The Next Web’s Weekly Recap

Welcome to The Next Web’s Weekly Recap. Also make sure to check out The Next Web’s Podcast (iTunes or XML) where we talk about the weekly tech news.

This week saw a bunch of great talks given at the annual LeWeb conference in Paris, a slew of search announcements by Google as well as the much anticipated release of Chrome extensions and Chrome for the Mac. Also, Facebook’s new privacy settings began to be rolled out.

LeWeb ’09
This week in Paris, France was the site of the LeWeb ’09 Internet tech conference. The conference, run by Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur, was focused on the real-time web. I highly recommend that you head over to the conference’s UStream channel to check out some of the great talks given at the event.

Google Launches Real Time Search
This week Google launched real time search which includes results from Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. Real time results are in a special area at the top of the results page (demonstration video). Google also announced a bunch of new search features including searching by voice, location and by sight. In the mobile search space, Google updated its iPhone app and also announced that they were making a push for QR codes that allow you to scan a code and be brought to a specific webpage. Google’s announcements continued through Friday when they announced improved search suggestion features.

Google Chrome Updates
Chrome for Mac was finally made available for beta download. In addition, Chrome extensions were also released. Make sure to check out this Google Chrome ad which highlights some of its features – it’s quite impressive if I must say so myself.

Facebook Updates Privacy Settings
This week Facebook began to rollout the new privacy settings that were announced last week. The new settings required users to go through a transition tool to update their privacy settings form the old settings to the new settings. Although the new settings clearly nudge users to the “Everyone” setting (all content available to all users, even those not on Facebook), Facebook does appease privacy advocates and users who want to keep things private by giving users the ability to select who can see individual pieces of content. Zuckerberg, who opened his Facebook page up to everyone, clearly sees the value with things being open (as with Twitter). In other Facebook news this week, the WSJ estimated that Facebook’s revenue will be $710 million (USD) in 2010. To see how Zuckerberg has managed to create this empire so quickly plan on checking out the Facebook movie, which announced this week that it will be released in October of 2010.

Quick Hits

• HootSuite iPhone app was released. However, our Ralf discovered a possible risk of using the application.
• Posterous added group features aiming attract businesses to their platform.
• The much anticipated site VEVO, the “YouTube for music videos”, was launched this week.
• Twitter now speaks Italian. Supported languages now include English, Japanese, Spanish, French and now Italian.
• Make sure to check out this great infographic of what occurs everyday on the Internet.
• AT&T this week said that people paying for unlimited data plans use too much data – if confused, join the club. You are free to complain via their new iPhone app Mark the Spot (iTunes link).
• Check out Woices, a cool service that allows you to record and listen to guided tours on your iPhone.
• Our own Alex sat down with The Cliqset President Darren Bounds to discuss the direction of the company that allows for easy sharing and discussion around content in Real-time.
• Dragon Dictation released a very cool iPhone app that does speech to text.
• Outside.in, one the the major players in the hyperlocal news space, received a $7 million investment by CNN.
• Some big news in Twitter directories this week as TweetDeck launched its own list directory and CelebrityTweet was bought by Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons.
• UStream’s iPhone app (iTunes link) finally now offers live video streaming. Qik was quick to respond in a blog post that their app with live video streaming is waiting for approval.
• The Crunchpad’s drama continued as Arrington’s “Partner” revealed that the product was now called JooJoo. Check out CNET’s hands-on review.
• Martin gives 10 Gift Ideas for Web Geeks.
• Alex talks with Guy Kawasaki about AllTop and email management.