The Next Web’s Weekly Recap: GPhone, URL Trimming and…Twitter.

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 the rumor of the Google Phone become a reality as it was announced that phone is real and is called the “Nexus One”. This week also saw a bunch of URL shortening announcements from Google, Facebook and bit.ly as well as some big API announcements from Twitter and a couple huge investment deals.

The Google Phone
It turns out that the rumored “Google Phone” was in fact real and is called the Nexus One. It was revealed on Google’s blog that the device will only be available for Google employees (at least right now). While details are still uncertain, the phone is known to be manufactured by HTC and will be sold by Google directly as an unlocked phone.

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URL Shortener Announcements
This week saw a flurry of URL shortener announcements from Facebook, Google and bit.ly. Facebook has begun to automatically shorten URLs down to FB.me for Facebook’s mobile interface. On the same day as Facebook’s news, Google announced their own shortened URL services, Goo.gl. The service is only available via Google Toolbar and FeedBurner but will likely become a stand alone product down the road. Bit.ly, the dominate leader in the space, striked back with news that they were launching bit.ly Pro, a service that gives users the ability to have customer URLs as well as some advanced features. Bit.ly also announced the launch of bitly.tv which aggregates the top videos online using bit.ly link data.

Twitter’s Contributor API
Twitter announced this week that their API would be supporting multiple contributors to a single account. The capability is a logical one as many companies with many contributors use Twitter today to reach their customers. Managing a single account with many users has been accomplished by using popular applications such as CoTweet. CoTweet, the dominate leader in this space, was quick to respond to announcement and defend their legitimacy in the marketplace and the additional features that they bring to the table.

Big Investments Announced
This week saw the Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies (DST) make two huge investments. The first came on Wednesday when it was announced that DST had put in $180 million into Zynga, makers of FarmVille. DST then announced the next day that they had invested a further $300 Million into Facebook.

Facebook Privacy Backlash
There was big backlash this week from last weeks privacy decision by Facebook. Facebook, clearly trying to nudge users in the direction of opening up their content to everyone has enraged many of their users as well as privacy advocate. This week saw a bunch of privacy organizations file a complaint against Facebook Inc. to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States. It will be interesting to see how this story plays out and how Facebook deals with privacy going forward.

Quick Hits

• Rumors have it that Google might buy Yelp for $500 million. Would they be overpaying?
• Foursquare now lets you update your status on Facebook.
• EU and Microsoft reach an agreement after 10 years of litigation.
• What did we talk about on Twitter the past year? Twitter releases the top trends of the 2009.
• Aspiring entrepreneur? Make sure to check out this interview with founder of Mixergy.com.
• Smule, the makers of the popular “I Am T-Pain” and Ocarina iPhone applications, raised $8 million dollars in funding.
• Photo-hosting website Photobucket and mobile imagine service provider Ontela announced a plan to merge.
• Thoora, a TechCrunch50 company, wants to be the Techmeme of everything. Will it work?
• An inspiring look at how the tablet could revolutionize publishing. [must watch video]
• The next generation wireless technology 4G has begun to be rolled out in Sweden and Norway.
• Twitter is now available in six languages; English, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian and now Germany.
• In a drastic move to tighten regulations of the Internet, individuals can no longer register domain names in China.
• In a relationship? Facebook will now remind you of your anniversary.
• A Firefox Add-on Store will likely open next year.
• Is Your Country Embracing Social Media? Check out this great infographic.
• Oh, and Twitter was compromised again.