Updated]

More than 300 workers at Foxconn threatened to commit suicide. This isn't the first time the manufacturer of the Kindle, the iPad and the XBox 360 has come under fire for difficult working conditions. In this case, the standoff ended without any deaths.

More Top Posts:

Study: Your Facebook Personality Is The Real You

If you think you're different on Facebook than you are in real life, you've got some explaining to do.

A 2011 study from the University of Texas at Austin's Department of Psychology called "Manifestations of Personality in Online Social Networks: Self-Reported Facebook-Related Behaviors and Observable Profile Information" published in the academic journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking found that Facebook users are no different online than they are offline. More

Mozilla's Plan for Keeping Firefox Relevant in a Post-Browser Web

The change in emphasis for HTML5 away from just content and more toward functionality, coupled with a much deeper impact from Apple on the broader model of computing than even Apple's most adamant fans could have anticipated, has led to a changed scenario for the Web. By this time next year, barring any delays, the Web delivery model for the world's three most prevalent platforms - Windows, iOS, and Android - will be based on apps. More

Infographic: The Growth of Enterprise Mobility

No industry vertical has been more disrupted by the evolution of the smartphone than the enterprise. Since Apple released the iPhone in 2007 and the subsequent rise of Android, IT departments have struggled to reconcile device and application management, security and software deployment. What to do when every employee wants to bring their own device to work? More

Hybrid HTML5 Apps Are Less Costly to Develop Than Native

It seems like a fairly straightforward question: As a developer, business and enterprise, do I develop Web apps, native apps or some combination thereof? Answers to that question are anything but simple. Who is your target audience? What is the purpose of the app? There are a series of diverse questions that must be answered before jumping right into development. More

A Beginner's Guide to Twitter

Many of ReadWriteWeb's readers are old hands at Twitter, but the service gets thousands of new users every day. That includes a lot of folks who suddenly need to use Twitter as part of their job. If you're just being introduced to the joys of Twitter (or introducing it to another user), here's a short and friendly primer on what you need to know about using the site. More

Suddenly, Google Is Winning the Online Identity Race

Google shipped some major changes to search today. The announcement was called "Search, plus Your World." It was the inevitable launch of the integration between Google's core product, Web search, and its new identity service, Google+. There are now two modes of search on Google, personal and global. Personal search shows users stuff from their Google+ circles, and global search is good old Google search, albeit with public Google+ posts included. More

What You Need to Know About ICANN's New Generic Top Level Domains

Today could be the point in history at which we look back and say, "that was the day the Internet fundamentally changed." Today is the day the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) opens up its new registry for generic Top Level Domains and it will have a profound affect on how people find and consume information on the Web. Will it be a gold rush? Is this the end of the ".com" era as we have come to know it? More

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• Missing the Point of WordPress Entirely
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• LinkedIn Opens DataFu: A Library for Working with Hadoop and Pig
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• New Test Results: Google Rewires Search with Personal Touches
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Jon explains what he hates about Google+. NASA creates an FAQ for the debunked 2012 apocalypse. No SOPA is a Chrome extension that helps you spot SOPA supporters in your travels around the web. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

Google+ Is Going To Mess Up The Internet

Jon Mitchell hates Google+, and he's not shy about sharing why. In the most popular ReadWriteWeb story of the week, Jon details the issues he has with Google+, from the minor annoyances to more serious ones, like prioritizing Google+ posts about an article over the article itself, Jon is concerned about how Google+ is already affecting Google Search. Check out why Jon thinks Google+ is going to mess up the internet.

NASA Debunks 2012 Apocalypse With New FAQ

Don't start preparing for Armageddon just yet. NASA has created an FAQ to ease fears that world will end this year. Those of you sitting on a few cases of tactical sammiches should probably check out this FAQ pronto. For the rest of us, the FAQ is an entertaining and educational trip through some of the more interesting doomsday predictions for 2012.

Chrome Extension Warns You When You Browse A SOPA-Supporter's Website

SOPA isn't being covered by news outlets that are supportive of the measure, so how are you to know when your favorite website's parent company is a SOPA supporter? This Chrome extension warns you when you browse a SOPA-supporter's website. What you do with that knowledge is up to you.

Bonus: Find out where your legislators stand on SOPA/PIPA with this handy geo-enabled mobile HTML application.

More Top Posts:

32 More of the Best (And Worst) Tech Tattoos

At this point there's probably nothing in geekdom, no matter how arcane, that hasn't ended up on someone's skin. "In" someone's skin, to be precise. From ASCII art, to xkcd comics, to video games, to binary, to parts of your childhood you just can't leave behind, there are entire sites like Geeky Tattoos now devoted to nerd ink. More

Android Ice Cream Sandwich Running On Less Than 1% of Total Devices

Android Ice Cream Sandwich has made its first appearance in Google's fragmentation numbers for the platform. Android 4.0.x is now running on less than 1% of all devices that have accessed the Android Market in the last two weeks, coming in at 0.6% overall. More

Turn Your Android Into a Hotspot Without Your Carrier Knowing

There is little in the world that provokes the fury of smartphone consumers more than when one of the major carriers institutes a data cap, eliminates tethering or makes customers pay an exorbitant rate to use their smartphones as hotspots. Users want to be able to use their mobile bandwidth unhindered by any restrictions. More

First Signs of an Intel Windows 8 Ultrabook: Here We Go Again

For at least seven years running, Intel has been working to specify a form factor for lightweight, mobile computing devices. No, not tablets. As early as 2005, the first whispers of a joint Intel/Microsoft specification were bandied about, where Intel specifies the internals, and they supply the plastic. More

Analyst: Apple Will Lose Its Cool Factor In 2012

The last week of December and first couple of weeks of January is when analysts and pundits climb out of the woodwork to make bold predictions for the new year. Some are data driven, some are just based on hunches from following the trends. Investors Business Daily is no exception and has one bold prognostication for 2012: Apple will "lose its cool." More

The Verified Twitter Account for Rupert Murdoch's Wife Was Fake [Updated]

Rupert Murdoch joined Twitter last week. So did his wife, Wendi Deng Murdoch. "Joining my husband @rupertmurdoch in our new digital adventure on Twitter," reads her bio. Cute, right? Rupert was verified, Wendi was verified, and so began another cute chapter of celebrities figuring out how to use Twitter. More

A Guy's Guide To Pinterest

One of the first things I noticed when I signed up for Pinterest earlier this week is that several of my female friends and acquaintances were already on the site. It was as if they had been holding out on what many are promising will be 2012's hot ticket in the social networking space. More

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• Android Holo Themes An Important Requirement to Ease Fragmentation
• Android Ice Cream Sandwich Running On Less Than 1% of Total Devices
• First Signs of an Intel Windows 8 Ultrabook: Here We Go Again

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• AppMobi Solves HTML5 Audio Problems, Accelerates Animation with directCanvas
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• What is Really New About the Cloud?
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• Google Obtains IBM Technology for Assessing Social Users' Interests

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Jon Mitchell reminds us of all the most epic tech fails of 2011. Richard MacManus counts down the biggest surprises of 2011. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

More Top Stories

Top 7 Epic Tech Fails of 2011

From Netflix to RIM, Jon recounts the years biggest "Oops!" moments. If you're having a bad day, these colossal mistakes should cheer you up. Check out the Top 7 Epic Tech Fails of 2011.

5 Biggest Surprises of 2011

Richard counted down the biggest surprises of 2011, including Google+ (which ReadWriteWeb found in March). For the rest of the surprises, check out the 5 Biggest Surprises of 2011.

More Top Posts:

Untethered Jailbreak For iOS 5 Coming Any Day Now

Owners of iPads, iPhones and iPods running the latest version of iOS have not yet had the option to jailbreak their devices in a way that's at all worth the trouble. For those who are dying to break free of Apple's restrictions, an untethered jailbreak appears to be on the way. More

Why Firefox Isn't Doomed [HOT TOPIC]

This has been a rough year for Mozilla and its Firefox team. Once the darling of the Web and the champion of the oppressed against Microsoft and Internet Explorer, Firefox is facing stiff competition from its primary benefactor and backlash from users. Chrome also seems to be the preferred browser of Web developers. Naturally, this means speculation about the future of Firefox. More

Top 5 Internet Devices of 2011

Remember when accessing the Internet meant sitting down at a desk with a clunky computer and CRT monitor on it and then waiting for the dial-up modem to finish making that awful noise? Those days are thankfully long gone and today we are speedily using the Web from a variety of devices, big and small. More

Facebook Testing Private Messages For Pages

Facebook just confirmed with us that it's testing a feature that would allow people and Pages to communicate privately. This update was first spotted by communications agency WeAreSocial.sg. The private messaging feature would give customers the opportunity to speak privately with page owners. This is actually another Twitter-like move by Facebook. More

Blogger Gets "The First of Many Google+ Features"

Blogger has announced "the first of many Google+ features" today, launching an automatic +snippet sharing box after you publish a blog post. It only saves a few clicks, but this makes it as easy as humanly possible to share Blogger posts to your Google+ circles. More

YouTube for Schools: All the TED Talks, None of the Cat Videos

YouTube has launched a new initiative called YouTube for Schools, which will enable educators to open up classrooms to the wide world of educational content on YouTube without all the junk. Open Internet access in schools is tricky, with all the distractions and time-wasters out there, so Google is taking this step to make educators' lives easier. More

Bottlenose Intelligent Social Dashboard Launches Private Beta [HOT TOPIC]

In the words of Nova Spivack, we are approaching The Sharepocalypse. The real-time Web sounded like a great idea, but it has become impossible to manage. The success of social media has proven, ironically, to be its biggest challenge. The services we already use are getting busier, and whole new networks are popping up all the time. Email used to be the only problem. Today, the info streams are legion. More

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• What's in Store for SUSE in 2012
• CIOs Survey: Consumerism Threatens the Enterprise Cloud
• The Insider Threat Is Still Huge

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• Windows Azure Adds Node.js Support, Hadoop Preview
• Box Enterprise Goes to Unlimited Storage
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• Why Firefox Isn't Doomed
• Tales of Extreme Coding: Shark Week at BrightTag
• Requiem for Silverlight

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• Three Out of Four Mobile Developers Writing for iOS First
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ReadWriteWeb commenters continue to teach us lessons. Today's lesson is one of reasoned debate in the age of ad hominem attacks. This and more in today's Daily Wrap.

Sometimes it's difficult to catch every story that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well. This is a new feature at ReadWriteWeb so we covet your feedback. If you have suggestions, please leave them in the comments below or reach out to me directly at robyn at readwriteweb.com.

3 Lessons Learned from the SOPA Debate Last Week

Last week we published a legal analysis of SOPA. Two commenters, e-novel publisher, Rowena Cherry, and TechDirt founder, Michael Masnick, engaged in a lively debate that inspired Scott Fulton to write up the lessons we should learn from such an intelligent, if not always perfectly polite, conversation. Since so many internet communities have thrown away vigorous but reasoned debate and turned to personal attacks instead, I hope we can learn from Rowena's and Michael's example.

Here are a few more must read posts, chosen by your fellow community members.

Cisco, Google Ventures and VMware Back Puppet Labs with $8.5 Million

Now You Can Tether Your iPhone to Your Laptop Without a Monthly Fee [Updated: Not Anymore]

BradBell is amazed that we're still dealing with this issue in 2011.

Who would ever imagine, with all the innovation in digital communications, we'd be paying the lions share to the poor, dumb, half-assed telephone companies for the thumb on our wind pipes.

Google Opens the Door to Mobile Maps Inside Buildings

Google Ditches The Black Bar, Puts Search Atop All Pages

How Facebook Screwed With Everyone's Privacy And What It's Doing About It

The Five Signs That an Application is Ripe For the Cloud

EU Advocate General: You Can't Copyright a Programming Language

The iPad Isn't Just Killing PC Sales - Memory Chips Take a Hit Too

Tom Foremski, a ReadWriteWeb reader, added:

DRAM makers have always been losing money, way too much over-production is the cause, not iPads. Otherwise you would see an effect on microprocessor sales, and you don't, Intel is killing it every quarter.

Windows Phone Outperforms Android and iOS In Mobile Advertising, Smaato Reports

ReadWriteWeb commenter, Jonathan Neumann wondered:

I'd be very curious to know what other mobile developers think too. I just released an iPhone app following the traditional paid scheme, but I am wondering if I shouldn't also offer this app with ads. Would you recommend ad-supported apps, fellow coders?

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Marshall Kirkpatrick explains Why Facebook's Seamless Sharing is Wrong. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

Top Stories of the Week

Why Facebook's Seamless Sharing is Wrong

Our coverage of Facebook's frictionless sharing was of great interest to the ReadWriteWeb community. Several of this week's top stories were focused on Facebook's oft overwhelming auto-sharing of banal minutiae.

Marshall looked at why the sharing was wrong, and even compares Facebook to malware.

From Marshall:

I think Facebook ought to put a greater emphasis on acting in good faith and helping its users make informed decisions, in line with their reasonable expectations, as the company seeks to experiment with building the future of media.

ReadWriteWeb commenter JLishere summed it up:

Infographic: xkcd Shows You the Money

Another popular post this week was our coverage of xkcd's infographic, "Money": A well-done visualization of money, from the cost of a single restaurant meal at McDonalds to the net worth of Jeff Bezos. It's really a must-see infographic. I ordered a copy of the poster because it's difficult to appreciate on a computer monitor.

Google+ Was Never a Facebook Competitor

Guest blogger, Brad Jordan, makes the case that Google+ was never intended to compete with Facebook, but to expand their advertising reach further.

More Top Posts:

• Google Protects User Data for the Future with Forward Secrecy
• How to Start The Next Internet Meme
• Amazing Kickstarter Project Twine: Cheap and Easy Internet of Things
• Windows 8 Will Bring Personal Cloud to Billions, Says Microsoft
• Cautious Optimism Follows SOPA Hearings: Don't Get Cocky
• In Quest to Become World's Most Ridiculous Nation, Pakistan Bans Make-Believe Curse Words from Texting [Updated]
• Facebook Hasn't Ruined Sharing, It's Just Re-Defined It

ReadWriteWeb Channels

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• Infographic: xkcd Shows You the Money
• How to Start The Next Internet Meme
• Cautious Optimism Follows SOPA Hearings: Don't Get Cocky

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• A New Cloud Drive With a Twist From Pogoplug
• Amazing Kickstarter Project Twine: Cheap and Easy Internet of Things
• Netflix Benchmarks Cassandra on AWS</li>

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• Free Online Cryptography Class from Stanford University in January
• IBM's Andy Piper (Part 2): How MQTT Averts a 'Thing-in-the-Middle' Attack
• New Relic Expands Performance Monitoring as a Service with Python

Mobile

• Has the Windows Phone Marketplace Reached Critical Mass?
• AppMobi to Open Source All Its HTML5 APIs on Black Friday
• What Is New in PhoneGap Version 1.2?

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HR 3261 has riled up the internet and with good reason. We take a look at the effects of the new bill, in an easy to follow infographic from the folks at AmericanCensorship.org. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

Top Stories of the Week

Infographic: Effects of the Internet Blacklist Bill (SOPA) [Updated]

Trying to keep up with every threat to privacy online is a never-ending race on the hamster wheel. For that reason, when someone jumps up and down and tells us to pay close attention to the latest threat, many of us shrug our shoulders because we just don't have the time to learn about each and every major privacy threat in the tech new cycle. To help us cut through the overwhelming amount of information we've already received about SOPA, the Stop Internet Piracy Act, the team at AmericanCensorship.org brings us this simple to follow infographic that very clearly details the risks of SOPA.

ReadWriteWeb commenter COV summed it up best:

The Brand Pages Face Off: Google+ vs. Facebook

In this corner, veteran marketing tool, Facebook brand pages. In the other corner, newcomer to the social space, Google+ brand pages. Richard takes a hard look at both offerings by checking out the brand pages of luxury auto makers BMW and Mercedes-Benz on each.

Comment from Diane Gomez:

What a Tweet Can Tell You

Here's a review of DataSift, the second licensed reseller of tweets. More likely a business offering than a consumer tool, DataSift has great potential and a confusing UI. Read Marshall's post for a look at the possibilities of Twitter data mining with robust data tool.

Vijay Hanumolu tweeted:

9 Innings worth of MLB on ReadWriteWeb

ReadWriteWeb coverage of the MLB.com College Challenge, a 14 hour Hack Day open to only a few students but with impressive VC potential.

More Top Posts:

• Updated: Hollywood and Congress Target Mozilla

Comment from Les Orchard:



• Women's Heel Size Drops, Thanks to IBM Analytics


• From DevOps to NoOps: 10 Cloud Services You Should Be Using


• Foursquare's Website Just Got a Whole Lot More Useful


• Hacker Shows How To Easily Root the Kindle Fire


• Tumblr Censors Our Dashboards In Opposition To SOPA


• So This is Openness, Google X, and What Have You Done?

ReadWriteWeb Channels

Enterprise

• Infographic: Data Deluge - 8 Zettabytes of Data by 2015
• IBM Tech Trends 2011 Highlights Biz Analytics Needs
• So This is Openness, Google X, and What Have You Done?

Cloud

Follow ReadWriteCloud on Twitter and join the ReadWriteCloud LinkedIn Group.

• Red Hat Beefs Up Java Experience for OpenShift PaaS
• EnterpriseDB's Karen Padir: From MySQL to Postgres + Hadoop
• Box.Net Launches $2M Innovation Fund

Hack

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• Draft W3C Standard Looks More Like 'Please, Do Not Track'
• RWW at MLB.com Challenge
• Maybe it's Time for Kinkos to Offer 3D Printers

Mobile

• Top Mobile Developer Priorities of 2011: Reach, Engagement, Loyalty & Monetization
• Google Starts Pushing the Android Ice Cream Sandwich Source Code
Hacker Shows How To Easily Root the Kindle Fire

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It was announced this week that a Wikileaks volunteer's Gmail data, including his IP address and his contacts list, was handed over to the U.S. Government upon request. This, plus FSF founder Richard Stallman's final (we hope) insensitive blow to the memory of Steve Jobs, are our top news stories this week at ReadWriteWeb.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

Top Stories of the Week

Google complied with a request from the U.S. Government and handed over the IP address and contacts list of Jacob Appelbaum, a WikiLeaks volunteer and developer for Tor. Appelbaum's ISP, Sonic.net, attempted to fight the order, but in the end, also complied. According to Google's Transparency Report, the company received 4,601 user data requests from the U.S. government in the second half of 2010, complying with 94%.

Our own Joe Brockmeier called for a new voice to lead the Free Software Foundation after reading Richard Stallman's controversial post after the death of Steve Jobs. From Joe's post, "It's unseemly to wish away those we do not agree with. What Stallman is saying, in essence, is that his ideals of free software can only compete with what users want from computing products when they're less attractive."

More Top Posts:

• Top 6 Dumbest Hacks of All Time
• The Women Who Made Google Plus: 22 Developers Behind the World's Fastest Growing Social Network
• Google Plus Traffic Drops, 1269% Gains Erased
• How To Share Google Reader Stories to Google Plus
• Google Guns for Amazon Web Services with New Storage, App Engine Offerings
• Why Twitter Users Aren't Using Google Plus
• New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for September 2011
• Infographic: Most Disruptive Companies in Tech

ReadWriteWeb Channels

Enterprise

• Remembering Dennis Ritchie, Creator of the C Programming Language and UNIX Co-Creator
• SQL Server 2012: Microsoft's Quentin Clark on Data You Can Touch
• Time to "Like" Your Local Mall

Cloud

Follow ReadWriteCloud on Twitter and join the ReadWriteCloud LinkedIn Group.

• Google Guns for Amazon Web Services with New Storage, App Engine Offerings
• How I Learned to Stop Whining and Embrace the Cloud
• Microsoft, Hortonworks to Integrate Hadoop with Windows Server

Hack

Follow ReadWriteHack on Twitter.

• The Data Journalist Tool Belt
• Top 6 Dumbest Hacks of All Time
• AMQP Aims to Resolve the Middleware Messaging Logjam

Mobile

• Beware of Fake Netflix Android Apps
• Samsung & Google Set to Deliver Ice Cream Sandwich in Hong Kong
• New Version of CyanogenMod Boasts New Features for More Devices

ReadWriteWeb Community

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This week the internet said goodbye to the incomparable Steve Jobs. The staff of ReadWriteWeb covered some of his best moments, and his worst. Though he has passed on, his impact was large, and we will not soon forget Apple's founder. RIP Steve.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

Top Stories of the Week

At 56, Steve Jobs rocked our world, and his death was felt from Silicon Valley to Bahrain. Here are a few of our posts commemorating his life.

• Steve Jobs, 1955-2011
• What Steve Meant Back Then
• A Great User Experience: The Web Legacy of Steve Jobs
• From Silicon Valley to Bahrain, the Web Mourns Steve Jobs
• Steve Jobs' Legacy In the Pantheon of Great American Innovators
• 6 of Apple's Greatest Mistakes
• The Other Steve Jobs: Censorship, Control and Labor Rights
• WordPress Offers Free Retro Mac Blog Theme In Honor of Steve

On a brighter note, this week we learned that Facebook is as Big as the Internet of 2004. The cool infographic on that post had us all reminiscing on our own early internet experiences and ReadWriteWeb took some time this week to look back on the internet of 1995. Were you on the internet in 1995?

Overshadowed this week was the launch of the iPhone 4S. This latest iteration from Apple includes iCloud, an 8 megapixel camera, will work on CDMA and GSM networks and more. Below is a comprehensive wrap-up of our coverage.

iPhone 4S Launch

• Who's Gonna Buy the iPhone 4S? Not Us!
• iCloud: Can Apple Finally Get Seamless Sync Right?
• iPhone 4S: Siri Should Be Sulu
• 8 Things the iPhone Rumor Mill Got Dead Wrong This Time
• Why Is Apple Joining the Snail Mail Cards Business?
• Apple Unveils iPhone 4S: Faster CPU, Better Camera and Voice Controls
• Apple's "Find My Friends" is Apple at Its Worst
• Apple: iOS 5 Will Be Available For Download on October 12
• Where Does the iPhone Stand In The World?
• Why There Was Never Going to Be Facebook Integration In iOS 5
• Big Question (Answered): "You've Seen the iPhone 4S... What Do You Think?"

More 'Don't Miss' Posts

• Is Dropbox Really The World's 5th Most Valuable Startup?
• Going It Alone As An Indie App Developer
• How False Rumors of a Surprise Radiohead Concert Spread Online
• Dice.com: Signs of a .NET Talent Shortage
• Porn Is No Longer A Leading Indicator of Web Innovation
• One Billion Tiny, Hyper-Detailed Glowing Earth Models Now in the Wild
• Google Maps Adds New Crowdsourced Maps of Afghanistan, Iraq & Elsewhere

ReadWriteWeb Meetup in Portland

Imagine an evening surrounding by cool folks, like yourself, discussing important technology stories, debating the merits of data portability and net neutrality, thumb wrestling over browser preferences and your favorite phone OS.

If that sounds like your idea of the coolest evening ever, and you're local to Portland, OR, please come and hang out with many of the ReadWriteWeb staff, and a group of the most awesome readers a blog could have, at the Green Dragon on October 13, 6:30 - 8:30.

RSVP for the Portland Meetup

To plan a ReadWriteWeb meetup in your area, check out our ReadWriteWeb Meetup Everywhere page. There are already half a dozen meetups being planned in November for St Louis, Savannah, Boston, New Zealand and Palo Alto. If your city isn't there, please list it asap.

ReadWriteWeb Channels

Enterprise

• California Gets Reader Privacy Act: Still Not Enough
• 6 of Apple's Greatest Mistakes
• The Way We Were c.1995

Cloud

• Amazon Adds SQS Queue Administration to AWS Console
• Who Wrote Hadoop? It's the Community, Stupid
• Lessons Learned From Target.com's Mess

Hack

• If HTML5 Kills the Blog Format, I Won't Shed a Tear
• What Microsoft Can Learn After Choking Off Desktop Gadgets
• Dice.com: Signs of a .NET Talent Shortage

Mobile

• Going It Alone As An Indie App Developer
• Maine Was the Top State for Tablet Lovers in September
• Gingerbread Almost on 40% of Android Devices, Froyo Finally Under 50%

ReadWriteWeb Community

You can find ReadWriteWeb in many places on the web, a few of which are below.

• ReadWriteWeb on Facebook
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