Welcome to our weekly recap. This week’s biggest stories were; the launch of the Internets first non-Latin domain names,  Facebook’s announcement that it had partnered with McDonald’s to launch its long awaited geolocation features, rumors that social gaming company Zynga is planning on leaving Facebook and Google’s bold interface changes.

Before we crack on, do make sure you subscribe to TNW Podcast (iTunes | XML). On this week’s episode we offer a worldly perspective on this week’s tech news. This week many things were available to argue about including non-latin domains and Google’s entry into eBooks.

First Non-Latin Domain Names Go Live

This week was “historic” for internationalized domain names as the first three non-Latin script top level domain names go live.

All three are country code top level domains under the IDN ccTLD fast track program.  ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) first reported confirmation of the change in October 2009. Since then more than 20 countries have requested approval for international domains but today, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the first to be released.

Facebook Set to Launch Geolocation

AdAge broke the story on Thursday that Facebook was partnering with McDonald’s to launch their Geolocation feature. The details of how the location feature will work and how it will integrate with status updates is still uncertain. At this point, all we can do is speculate on how the feature will work. Facebook’s implementation of location and how it will affect startups Foursquare and Gowalla remains to be seen. Although both are hot companies in the space, Foursquare has 1M users while Gowalla has about 250,000. Compare that to Facebook which boasts over 400M plus users with 100M of them accessing the service on a daily basis using a mobile device.

Zynga to Leave Facebook?

Rumors heated up this week that Zynga, the addictive social gaming company built on Facebook, would be leaving (or at least attempting to eliminate it’s dependency) on Facebook. In an email sent to TechCrunch by an anonymous source, CEO Mark Pincus held a company meeting to discuss Zynga Live – a social gaming network that would reside outside of Facebook’s walls.

Google’s New Look

Google has been gradually changing its UI over recent months and this week implemented some bolder changes. Changes were also implemented on it’s mobile platform. If you don’t fancy the new interface, you can always use the old one which is still available. Interface aside, if you missed Conan O’Brien’s talk at Google I would stop what you’re doing and watch it – it’s a must see.

Stats

• iPad Slows Both Netbook & iPod Touch Sales
• Apple has sold 1 Million iPads in 28 days
• Twitter, Facebook soar as Myspace sags in US market share
• Smartphone Sales Continue To Blow Up Worldwide

Quick Hits

• Apple is developing a Flash alternative
• Twitter Launches Embeddable Tweet Feature
• 8 mega tech stories to watch over the next 8 months
• Google To Sell eBooks This Summer
• Bing Now Lets You Shop With Your Friends
• Skype adds 5 way video chat
• Cupidtino: A Dating Site ONLY For Apple Fan Boys and Gals
• 5 reasons to root your Android
• Why Virtual Worlds are getting a Second Life
• iPad 3G’s Unlimited Data Plan Truly Is Unlimited
• Eventbrite Releases Check-in App
• Threadsy is Now Open To The Public
• Gary Vaynerchuk Becomes The Wine Guy for Virgin America
• Face.com gets an API
• DoubleDutch, Winner of The Best Mobile Startup Award At #TNW
• Distimo, Winners of The B2B Award At #TNW

Welcome to The Next Web Network’s Weekly Recap. This week we unveiled a brand new design here at The Next Web to coincide with the 5th Edition of The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam. The week was headlined by HP’s purchase of Palm as well as Steve Job’s blog post on his anti-Flash position.

The Next Web Podcast Episode 13: “Darth Vader Wearing a Hoodie”

You just have to listen to understand the title of this week’s show. The discussion this week centered around our new design here at The Next Web as well as discussion on Microsoft’s Messenger Connect and HP’s purchase of Palm.

Subscribe in iTunes | XML

Stories of the Week

• HP Buys Palm for $1.2 Billion – huge deal expected to accelerate HP’s position in the mobile space.
• Apple vs. Flash – In a rare blog post, Steve Jobs spoke out on Apple’s position against Flash. Is this a new, more open Steve Jobs? Microsoft sides with Apple.
• Apple Purchases Siri - a voice-command driven virtual assistant iPhone app.
• The iPhone 4G drama continued this week as police seized Jason Chen’s computers.
• Microsoft To Rescue HTC And Android Against Apple’s Patent Claims.
• Twitter’s Official Android App Launches – is it better than Seesmic’s Twitter Android App?

The Next Web Conference 2010

This past week was the 5th edition of The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam. A great lineup of speakers as well the PayPal X Startup Rally made for a great event. The winner of the PayPal X Startup Rally was Next2News whose innovative ad concept captured everyone’s attention. All of the media from the event was aggregated on our live portal here. Here are some of the great company presentations and talks given at the event:

How Tim Ferriss Learned to Love the Haters
Mark Earls Says Influencers Don’t Exist
Evan Roth does art & software for the bored-at-work crowd
Microsoft demos Messenger Connect, a new social API
Rapportive turns the inbox into a platform
Hyves asks “Who’s Your Mayor Now?” with Location Based Payments
Tribe of Noise gets loud to bring music pros and projects together
Dutch location based service Feest.je gets ready to party
Printing-as-a-service with Peecho Printcloud
Buildor Pro brings the power of Dreamweaver to the cloud
Fashiolista introduces a new way to shop for fashion online
22tracks takes its hit web app onto TV
That’s Edutainment! English Attack! announces open beta
DoubleDutch: Custom geolocation apps for small groups
Distimo: Better mobile app analytics, for free
MusikPitch: Bringing crowdsourcing to music
Brainient enhances web video with SDK and a little “Magic”

The NEW The Next Web Design

This week we unveiled a brand new design here at The Next Web. As Zee explains, the new site aims to give readers “more than just a ‘blog’ but rather a dashboard to the ‘next’ web.” While the new site does have some bugs, please stick with us as we work through it. We are really excited with our brand new look!

Welcome to The Next Web Network’s Weekly Recap. Make sure to check out this week’s podcast where we discuss the biggest stories of the week.

This week was all about Facebook’s move to redefine the web as we know it. At their f8 event, many things were announced including Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol, which seeks to bring your social graph with you no matter where you are on the web. Facebook also released new Community Pages but failed to announce a Geolocation product. This week also saw more details released over Gizmodo’s alleged acquisition of an iPhone 4G.

The Next Web Conference 2010

Stay tuned for an exciting week here The Next Web. If you didn’t grab your tickets or can’t make it to Amsterdam for our 2010 Conference you will be missing out. We have the parties lined up and an great group of speakers ready to go. We’ll be covering all the talks and announcements here this week.

Facebook’s f8 Announcements

The major news this week came out of Facebook’s f8 event which took place this past Wednesday in San Francisco. Ahead of the conference Facebook had a big announcement regarding their new Community Pages. Community Pages allow Facebook users to gather around subjects to share their knowledge and moderate the contents of the page.

sAt Wednesday’s event, Facebook added a couple additional major announcements. The first was a partnership with Microsoft to offer Facebook users the ability to collaborate with Microsoft Office documents. The major news was Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol (reaction, analysis and it’s possible threat to Google). The protocol is Facebook’s attempt to add itself as a layer on top of the entire web and bring your social graph to any website you visit (even if you have never visited previously). Check out our overview of this protocol as well as the other features that were announced.

What was announced was almost as big as what wasn’t. Many expected Facebook to announce its Geolocation product. The Geolocation space has been heating up for a while. This was especially true this week as rumors swirled regarding a Foursquare sale. While third party apps have stepped in to fill Facebook’s obvious hole, it should be only a matter of time before Facebook makes an announcement.

iPhone 4G

This past week was filled with conspiracy theories about Gizmodo’s acquisition of what is believed to be a prototype of a iPhone 4G. Was the iPhone lost or stolen? Did Gizmodo pay for the device? Facts remain uncertain but here is an overview of what we do know about the situation (and 6 things we still really want to know). As it turns out, this may not be the first time iPhone 4G pictures were released. Images found on Twitpic 2 months ago closely resemble those exposed by Gizmodo. Cashing in on the buzz from this incident was Lufthansa. In a genius marketing move they offered Grey Powel (the guy who lost the iPhone) a free flight Munich and some free beers when he got there.

Quick Hits

• Foursquare Will Soon Decide If It Will Sell Itself
• The Death of The Website
• Tumblr and Posterous Both Released Optimized Mobile Versions for their Sites
• iPad 3G Available In US On April 30th
• Android Market (Unofficially) Eclipses 50,000 Apps
• Windows Phone 7 Videos: OS Demo on LG and Office Demo
• Leaked Dell Windows 7 Phone Is Electric
• Hey Zuckerberg, Give Me Back My Facebook Lite
• Google Launches ‘Government Request Tool’ To Show Censorship Requests
• Give Blippy Another Chance, They Deserve It
• iPhone OS 4.0 Adding Deep Facebook Integration?
• Hulu to start beta-testing $9.95 subscription service – 5 Things the Service Needs
• Q1 Earnings: Apple, Yahoo and Microsoft
• YouTube Video Rental Store Open For Business
• Google Maps Turn by Turn Navigation For Android Arrives in UK, Free Turn by Turn coming to iPhone?
• Could it be that LinkedIn just isn’t that innovative?
• Last.fm scrobbles 40 Billionth track, doubles US traffic
• Should politicians check-in every time they kiss a baby?
• A Week Later: Boris and Zee’s Take on the iPad
• Google Reader Now Supports Video and Audio Tags
• Paypal To Offer In App Purchases On iPhone and Android
• Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac Beta 2 Leaked
• The Social and Collaborative Features of Microsoft Office 2010
• eBay Wins Online Auction Patent but Loses Another Case to Louis Vuitton
• 4 Ways Smartphone Vendors Can Retain Customers

Welcome to The Next Web Network’s Weekly Recap. Make sure to check out this week’s podcast where we discuss the biggest stories of the week. Also, the deadline to grab your tickets to The Next Web Conference 2010 in Amsterdam (April 27 – 29) is fast approaching.

This week was all about Chirp, Twitter’s first official conference. At Chirp Twitter unveiled it’s long awaited monetization strategy as well as a bunch of new product announcements. Google also made a variety of product announcements as well as posting strong Q1 results. This week we also announced the finalists for The Next Web Paypal X Startup Rally 2010.

Twitter’s Chirp Announcements

This past Thursday and Friday was Twitter’s first official conference dubbed Chirp. The conference was highly anticipated for a couple reasons. First, it was expected that their business model would finally be unveiled. Second, Twitter had a lot of damage control after last weeks drama with developers (outlined here). In order to improve developer relations, Twitter officially responded to developers and also launched dev.twitter.com. As for their product announcements, Twitter had many:

1. Promoted Tweets – Twitter monetization model built around paying for tweet promotion in search. Details
2. Places of Interest - instead of listing coordinates of tweets, Twitter will associate them with the name of the specific location. Details
3. Annotations – third party developers will be able to add any metadata they want to a tweet. Details
4. @Anywhere – allows third party sites to have deeper integration with Twitter. Details
5. URL Shortener – Twitter will be launching their own URL shortener. Details
6. Twitter Media – launched a new portal for journalist and media focused on case studies for using the service
7. Twitter Archive – The US Library of Congress will be the official archive for tweets. Details

In addition to the above announcements, Twitter also hinted at the fact that they will be integrating media sharing at some point in the future. They also released some impressive stats on Twitter’s usage (infographic). For a detailed summary of all of Twitter’s Chirp announcements in one handy list, visit our cheat sheet here.

Google Product Announcements

While Twitter dominated this week’s tech news cycle, Google did announce new features to a variety of their products. They also reported their financials for Q1 which fell in line with analyst expectations. The biggest news was on Monday when they announced the acquisition of Plurk, a visual search engine. Google’s product announcements included:

1. Google Docs – many new and improved features for Google Docs announced. Details
2. Follow/Rebuzz Buttons - Official Google Buzz buttons were released. Details
3. iPad App – Google’s Mobile App that has been available for the iPhone for a while is now available for the iPad. Details
4. Twitter Timeline Search – will offer a timeline of tweets by day and topics. Details
5. Cloud Printing - Chomium OS feature attempting to solve the dreaded printer driver problem. Details
6. Search Enhancements – Localized Google Suggest, Improved Name Search and Spelling Auto-Correct added to Google Search. Details
7. Bye “http://” - Chrome’s developer version now eliminates the “http://” in the address bar. Details

Quick Hits

• Eric Schmidt Thinks Blogging Is Low Quality Filler
• Why Dave McClure is Wrong about LBS
• Opera Announced Impressive Stats, Was Also Accepted to App Store
• Google Wave Helps Journalist Win Pulitzer Prize
• New Macbook Pro’s Released
• Adobe Unveiled Creative Suite 5 but not without complaints over International Pricing
• Digg Relaunch Reportedly Pushed Back 2 Months
• Google Buzz Coming To TweetDeck
• One of the first news reports about this thing called “Internet” [video]
• 5 Questions For Idealabs’ Twitter Marketplace
• Microsoft Phones To Be Called Kin One and Kin Two – Hands on Video and Will it Sell?
• SocialCast CEO Talks Upcoming iPad App and the Future of Social Media in The Enterprise
• Last.fm kills on-demand streaming
• Foursquare Hits New Landmark: First check-in at the North Pole
• Facebook launches new Safety Center in child protection push
• Apigee makes life easier for Twitter developers
• Augmented Reality Driving – Not Safe but Oh SO Cool
• Is Apple Banning iPhone App Analytics?
• Alyssa Milano Explains Twitter, Hashtags and Replies to Jimmy Kimmel
• Echofon for the Mac Officially Released.
• Shots of Dell’s New Tablet Leaked
• Has Twitter Got It Wrong? AdAdmire launches ads for followers, not tweets

Welcome to The Next Web Network’s Weekly Recap. Make sure to check out this week’s podcast where we discuss the biggest stories of the week. Also, the deadline to grab your tickets to The Next Web Conference 2010 is fast approaching. This week we were excited to announce that Dr. Robert Cailliau, co-inventor of the World Wide Web, will be the opening keynote speaker at the conference.

This week Apple once again dominated the news. On Thursday, Steve Jobs unveiled the new features that will be a part of the iPhone 4.0 OS. The new OS is set to drop this summer alongside new iPhone hardware. The other major news was Twitter’s threat to third party developers dubbed as “hole fillers” by Fred Wilson, Twitter board member and principal at Union Square Ventures (investor in Twitter). A blog post by Wilson along with a couple big official Twitter app announcements caused rifts in Twitter’s developer community.

iPad Recap and iPhone 4.0 OS

Last week was dominated by the iPad news. While the initial sales figures were impressive, the feedback hasn’t been completely positive. However, most are impressed by the 1.0 product. If considering buying an iPad (or any Apple product) make sure to check out Sachin Agarwal’s Guide to Apple Product Cycles.

Apple followed up last week’s big iPad release with an event on Thursday at their HQ in Cupertino, CA to announce the upcoming features in iPhone OS 4.0 (to be released this summer along with new hardware). The biggest announcement was that the new OS will include multitasking (as well as background location). Check out this video of the iPhone’s multitasking ability. Other key features included folders and Mail improvements. They also announced their new ad network dubbed iAd. Here is our complete recap of Apple’s event announcements.

Twitter Encroaches on Third Party Developers

On Wednesday Fred Wilson, a principal at VC firm Union Square Ventures (an investor in Twitter), wrote a blog post that caused many third party developers building on top of Twitter’s platform to take notice. Wilson, who sits on the board of Twitter, told developers “to stop filling the holes in the Twitter product.” Twitter employees were quick to offer tweets in support of Wilson’s warning.

The warning proved extremely timely as Friday saw some big “hole filling” announcements including the release of Twitter’s official Blackberry app as well as the purchase of the popular iPhone and Mac Twitter app Tweetie. Developers were quick respond by creating hashtag #unionoftwitterapps to discuss the developments. Loic Le Meur of Seesmic had a great 15 minute video response to the news.

So how far will Twitter go in developing functionality that encroaches on features offered by current Twitter apps? Much will likely be answered next week at Chirp, Twitter’s first official conference in San Francisco (April 14th – 15th).

Quick Hits

• Google Now Using Site Speed As A Search Ranking Factor
• Kevin Rose To Return To Digg CEO Position
• Posterous revamps Post Editor
• Lifeyo: “The People’s Website Builder”
• Nielsen Study Shows How (un)Willing We Are To Pay For Online Content
• iPhone OS 4.0 Kills Flash-To-iPhone Apps
• iPhone 4G To Feature Camera Flash?
• 5 Reasons Office 2010 Is Going To Rock Your World
• Gmail Mobile Now Coming With Google Buzz Built In
• The iPad…will it blend?
• Why Google Search will stay on Apple devices
• Probably the best Google Chrome advert you’ll see
• Yelp Increases Transparency; Shows Off Citysearch Goggles
• Users Tell Facebook: You’re Too Confusing
• 10 Google Hacks To Make Life Easier
• Interview with Skyhook CEO on success
• Teen Sues His Mother Over Alleged Facebook Hacking
• Foursquare Releases “Cheater Code” and the Case for Cracking Down on Geo Cheating
• Blackberry users: Google Maps 4.0 brings search by voice, Buzz and more
• UK’s Digital Economy Bill approved. Democracy fails, social media wins
• MonkeyFly: A Browser Plugin that Customizes Your Twitter Experience

Welcome to The Next Web Network’s Weekly Recap. Make sure to listen to this weeks podcast where we discuss, rant and debate the weekly tech news. Also, there are still a handful of tickets available for The Next Web Conference ’10 (April 27 – 29).

This week was dominated by two major news stories. At the beginning of the week it was Twitter who refreshed their homepage and also unveiled their new popular tweets sorting algorithm. The end of the week was marked my the highly anticipated iPad release.

iPad Released

The tech world had been waiting with great anticipation since Steve Jobs announced the iPad on January 27th. Until Saturday when the product was released in the United States, we had been relying on demo videos and reviews of select journalists who got their hands on the iPad early. On Saturday the masses were finally able to get their hands on the coveted device. Piper Jaffray estimated that between 600,000 and 700,000 iPads were sold on Saturday compared to 270,000 iPhones sold on it’s initial launch. These are quite impressive early sales figures.

Here are some highlights from our iPad Coverage this week:

• 10 Productivity Apps For The iPad You Must Try
• 7 Amazing Apps To Get You Blogging On The iPad Right Away
• 5 Apps For Making Beautiful Music With Your iPad
• Kindle for the iPad Now Available in the App Store
• Early Edition: This Gorgeous iPad RSS Reader Might Just Become Your Morning Read
• Google: Our Apps Will Have Special Features for iPad
• Use Gmail’s New iPad Interface On Your Computer Now
• University To Give All Students an iPad
• Tweetdeck Coming To The iPad
• WordPress For The iPad Is Here
• Loopt’s iPad App: Pulse
• The Enterprise iPad is Coming
• Apple Shows Off “iPad Ready” Websites
• No MS Office For iPad Says Microsoft

Twitter’s New Algorithm (and Homepage)

Twitter has quickly become the most significant social network on the web when it comes to sharing information. This week Twitter took a major step in trying to make a little more sense of all that information by launching their new search algorithm. For any search query, Twitter now inserts three tweets above the rest of the results. The exact algorithm that determines the three “popular” tweets selected is unknown but it’s based on things such as number of times retweeted, favorited and the influence of the Twitter user. Twitter also syndicates the top tweets selected by this algorithm using their new @TopTweets account.

This new algorithm is also featured on Twitter’s new homepage under the “Top tweets” section. While not as significant a change as their major refresh back in July, the new homepage does boast a couple of very useful features aimed at attracting new users.

Quick Hits

• TNW Announcement: Introducing The Next Web Vatican City!
• Facebook Acquires Divvyshot
• Google Acquires Episodic – YouTube Pro On The Way?
• Google: In fact, China DID Block Our Searches
• SimpleGeo Comes Out of Beta, Interview with Co-Founder Matt Galligan
• Twitter’s Director of Geolocation Discusses Geo’s Business Model
• Two New iPhone Coming (with one to Verizon)
• The JooJoo Lives, Gets Unboxed, Looks Stunning, Plays Flash
• Automattic Merges WordPress with WordPress MU and WordPress 3.0 Beta 1 Released
• Google Announces Search Funnels: Puts Advertising Lingo into Plain English
• Microsoft Drops The “Series”, New Phones To Be Called “Windows Phone 7″
• Google Earth Navigation Coming to the Audi
• Video Released of HTC 4G Hero
• Google Rolls Out New Search Design To More Users
• Google Street View Goes 3D
• Google Releases Chrome 5 Beta
• New YouTube Design Is Now Officially Live For All Users
• Spotify’s Latest iPhone App Is Live
• Possible Screenshots of Internet Explorer 9
• CloudApp: Sharing Tool For The Mac is Now Available
• CloudContacts Will Now Scan Your Business Cards and Then Find Your Contacts on Social Networks
• Xbox Project Natal Will Be Released Before October 29th
• 5 Must See HTML5 Sites
• Twitter Can Predict How Movies Will Sell
• Enstore is Quite Simply The Most Beautiful e-commerce Platform
• Check.in Tries To Rule All Checkins
• Gowalla CEO Talks About the iPad and Promotions with Chipolte, Twitteriffic & Adobe
• Location Service Check-in Mashup Checkinmania Launches
• Social OS Pip.io Now A Killer Facebook, Twitter, Chat, And YouTube App
• Kickball Looks to Punt Foursquare’s iPhone App to the Curb

Welcome to The Next Web’s Weekly Recap. If you haven’t already, make sure to grab your tickets for The Next Web Conference taking place April 27-29 in Amsterdam. This week we announced that Tim Ferriss will be one of the keynote speakers at this years conference.

This week saw the conflict between Google and China reach a new level as China called out Google claiming that it is colluding with the US Government to wage a cyberwar against them. This week also saw the last speculation for a couple highly anticipated events: the iPad release (April 3rd) as well as Twitter’s business model.

Google in China
This week the drama between Google and China escalated. At the beginning of the week, Google’s China website was redirecting to the search engine’s Hong Kong site. This was followed by China blocking all mainland traffic from the Hong Kong Site. Earlier reports had Google set to shut down China operations by April 10th. While the story still unfolds, you can check which Google services are still available here. China is clearly very angry with Google and recent comments made by the government claim that Google has been colluding with the US Army to wage a cyberwar against them.

iPad Release Coming
Apple’s highly anticipated iPad release is now less than a week away (April 3rd). New details about the iPad App Store were revealed why app developers rush to be the first on the device. Newspapers, perhaps the most anticipated use of the device, are excited to see if the iPad can help save them. New details are starting to be released about the possible price-points for newspaper subscriptions, including the WSJ.

Twitter Biz Model Coming, Conquers Spam, Hacker Caught
Twitter’s co-founder Biz Stone revealed that Twitter’s long awaited business model is coming “this month”. That pegs the release for sometime in the beginning of this week. This week also saw a couple of other big news stories including news that the hacker who broke into high profile Twitter accounts, including Barack Obama, had been caught. The other new major news was that Twitter as dramatically taken control of spam on the service. According to new data, only 1% of tweets are spam (compared to 11% in August of 2009).

Quick Hits

• Apple Planning iAd – The Final Piece Of Its Mobile Jigsaw?
• No One Buys Sex.com
• Researchers Find Link Between Facebook Use And Syphilis In The UK
• Rummble lets you check-in and review locations with a tweet
• The Death of The Web Browser
• Twitter May Soon Auto Translate Your Tweets
• Everything will be a Feature of Location, Not the Other Way Around
• Facebook Backpedaling On Location Services?
• Gravatar Has Just Become an 22 Million+ Strong Social Network
• Where The Wealthy Shop Online
• Ex-MySpace Execs New Social Network “Gravity” Launches To The Public
• Why Facebook Is Shorthand For Scandal
• Google: Everyone Wants Gigabit Fiber To Their Home
• 5 Reasons Why Online Freedom of Speech Does Not Exist
• Why Social Media And Politics Are A Dangerous Mix
• The Incredible Power of a 16 Year Old Video Blogger
• Have Your Twitter Stream Read Out To You With TweJay
• Is the App Store Bubble About To Burst?
• Famous People Productivity Methods
• Pinboard: A Social Bookmarking Tool That Literally Archives Your Web
• Adobe Launches “Workspaces”, a Project Management Tool.
• Google Voice Android Notifications Just Got A Whole Lot Faster
• Buildor Could Put Web Developers Out Of Business
• HTC Evo, The World’s First 4G Android Smartphone
• 5 Tips from OpenTable in Crafting Your Mobile Strategy
• iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, MySpace and More Unite to Combat Illegal Music Sharing Sites
• The New Digg App is Just Another App
• 5 Surefire Signs Your Company Has Missed the Point
• How Google Bookmarks Might Just Become Your Only Bookmarking Tool
• Sneak Peek at The New Photoshop
• Groupon CEO Andrew Mason Talks Growth, Clones and More
• Meet Buzzzy – The Buzz Search Engine
• Why The SXSW Location Wars Meant Nothing
• Foursquare Kisses MTV While Adding Celebrity Accounts
• Steve Jobs Says Universal Inbox is Coming To The iPhone

Welcome to The Next Web’s Weekly Recap. If you haven’t already, make sure to grab your tickets for The Next Web Conference taking place April 27-29 in Amsterdam. Some very exciting events will be going on at the conference including the PayPal X Startup Rally where a jury of experts will see if your startup has what it takes to present on the main stage at the conference.

Highlights of the week…
In the same week that Twitter turned 4 years old, they announced their new @anywhere platform. This week also saw the release of new juicy legal documents in the never ending legal battle between Google and Viacom and it was also the week we got a lot more details about the Windows 7 Phone and it’s marketplace.

Twitter Grows Up, Launches @anywhere
Sunday March 21st was Twitter’s big 4th birthday (co-founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet). The beginning of the week was also marked by big news when Twitter announced its “At Anywhere” platform. The platform is a couple lines of code that eventually any website (only select sites to start) will be able to place on their site in order to have deeper integration with the service. The functionality is very similar to what we saw with Hover Cards that was launched on Twitter.com in April.

Viacom vs Google/YouTube
The 3+ year saga between Viacom and Google doesn’t want to die. Viacom has been seeking $1 billion from Google due to copyright infringement for their content on YouTube. This week, the court released new documents where Google explains in detail how Viacom itself had been uploading many of the videos that it had been requesting to take down. While this lawsuit doesn’t appear to have an end in sight, it’s clear that the mutual dependency between the two parties has caused quite an interesting legal battle.

Windows 7 Phone
Since Microsoft announced its Windows 7 Phone back in February everyone has been excited for more details about the mobile OS. This week we got our first look at some Windows 7 apps and the initial impressions where very positive. Microsoft also released details about it’s Windows Marketplace – its store for games and applications for the OS. Even Mac fanboys will appreciate the UI and aesthetic of some of these early previews. Perhaps it is the result of Microsoft’s new emphasis on UI and usability as it relates to the Windows 7 Phone. While some are already labeling it the iPhone killer, it’s clear that Apple will be upping the any when the next iPhone is released this summer.

Quick Hits

• Apple’s Working on a New Social Location App Called iGroups
• Finally. You Can Now Share Music on Facebook
• Facebook Is Now The Number One US Website – Google Is Second
• Microsoft Builds A Twitter Clone For Your Business
• Double Dutch Launches White (Chocolate) Label Check-in App at SXSW
• 24 Hours of Video is Uploaded to YouTube Every Minute
• Report: 98.9% Of Downloads On The Android Market Are Free
• Kindle Arrives on Mac OS X
• Twitter to Order Search Results by Tweet Popularity - Is this a Good Idea
• Social Whistleblower Wikileaks Raises Two-Thirds of Operating Budget, Steps Up Activity
• Why You Shouldn’t ‘Launch’ Your Start-Up
• 11 Ingredients of Successful Entrepreneurs
• Search Engine RankSpeed Ranks by Online Sentiment
• The Future of Publishing: It all depends on how you look at it
• Microsoft launches IE9 Preview, takes fight to Chrome
• Interview with Plancast CEO Mark Hendrickson: Part 1 and Part 2
• What Are People Really Buying Online
• World’s First Android-Equipped Car Enters Production
• Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley Talks Revenue, API, Brands, and “Beyond the Badge”
• Google Latitude Announces API Plans at SXSW
• Runkeeper Live Lets You Track Someone (Running) in Real Time, Online.
• Startups: Get Pitching, Ditch The Bitching
• Facebook Now Delivering Better Search Results As You Type

If there was ever a week dominated by one thing it was this week: location, location, location. We launched an entire new Location blog just to cover the space. All the major players from Gowalla, foursquare, Twitter and Facebook all had announcements or new feature releases ahead of South By Southwest in Austin, Texas.

This week was all about location-based applications and services. While the trend has been a hot topic for a while, the buzz around location-based services reached a never before level this past week ahead of the South by Southwest (#sxsw) conference in Austin, Texas. The buzz around location was so big in fact, that we at The Next Web launched an entire new blog devoted to all things location – TNW Location. In order to kick off the new blog, we came up with The Declaration of Location.

As we geared up for SXSW, two of the major players in the location space both released some major updates. Foursquare’s updates focused on a much-needed UI refresh while Gowalla added a cool new feature allowing photo uploads when checking in. Foursquare also launched 16 new badges for SXSW. For a full comparison of both services, make sure to check out our extensive side-by-side comparison.

While foursquare and Gowalla may be the most used applications in the location space right now, many others are entering the fray. Twitter has been gradually rolling out location-based features. The latest was a “tweet your location” feature from Twitter.com. Twitter also created very interesting mashup with Google Maps to see where all Twitter employees are at SXSW. However, everyone is really waiting to see how Facebook enters this space. This week it was announced that they are going to be unveiling their location sharing product next month.

The massive battle for ground in location is clearly the result of the huge revenue opportunity for the companies who can figure it out. We explored the various revenue models of location this week which estimated that location-based services will account for $12.7B in revenue by 2014.

Quick Hits

• Google Is Leaving China In Spite of Chinese Promises
• Google Launches App Store
• Android Market Share Exploding
• Twitter “a force for good”? Politicians Disagree.
• Google OS To Have Enterprise Edition
• Google Buzz Arriving on Google Apps?
• Twitter Expanding Use of its URL Shortener
• Afraid of Google? Why Some Do (video)
• 5 Reasons Why We Are Already Depressed About The iPad
• Wibya (the toolbar we use), Added a Bunch of New Features
• Opera Mini 5 Beta For Android Released
• YouTube Launches Mobile Ads in Japan and USA
• Brazen Careerist Looks To The Future With Social Resumes
• Microsoft Launches UK Online TV service
• Retweet.com Pulled From The Deadpool
• Social Media Advertising Comes of Age, Gets Regulated
• Techmeme Launches a New Aggregator, Mediagazer.
• Microsoft Demos Gaming Across Phone, PC and Xbox 360
• Apple To Introduce Multitasking To The iPhone?

Welcome to The Next Web’s Weekly Recap. If you love all things The Next Web make sure to grab your early bird tickets to The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam (April 27, 28 & 29).

This week saw a couple of big announcements relating to the real time web including WordPress’ support for the PubSubHubbub protocol as well as Twitter’s opening of the firehose to a new group of companies. The official iPad release date was also announced as well as rumors of an upcoming Google Tablet. Some big news also came out of the US this week relating to startups and keeping their founders in the US with the proposed Startup Visa.

Real Time Web
Blogging took a big step forwarding in becoming real time this week as WordPress announced that all 10.5 million blogs have now gone real time by supporting the PubSubHubbub protocol. Twitter, the leader in the real time web discussion, also announced this week that they would be opening up their firehose to a variety of new companies (what this means). This announcement comes at a time when Twitter reached a key milestone of 10 billion tweets.

iPad
It became official this week that the iPad will be available on April 3rd with pre-orders starting on March 12th (get the official ‘I am buying the iPad’ countdown button). If you’re trying to figure out which iPad is right for you, check out our analysis here. This week also saw Apple go after HTC and Google with a patent infringement lawsuit surrounding multitouch, a key selling point of Apple’s iPad. Rumors also surfaced this week that Google as well as Sony are working on tablets to compete with the iPad.

US Startup Visa
A very important piece of legislation was recently introduced in the United States that aims to allow entrepreneurs who are not US citizens to stay in the country if they meet certain criteria. You can support this cause by installing this widget, calling your state’s representative or sharing this video.

Quick Hits

• Microsoft not buying RIM, investing $1 billion in its Mobile OS
• Twitter changes its GEO API
• Google scores major patent for location-based advertising
• Google acquires photo-editing startup Picnik
• Innovative type technology Swype opens up beta for Android
• Instant Tweetup iPhone app allows you to create instant tweetups
• Sugar, paper and wireless charging: The Power Sources Of The Future
• Windows 7 reaches 15% market share
• Skimlinks launches SkimKit app for easy affiliate linking
• Gmail gets a social CRM tool
• Coupon site Tjoos acquired by Internet Brands
• The Top 10 Search Engines for movie trailers
• In the Rooms, the social networking site for addicts
• Sony Playstation update brings down network worldwide
• New EU law in place to prevent ‘Shock’ mobile Internet phone bills
• 8 Things your iPhone will (probably) Replace
• Microsoft sends flowers to IE6 funeral, IE 9 to support HTML5
• 7 Reasons for Apple to acquire Adobe
• Yahoo CEO says she would sell to “Any company at the right price.”
• AT&T goes with Yahoo not Google for search on its new Android
• Why book piracy isn’t costing U.S. publishers $3 billion per year
• The Startup Idea Generator – creating “Killer” business ideas
• 10 Essential iPhone Apps to get you through the day
• Chatroulette’s traffic explodes
• Buzzie become first Google Buzz iPhone app and Buzz Can Tweet app allows post from Buzz to be sent to Twitter
• Browser add-on Glue Is Now In your search engine and favorite blogs
• Yelp hit with another lawsuit
• Forget touchscreens, the future is going to be skinput
• The CMO’s Guide to Social Media