As today is Christmas Eve, chances are this whole week is one long weekend for a lot of our readers. That said, if like us today is a normal working day for you, distract yourself by catching up on fine weekend content from The Next Web and beyond.
If you’re lucky enough to be sat at home roasting chestnuts on an open fire today, these articles are the perfect accompaniment to a lazy, indulgent day, too.
In the news
- Flickr gives away 3 free months of Pro service to both current subscribers and free account holders.
- Apple posts Christmas TV ad highlighting iPad mini’s features and the benefits of FaceTime.
- In less than a day, Facebook’s Poke displaces Google Maps as the App Store’s most popular free app.
- Mozilla backpedals on Firefox 64-bit for Windows, will keep nightly builds coming after all.
- Producers of ‘Minecraft: The Story of Mojang’ offer the film free of charge on The Pirate Bay.
- Report: Galaxy S III, iPhone and iPad top the most-discussed gifts for Christmas.
- GitHub confirms major service outage across all its services following scheduled maintenance.
- Meetic (IAC) buys Massive Media, the company behind Netlog and Badoo rival Twoo, for $25m.
- Food sharing app Burpple serves up photo filters to make your latest eats look even tastier.
- Would you buy a 6.1-inch smartphone? Huawei sure thinks so.
- After hacker disappears from Twitter, Verizon reveals customer data was leaked by a marketing firm.
- VLC for Windows 8 reaches $65,000 funding goal on Kickstarter with five days to spare
Good reads
- 30 days with Windows Phone 8 — Perspective from an admitted iOS addict
- The 6 Best Smartphones Of 2012
- Reverse network effects: Why scale may be the biggest threat facing today’s social networks
- Old Street, new start: The pitfalls that London’s Tech City needs to avoid
- Should startups bother having original ideas if big companies can just come along and clone them?
- Everything is amazing: The harmonic convergence of gadgets
- The end of balance: Work life calibration
- What’s really on entrepreneurs’ 2012 holiday wish list?
- 10 cool Kickstarter gifts that have been funded, finished and brought to market
- Google Creative Lab’s Steve Vranakis: Technology should be both a tool and a toy
Useful guides
- How to use the web to keep connected to what matters over the Christmas holidays
- Start the New Year off right by using a smart journal
- How to use Foursquare to market your business & reach a new audience
- 7 ways to change your relationship to distractions
Interesting stories from beyond The Next Web
- Websites Vary Prices, Deals Based on Users’ Information [Wall Street Journal]
- The New York Times Paywall Is Working Better Than Anyone Had Guessed [Bloomberg]
- Newsweek’s Final Ever Print Cover Features A… Hashtag? [Business Insider]
- Amazon Is Ripe For Disruption [Forbes]
- Techmeme’s top 20 headline terms of 2012, and what they signify [Techmeme]
Image credit: David Trood / Thinkstock
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