Richard MacManus explores the characteristics of great user experience design. Alicia Eler explains what Pinterest is doing that Facebook should emulate. David Strom notes the decline of corporate blogging. 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.

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5 Signs of a Great User Experience

Great user experience is the result of thoughtful design. Richard explores 5 signs of great user experience, including examples from Path, Pinterest, Rdio and Fitbit. While he explains that great user experience isn't the deciding factor for success, it plays an important role and just may help a company gain initial attention and widespread adoption.

What Pinterest is Doing That Facebook Isn't

News of Facebook's IPO had many tongues wagging this week, but Alicia Eler focused on something Pinterest is doing that Facebook isn't: impacting purchases. While Facebook has tried to make social commerce work, Pinterest is delivering traffic that results in sales. Facebook conflates the social graph with the interest graph, and Alicia says that's a mistake.

Blogging Declines Across the Inc. 500

A new study indicates the number of corporate blogs amongst the Inc. 500 has significantly dropped in the past year. Conversely, the number has stayed virtually the same for the Fortune 500. Instead, of blogging, the Inc. 500 seems to be focusing on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

From the comments:

Lorne Pike - "I can't help but feel that any conclusions being drawn about blogging having peaked because of one year's change are very premature. We know the Inc. 500 is a volatile and ever-changing group of companies. Many of the names on the list will change from one year to the next. How many of the companies that at first glance seem to have "stopped" blogging simply weren't on the list last year?

The chart also shows that just a year ago we saw a considerable rise. Should we have concluded from that that the best days for blogging were still ahead? Blogging has many benefits, as do the other channels shown. To me, while it may be an early sign of things to come, the numbers shown here are hardly a sign that blogging is dead or dying or even has a slight cold. It's just changing, like marketing always has and always will."

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Amazon S3 Reports Staggering Growth in 2011

Amazon Web Services just reported jaw-dropping growth in the number of objects stored in Amazon S3 year over year.

"As of the end of 2011, there are 762 billion (762,000,000,000) objects in Amazon S3. We process over 500,000 requests per second for these objects at peak times," AWS Evangelist Jeff Bar wrote on the company's blog tonight. The company reported 262 billion objects in storage in Q4 of 2010. More

Anti-Patterns for Technical Leaders

What's the difference between a CTO and a vice-president of engineering (VPoE)? According to Jason Hoffman and Bryan Cantrill of Joyent, the lines are blurry. At the Monki Gras conference in London on February 1st, Hoffman (CTO) and Cantrill (VPoE), shared the stage and talked about the differences in their roles. More

How To Pimp Your LinkedIn Profile

I like using Twitter. I tolerate Facebook because I have to. And I'm on Google+ because everyone says I should be.

So that has left little time to give love to my profile on LinkedIn, which is, depending on how you look at it, either the biggest niche social network or the smallest of the big, all-encompassing social networks. Some people will tell you that sooner or later, all of our networking, social and professional, will be centrally located on Facebook. More

Red Hat Quietly Joins the OpenStack Effort

Word is that Red Hat refused to sign on to OpenStack when it was announced, because it didn't like the governance model. Red Hat also has its own cloud management software projects. But the company that once dismissed OpenStack seems to be coming around. Look closely at the OpenStack community and you'll find quite a few Red Hat engineers, including some that have become core contributors to OpenStack projects. More

How Lanyrd Uses HTML5 for a Great Mobile Web App

When it comes to HTML5 mobile Web app development, a lot of developers are waiting for a blue print of success to follow before jumping into the deep end. Sure, HTML5 mobile Web apps have the potential to change the entire mobile app ecosystem, but right now native apps are a tried and true channel that developers have come to trust. It will take several prominent and successful HTML5 mobile Web apps before the rest of the ecosystem jumps on the bandwagon. More

[Infographic] Google Apps Has Some Big Paying Clients

SaaS backup provider Backupify has recently examined its own customer sample to do some demographic profiling of Google Apps users. The results are somewhat intriguing, as you can see in the infographic below. If you remove .edu domains, Google Apps still has nearly 40% of all of its seats used by businesses with more than 10,000 employees. The company surveyed their customers who have at least 30 users. More

Twitter Upgrades Will Include Analytical Tools

Twitter will unveil a series of new tools in the next few months, including sophisticated analytical tools, according to Erica Anderson, Twitter's manager for news and journalism.

Anderson said the analytical tools will better help publishers track the reach of tweets sent through the microblogging service. She made her comments Saturday at Columbia University's social media weekend in New York. More

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Joe Brockmeier shares several anti-patterns for technical leaders. This and more in today's Daily Wrap.

Sometimes it's difficult to catch everything 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.

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Anti-Patterns for Technical Leaders

Joe Brockmeier, reporting from the Monki Gras conference in London, shared management learnings gleaned from Joyent technical leaders, Jason Hoffman, CTO, and Bryan Cantrill, Vice President of Engineering. Of particular interest were their tech leadership anti-patterns. If you've worked for a tech enterprise, you'll probably recognize at least a few of these types.

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How YouTube is Part of a Global Economic Transformation

The Internet may have grown up first in the United States, but it's a global phenomenon now. The same can be said for the fast-growing body of educational content on the web. YouTube announced a new batch of partners that were added to its Education Channel today and noted that nearly 80% of the viewership of educational content on the site came from outside the United States. Less than 70% of the site's total traffic is International, so the educational content is disproportionately viewed by global audiences. (more)

Looking for a Better HootSuite? Try Gremln.

If you aren't happy with scheduling your Tweets and analyzing the sentiment of your social networking accounts, a new service from Gremln.com is available today that might be a better alternative. The company has been part of the St. Louis-based Capital Innovators startup accelerator/incubator program that we wrote about yesterday. (more)

Biggest Winners In Facebook's IPO

When Hugh Hefner founded Playboy in 1953, he famously offered photographers, writers and artists the choice of cash or stock in the then-private company. While most chose cash, a few held onto shares that were worth millions by the time the company went public. (more)

One More Reason to Jailbreak Your iPhone 4S: Tweaking Siri

The first untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 dropped two weeks ago, much to the excitement of the hundreds of thousands of people who rushed to download it.

Despite its recent growth in popularity, jailbreaking is still not a mainstream activity among iPhone and iPad owners generally. (more)

Showyou 3.0: The Remote Control for Web Video

Showyou 3.0 launches today, and if you watch videos on an iPad, a Kindle Fire, an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you need to try it. If you have an Apple TV, so much the better. Showyou brings in all the videos from your various social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. It displays them for you in a glorious, sweeping grid organized by magic. (more)

StumbleUpon Says Goodbye to Direct Links

When StumbleUpon did its big rebranding, reorganizing and redesign late last year, we figured that the 20-million-plus discovering engine was done making big changes. At least, for a little while. Boy were we wrong.

The newest SU update removes all direct links. (more)

Jumptap: Use of Native Apps Versus Mobile Web is Tied

The mobile advertising industry was a $1 billion business in 2011. It is expected to hit $6.5 billion by 2014, according to eMarketer. For reference, it was 1998 when Web advertising hit the $1 billion mark. In 2010, it was a $26 billion industry fueling the growth of companies like Google and other Web-centric properties. (more)

New Reuters Site Turns News Decisions Over To Social Media

News agency Reuters launched Social Pulse, which it describes as a "social media hub" that will display "the most talked-about news, companies and influencers across the Web."

The site is unique in the news-curating space in that it uses trends from the Twitter accounts Reuters and its journalists follow to arrange headlines: in effect, the news agency is automating editing and story selection and putting it in the hands of "everyone from Nouriel Roubini and Jenna Wortham to John McCain and Rachel Sterne." (more)

Why Facebook Will Become a Food Porn Kingdom

On the same day that Facebook announced its IPO, the FoodSpotting app dished up a few new offerings. Now it creates a personalized picture menu for you, the FoodSpotting user, delivering "smart dish recommendations" based on what you like. The "filter wheel" categorizes food into dishes that you want to try and have already tried, and those you hope to never eat again; you can also see how your friends feel about various dishes. (more)

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The conditions of workers at Foxconn have been the subject of discussion for the past few years, but lately more and more people seem to be interested in how the workers at the tech manufacturing giant fare. A petition asks for your signature to pressure Apple into "mak(ing) the iPhone 5 ethically."

But can an online petition really make a difference in this situation? Apple is not the only company who uses Foxconn to supply their hardware manufacturing. Amazon, Microsoft and Sony also use Foxconn to manufacture the Kindle, Xbox 360 and the PS3, among others. John Paul Titlow goes into further detail in, "Why Petitions Won't Change Apple's Labor Practices Anytime Soon."

Can an online petition change conditions for workers at Foxconn?

We asked and culled your responses from Facebook, Google+ and Twitter and presented them back to you with Storify. If you have additional responses, please leave them in the comments.

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Dan Rowinski explores the ramifications of fragmentation in Android app development. This and more in today's Daily Wrap.

Sometimes it's difficult to catch everything 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.

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[Study] Android Fragmentation Not as Bad as You Think

While fragmentation is probably seen as the most difficult impediment to developing Android apps, a new study notes that it might not be the huge problem that people expect. Most, nearly 96%, of devices in the Localytics network are running either Android version 2.3 Gingerbread or 2.2. Froyo. There are really 5 screen sizes, with the majority on 4-inch or 4.3-inch screens. Focusing on key areas should make app development less of a headache.

From the comments:

veggiedude - "Amazon's Kindle Fire is about to fragment it more than any time in its history."

DanRowinski - "I don't actually disagree with that. The open nature of Android allows many companies to create their owned silo version of it. Facebook, for instance."

More Must Read Stories:

The Anti-Piracy Discussion We Haven't Had Yet

In 1959 (as I recall), my mother, an acclaimed professional artist, had entered a handful of her oil paintings into an annual art show. Someone attending the show noted that one particular work, the face of a peasant boy, strongly resembled a photograph that had appeared in Life magazine. Well, there was no coincidence about it: Mom had studied precisely that face, and her work was based on that photograph. (The card tacked to the wall actually said so, if anyone had bothered to read it.) (more)

Facebook Files IPO: What It Means For You

Facebook shocked no one by filing an initial public offering of its shares today.

The filing was the first glimpse into the company's inner financial workings and, as expected, Facebook said it would try to raise $5 billion when the company's shares begins trading - a number that could eventually be raised to $10 billion and would ultimately value the company between $75 billion and $100 billion. (more)

How Social Sharing Changes What You Drink

What do you drink when you're out at the bar? What do you brag about afterwards? If you're like a lot of Untappd users in the United States, they're not the same thing. At least that's what the data from Untappd suggests, according to lead developer and co-founder Greg Avola. (more)

Case Over Who Owns Ex-Employee's Twitter Followers Moves Forward

San Francisco-based U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James will allow a case by a company arguing that a Twitter list created by an ex-employee is its property to proceed.

PhoneDog LLC, which reviews mobile phones and other tech products, is claiming that former employee Noah Kravitz owes it $340,000, or $2.50 for each Twitter follower he kept by switching the name of his Twitter account after he stopped working for PhoneDog. (more)

[UPDATED] Microsoft Takes Advantage of Google's Bad Press

Microsoft gloated on its official blog today about the oodles of coverage of Google's new privacy policy. The post uses the word "discussion," but it only linked to the vigorous freak-outs in which many sites engaged. It mentions "concerns and worries" and "lack of choice," but it never explains what Microsoft is talking about. The central thesis is that "Google... made it harder, not easier, for people to stay in control of their own information." (more)

Akamai Says The Internet Is a Nastier, and Faster, Place

Akamai has released the results of its latest "State of the Internet" report covering the third quarter of 2011. What is interesting is how nasty the Internet has become, with increasing attack incidents recorded and changing strategies for hackers looking to exploit systems. Our last post on the first quarter results can be found here. (more)

Report: Facebook Ad Spending Grew 1600% in 2011

We're all on the edge of our seats waiting for the Facebook IPO to drop. Thankfully, Kara Swisher over at AllThingsD reports that we can all hang out a bit (maybe), because the FB IPO isn't dropping until later today (probably). Phew.

The Wall Street Journal properly reports (no offense, AllThingsD) that Facebook probably makes most of its revenue from online advertising combined with cuts from game purchases. (more)

Flurry Adds HTML5 to Mobile Analytics Platform

Mobile analytics and monetization platform Flurry is adding a new vertical to its platform offering today. Recognizing the coming growth of mobile Web apps, Flurry will begin tracking HTML5 mobile Web apps starting with a beta software developer kit today. (more)

How Not to Advertise on Twitter

Twitter's sponsored tweets and sponsored hashtags are cropping up more often as the social network places a heavy focus on advertising. As with any new advertising offering, we'll learn how to use it effectively by watching the efforts of others. Advertising on a social network offers up opportunities for engagement that can't be found elsewhere, but that opportunity comes with significant risk. (more)

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Many people are expecting Facebook to file for it's initial public offering today. In what could be the biggest tech IPO in history, Facebook would be aiming for a $75-100 billion valuation. They are looking to raise $10 billion in stock.

Facebook is expected to go public under the symbol "FB," but it's unclear whether they will list on the NYSE or the NASDAQ. With $3.8 billion in ad revenues in 2011, Facebook is on a roll. But what does that mean to the typical Facebook user?

What Does the Facebook IPO Mean To You?

We asked and culled your responses from Facebook, Google+ and Twitter and presented them back to you with Storify. If you have additional responses, please leave them in the comments.

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Dan Rowinski takes a look at how Lanyrd has created a great mobile web app using HTML5. This and more in today's Daily Wrap.

Sometimes it's difficult to catch everything 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.

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How Lanyrd Uses HTML5 for a Great Mobile Web App

Lanyrd's new mobile web app, released today, is a great example of how the HTML5 spec can be innovated upon. Taking advantage of offline caching, if the phone and browser support it, the app allows for a mobile conference experience that isn't at the whim of the very fallible Wi-Fi offerings at so many events. Dan says that there is great potential for an app like this, especially in regards to how they might package the app.

"It can offer this functionality to conferences as a backbone service and help organizers put together dynamic cross-platform apps with offline caching. Or it could lend its mobile Web app to conferences as a partner app. This is not just cool technology being put to use. With a little creativity, Lanyrd could build a business model around its HTML5 offering."

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[Infographic] The Rise and Fall of Megaupload

We're not even two weeks into the aftermath of the Megaupload shutdown, but the saga seems to unfold with a new angle or detail everyday. From Kim Dotcom's colorful personal life to questions about the fate of non-infringing data uploaded by former Megaupload users, this story is far from over. (more)

How to Take Better Food Porn Photos

Admit it. You're an amateur food porn photographer. But don't worry, you're certainly not alone.

Last week, my esteemed Internet ReadWriteWeb-y colleagues Jon Mitchell and Curt Hopkins cooked up this insanely hilarious story about the grossness of amateur food porn. Amazingly, every single photograph in his story was shot by an amateur. And every single time, the food looked totally disgusting. (more)

How Pinterest Uses Your Content Without Violating Copyright Laws

Pinterest, the increasingly popular pinboarding social network, is able to present a visually arresting interface in large part by using copyrighted images pinned by users.

"It's a huge concern for creative bloggers," said Amy Anderson, who blogs on the arts and crafts site Crafter Minds. "I don't think Pinterest does anything to help protect copyright besides removing content when people ask." (more)

Not So Fast: Teens Aren't Fleeing Facebook For Twitter

Contrary to an Associated Press report implying otherwise, teens are not shutting down their Facebook accounts in favor of Twitter.

Emil Protalinski has a much more thorough analysis of what is happening, which includes the Pew Research report AP used, as well as a July 2011 Pew report that focused solely on teens and social media use. His conclusion? Teens are definitely using Twitter more, but they are not giving up their Facebook accounts to do so. (more)

Startup's Petition Raises $3M in 24 Hours if Senate Passes Crowdfunding Act

"We can gamble in Vegas. We can donate on Kiva or Kickstarter. But it's illegal to purchase $100 of stock in a job-creating business? That makes no sense."

That is the tagline to a new project called WeFunder from three TechStars Boston alumni who are trying to garner support for the "Democratizing Access to Capital Act" (S.1791) that would allow entrepreneurs to crowdfund startups. (more)

"Anonymous" Fights the Drug Cartels and the Movie Moguls: Reaction

It's being called the "Mexican SOPA," especially by press sources wanting to place highly with Google News. Last week, Mexican Senator Federico Döring announced an anti-piracy bill, which that country's justice ministry describes as establishing a notification service for suspected content pirates, one which would enable the authorities to obtain those suspects' identities. (more)

The Other 99% of Entrepreneurs

In my recent piece Reengineering Capitalism I highlighted a phenomenon that the global entrepreneurship ecosystem is paying very little attention to: Over 99% of entrepreneurs who seek funding get rejected. Yet, the entire world is focused on the 1% that is "fundable."

The media, when pitched a startup story, is interested in who funded the venture. They seldom ask how much revenue the company has or if it is profitable. (more)

Surprise, Surprise: Amazon Doesn't Say How Many Kindle Fires It Sold

Amazon is notorious for sharing very little information about how its products and business units perform. Its new Kindle Fire tablet is no different.

Amazon just reported its fourth quarter financial results, and, shocking no one, it doesn't disclose how many Kindle Fire tablets it sold. Or even how many total Kindles it sold. (more)

Blogger.com's New Takedown Policy Thwarts Censorship

Google's Blogger has found a way to handle local government takedown requests similar to the way Twitter now does. It will now start redirecting readers to country-specific top-level domains (TLD) instead of the usual blogspot.com domain. It does so based on the location of the user's IP address, just as many other Google services do. This gives Google the "flexibility" to comply with removal requests according to local laws. (more)

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Most brands are doing their best to engage and serve their audience via social media. Those of us who are in charge of social for a brand pour over statistics and devour past learnings, but the science of social is still fairly new, so most of us are just guessing what will resonate.

From time to time you'll see us ask you how we are doing. That's because, despite great analytics, nothing beats just asking your audience how you're doing and what you could do better. And, almost as valuable, is knowing who to emulate. Which brands are impressing you? Which ones aren't? This quest to deliver you the best social experience is always foremost in a community manager's mind, and it inspired today's Big Question.

Which brand does the best job in social media?

We asked and culled your responses from Facebook, Google+ and Twitter and presented them back to you with Storify. If you have additional responses, please leave them in the comments.

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Alicia Eler looks at how Pinterest is impacting purchases. 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.

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What Pinterest is Doing That Facebook Isn't

Facebook drives traffic. Pinterest drives traffic. The big difference is that Pinterest is driving target-market traffic and impacting purchases. How is Pinterest perfecting what Facebook has been trying to do for some time? Alicia Eler says Facebook confuses the social graph with the interest graph. To learn more about how Pinterest is knocking it out of the park, read, What Pinterest is Doing That Facebook Isn't.

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Google Fires Kenya Lead Over Mocality

Google has reportedly fired its Kenya country manager, Olga Arara-Kimani, over a fraudulent use of Mocality's data.

Nairobitech reported:

"The Google Mocality saga has drawn its first casualties. Kenya country lead for Google, Olga Arara-Kimani formerly of Safaricom has been let go by the company. Also axed is a technical guy in Zurich... It is not clear how Olga was picked for the fall but as one observer noted, sometimes a sacrificial lamb has to be found for the brand name to weather the storm." (more)

Feds to Megaupload Users: Tough Luck

Well, now we know what happens to our data if federal authorities ever seize a website we were using, arrest its owners and shut the whole thing down. For former users of Megaupload, the prospect of losing their data forever is now a very real one. The companies that host all of that data could start deleting it later this week, according to prosecutors. (more)

Why Goodreads Gave Up on Amazon

Goodreads, the social network for reading and reviewing books, had to make a change this month. It moved away from its main source of book data, the Amazon Product Advertising API, citing its "many restrictions." It completed the transition to Ingram Book Company's data today, and it also draws from other open data sources such as libraries. The transition went smoothly, but Goodreads did lose some data. "Fewer than 2% of our 7 million users have books currently affected," Goodreads says. (more)

What Does Siri's Future Look Like?

It's only been three months since Apple unveiled Siri, the voice-controlled personal assistant built into the iPhone 4S. Although the product is technically in beta, it has already spawned imitations and Web video parodies. What is perhaps most exciting about Siri is not what it does now, but in its potential future uses. (more)

Hollywood Isn't Ruining DVD Rentals On Its Own: Netflix is Happy to Help

It's easy to slam Hollywood for not understanding how technology works, or for putting its legacy business models ahead of user experience. Especially when big media companies do things like restrict digital access to movies and then cry about piracy.

But Hollywood isn't always acting alone. Sometimes, the savviest Web companies around - Netflix, for instance - are playing along, with their own agendas. (more)

Forrester Ranks Mobile Marketing Companies, Ignores the Brightest Startups

The necessity of having a clear and cohesive mobile marketing strategy has never been greater. Companies that do not have a mobile marketing strategy now are light years behind the curve in the face of booming smartphone adoption and changing consumer behavior. Research firm Forrester took a look at some of the biggest and best mobile marketing companies to see how they stack up and what benefits they can add for companies. (more)

[Research] Half of U.S. Cellphone Owners Research In-Store Goods With Their Devices

The rise of mobile commerce is going to give traditional retail stores a headache. Results from a survey done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that 25% of cellphone owners used their phone to look up the price of a product before buying it at a store. More than half of cellphone owners used their phones to determine what product to buy while in a retail store. (more)

Study: 91% of Gen-Ys Use Their Phones in the Bathroom

Some people won't go anywhere without their smartphones. Not even the pot.

A new study from 11mark surveyed 1,000 Americans about their smartphone usage, and found that a whopping 75% of American smartphone owners have used their phones in the bathroom. More women have used their phones in the bathroom than men (76% vs. 74%), but men are actually more attached to their mobile devices than women. Thirty percent of men surveyed said they won't go to the bathroom without their phone versus 25% of women.(more)

Select Testers Get First Office 15 Preview, New Cloud Services Emphasized

Whether Windows 8's radically re-imagined usage model catches on with tablet and PC users will depend in large part upon the role Microsoft Office apps will play. If it looks too much like Office 2010, then having Windows 8 relegate Office to the "Desktop" side while mobile-style apps take over the "Metro" side, won't make much sense. (more)

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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.

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[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. More Top Posts:

[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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[Infographic] PHP vs. Python vs. Ruby How R Can Help Your Business How Google Wants to Make TCP Faster

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Ruby, PHP and Python are compared in an infographic by Udemy. 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.

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The Shift From Watching TV to Experiencing TV

Udemy says that Python is the "most-discussed" language, but if you are looking for a job, PHP is the language to know. The percentages vary across the different job channels, but PHP seems to be more popular among job listings and job titles.

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Microsoft Will Pay Nokia "Billions" To Use Windows Phone

Microsoft paid Nokia $250 million in the fourth quarter to adopt the Windows Phone operating system, according to Nokia's fourth-quarter earnings report released Thursday.

That was the first in a series of so-called "platform support" payments believed to eventually total billions of dollars. To date, Microsoft and Nokia have been quiet about the deal's specifics, perhaps because it appears as if Microsoft is paying Nokia significantly less than its paying other cellphone manufacturers. (more)

SoundCloud Goes HTML5, Makes Non-Flash Audio Player Its Default

SoundCloud, the up-and-coming social audio publishing platform, is endorsing HTML5's role in the future of the Web. Today, the Berlin-based startup is officially rolling out its HTML5 audio player as the service's default, knocking the original, Flash-based player from that esteemed position. (more)

AT&T CEO Randall Stevenson Blasts FCC, Hints At Higher Prices and Data Restrictions

AT&T has a bone to pick with the Federal Communications Commission. In the mobile operator's quarterly earnings call this morning, CEO Randall Stevenson blasted the FCC over its leadership in making additional spectrum available to carriers to handle the explosion of mobile data flowing through the operators' pipes. Stevenson and AT&T are bitter after the FCC blew up its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile. Stevenson said that because of AT&T's spectrum crunch it will be forced to raise prices and take additional actions against the highest data users. (more)

Why Does the Next Xbox Need Discs At All?

If the next generation of Microsoft's Xbox gaming system will be designed to bring us well beyond 2020, why would it still rely on last century's technology, spinning discs, for games?

Videogame blog Kotaku reported yesterday that the next Xbox - still not yet announced by Microsoft - will support Blu-ray discs, and may incorporate some sort of technology that prevents users from playing used games. (more)

Google+ Is Now Open To Teens, Offers New Safety Features

Google VP of Product Bradley Horowitz announced today that Google+ will now be available to teens. Previously, the social network was exclusively for adults over 18, but now anyone with a Google Account can use it (13+ in most countries). (more)

All of Planet Earth Is Now on Google+

Google Earth released version 6.2 today. It patches up some of the choppy textures it used to have, so it now looks like a smooth, realistic surface - no more "quilt effect." The texture improvements are now in all versions of Google Earth, including the mobile versions. This update also adds Google+ integration. Screenshots from Google Earth can be shared with Google+ circles with a new "share" button. (more)

Twitter Will 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)

Legal Analysis: How the Megaupload Defense Could Proceed

There will be two battles fought simultaneously in defense of Megaupload, the cyberlocker site accused by the U.S. of hosting and publicizing illicit copyrighted material. One is in the public arena, where we can expect the defendant to portray itself as Robin Hood, not so much stealing content from the rich as repurposing it for the poor, the meek, the 99%. It may even get some traction in that arena, but those same tactics may not play so well to a jury. That will be a separate battle whose defense strategy may not be so populist. (more)

Buying a Donut Earns You Facebook Credits

Plink has just announced a Facebook Credits loyalty program in partnership with fast-food chains Dunkin' Donuts, Quiznos, Red Robin and Taco Bell. Users earn Facebook Credits by joining Plink and logging on with their Facebook credentials and credit or debit cards. Like any loyalty program, the more people purchase, the more Facebook Credits they'll rack up. (more)

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