Author: Abraham Hyatt

While most of our top stories this week were about the iPad, our number one post was about how Google Street View is now, no joke, available in 3D. Go get your glasses and check it out. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010: Verizon, AT&T and Cisco are talking up the Internet of Things, Gowalla added real-time feeds, and augmented reality cartoons are going to save our kids. Read on for more.

Sponsor

Story of the Week: Google Street View in 3D

• Google Street View in 3D: More Than Just an April Fool’s Joke
• You Are Not a Gadget: The Continuing Case Against Web 2.0
• E-Books on the iPad: iBooks vs. Kindle for iPad
• iPad Problems Begin to Surface
• Digg Plans to Kill the DiggBar & Unban all Domains
• iPad: The First Real Family Computer

More coverage and analysis from ReadWriteWeb

ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit

Join us for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7 in Mountain View, California as we explore the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Be a part of the discussion on geo-location services, augmented reality, native app vs. browser-based, commerce and marketing, mobile social networking and the Internet of Things. Sponsorship enquiries: [email protected].

Mobile Web

• Why iAds Could be Bigger Than iPads
• Apple Announces iPhone OS 4 with Support for Multitasking?
• Farewell, Keyboard – Generation I Will Grow Up on Touchscreens

More Mobile Web coverage

Augmented Reality

• “Do Crew” Augmented Reality Cartoons Help Get Kids Off the Couch

More Augmented Reality coverage

Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Our Newest Research Report

We’re pleased to announce ReadWriteWeb’s latest premium report, Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Analysis of the Leaders, the Challenges and the Future. This report will help you develop a sophisticated understanding of Augmented Reality (AR), the mobile and Web technology that places data on top of a user’s view of the physical world. The research included will help you decrease your AR development time to market by learning from the first wave of early adopters. AR offers a new marketing and product paradigm for a high impact, high value customer experience. More than 1,000 AR campaigns were kicked-off last year and we expect to see many more in 2010. In this report, we profile key AR development companies, their campaigns as well as development lessons learned. For more information or to buy the report, visit here.

Internet of Things

• Verizon, AT&T & Cisco Talk Up Internet of Things
• Our Network is Alive

More Internet of Things coverage

Real-Time Web

• Gowalla Adds Real-time Feeds and Activity Streams For Maximum Mashup Action
• Twitter’s Translation Problem

More Real-Time Web coverage. Don’t miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb’s report, The Real-Time Web and its Future.

Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App

We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we’ve made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

• Internet of Things: Opportunities For Entrepreneurs
• Why You Need to Be Developing for the iPad Right Now
• NYC Startup Job Fair: How Graduates Can Get a Great Job at a Startup

ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0’ and using social software inside organizations.

• Is the iPhone Now as Enterprise Ready as the Android?
• Google Executive Says Google Buzz Coming Soon to the Enterprise

ReadWriteCloud

Our channel ReadWriteCloud, sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

• How Cloud Computing Can Help A Small Business Get Out of the Recession
• Does the iPad App Give Rackspace An Advantage?
• This Tweet is Priority 1: SalesForce.com’s Chatter is Transactional Social Media

That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Discuss

In a memo released yesterday, the White House made it significantly easier for federal agencies to use everything from social networks to online forums. But with the newfound freedom comes a surprising caveat: User ratings and rankings on those services, the new guidelines warn, “should not be used as the basis for policy or planning.”

In other words, a million Americans can Digg or retweet an important blog post, but government officials shouldn’t use that popularity as an indicator of the post’s value.

Sponsor

That’s not always a bad thing considering that a dedicated group of like-minded people can game a casual voting system. But the voice of a social network corresponds to real people in the real world. A recent study, for instance, found that Twitter chatter accurately forecasts box-office revenues.

As a whole, the new guidelines [PDF] were sorely needed. Social media and other online activities fell under a law that arduously dictates how agencies handle written materials. Under the new guidelines, online activities are now considered a “public meeting,” which gives agencies much more freedom to blog, hold virtual meetings or even run contests.

That freedom comes with a stipulation. The memo was written by the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs administrator, Cass Sunstein. In it he explains that agencies should “exercise good judgment and caution when using rankings, ratings, or tagging” because they aren’t “statistically generalizable.”

That’s true, but it doesn’t mean they’re worthless. John Zogby, founder of polling firm Zogby International, told us last year that if you keep in mind that social networks don’t necessarily represent the entire scope of the American people, then the data from them has “tremendous, tremendous value.”

At least 66% of all federal, state and local governments now use social media. It’s still early in the current midterm election cycle, but candidates are already investing heavily in social media; Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the rule, not the exception.

Those candidates will take their online communities with them to Washington when elected. Where else would they expect to get input on public policy than from that same community of voices?

Photo by Dominik Gwarek.

Discuss

Our top story this week was about Gmail becoming an app platform. Oh right, and some other thing called the iPad. Read on for our coverage and analysis. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things.

Note: We’ve refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010, as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your thoughts on the new format.

Sponsor

Story of the Week: Gmail Becomes an App Platform

• Gmail Becomes an App Platform: Google Adds OAuth to IMAP
• Coming Soon to Gmail Chat: File Transfer
• 15 iPad Apps We Can’t Wait to Download
• The iPad in Education: Colleges Give iPads to All Incoming Students
• Twitter Gets a New Homepage – It’s a Whole Thing

More coverage and analysis from ReadWriteWeb

Announcing the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit: Early bird pricing ends March 31!

Hurry, register now and save $100. Early bird pricing ends March 31! Join us for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7 in Mountain View, California as we explore the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Be a part of the discussion on geo-location services, augmented reality, native app vs. browser-based, commerce and marketing, mobile social networking and the Internet of Things. Sponsorship enquiries: [email protected],

Register now for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit and get early bird rates – only $295.

Mobile Web

• Location-Based Social Networks: Delightful, Dangerous or Somewhere in Between?
• What’s a “Universal” iPad App and How Do You Use It?
• iPad’s Top Apps and Early Trends

More Mobile Web coverage

Augmented Reality

• Practical Application is the Golden Ticket of Augmented Reality

More Augmented Reality coverage

Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Our Newest Research Report

We’re pleased to announce ReadWriteWeb’s latest premium report, Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Analysis of the Leaders, the Challenges and the Future. This report will help you develop a sophisticated understanding of Augmented Reality (AR), the mobile and Web technology that places data on top of a user’s view of the physical world. The research included will help you decrease your AR development time to market by learning from the first wave of early adopters. AR offers a new marketing and product paradigm for a high impact, high value customer experience. More than 1,000 AR campaigns were kicked-off last year and we expect to see many more in 2010. In this report, we profile key AR development companies, their campaigns as well as development lessons learned. For more information or to buy the report, visit here.

Internet of Things

• NFC: Never Mind Credit Cards, Pay With Your Phone

More Internet of Things coverage

Real-Time Web

• Twitter Highlights Popular Tweets, Goes Live With API

More Real-Time Web coverage. Don’t miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb’s report, The Real-Time Web and its Future.

Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App

We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we’ve made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

• Looking for the Next Big Idea? Unleash the Beast!
• TechStars’ Andrew Hyde Launches Freelance Marketplace Startup
• The Art of the VC Pitch: A Roundup of Advice from 6 VCs

ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0’ and using social software inside organizations.

• FourSquare for the Enterprise: Give it 2 Years, Max
• Microsoft Testing OfficeTalk – Microblogging Service Much Like Twitter

ReadWriteCloud

Our channel ReadWriteCloud, sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

• User Ignorance Causes Cloud Security Leak; Accounts, Passwords Revealed
• Rulers of the Cloud: A Multi-Tenant Semantic Cloud is Forming & EMC Knows that Data Matters
• Earth Hour: Is it Time to Virtualize the Electrical Grid?

That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Discuss

Our top story this week was “Digg’s iPhone App Might Be Better Than the Website.” The review? The app is a little buggy, lacks features, but is still quite good. Read on for our coverage and analysis. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things.

Note: We’ve refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010, as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your thoughts on the new format.

Sponsor

Story of the Week: Digg’s iPhone App

• Digg’s iPhone App Might Be Better Than the Website
• More Twitter Analysis: Influencers Don’t Retweet
• Can You Hear Me Now? Check This Crowd-Sourced Mobile Coverage Map
• Inventor of the Web Gets Backing to Build Web of Data
• Twitter Hacker, TechCrunch Document Leaker, Arrested in France (UPDATED)

More coverage and analysis from ReadWriteWeb

Announcing the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit

Hurry, register now and save $100. Early bird pricing ends March 31! Join us for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7 in Mountain View, California as we explore the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Be a part of the discussion on geo-location services, augmented reality, native app vs. browser-based, commerce and marketing, mobile social networking and the Internet of Things. Sponsorship enquiries: [email protected],

Register now for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit and get early bird rates – only $295.

Mobile Web

• Opera for the iPhone? We Sure Hope So.
• Google Voice Goes Real-Time (Well, Almost)
• That’s Not a Phone, It’s a Tiny Computer: Global Mobile Data Surpasses Voice

More Mobile Web coverage

Augmented Reality

• Augmented Reality Among Time’s 10 Tech Trends for 2010
• Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Our Newest Research Report

More Augmented Reality coverage

Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Our Newest Research Report

We’re pleased to announce ReadWriteWeb’s latest premium report, Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Analysis of the Leaders, the Challenges and the Future. This report will help you develop a sophisticated understanding of Augmented Reality (AR), the mobile and Web technology that places data on top of a user’s view of the physical world. The research included will help you decrease your AR development time to market by learning from the first wave of early adopters. AR offers a new marketing and product paradigm for a high impact, high value customer experience. More than 1,000 AR campaigns were kicked-off last year and we expect to see many more in 2010. In this report, we profile key AR development companies, their campaigns as well as development lessons learned. For more information or to buy the report, visit here.

Real-Time Web

• My6Sense Releases API: ‘Digital Intuition’ for the Real-Time Web

More Real-Time Web coverage. Don’t miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb’s report, The Real-Time Web and its Future.

Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App

We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we’ve made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

• What Does Health Care Reform Mean for Startups and VCs?
• How Entrepreneurs Can Make Better Use of Email
• The Art of the VC Pitch: A Roundup of Advice from 6 VCs

ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0’ and using social software inside organizations.

• IBM Partners To Offer $190 Cloud-Connected Netbook For Emerging Markets
• Microsoft Testing OfficeTalk – Microblogging Service Much Like Twitter

ReadWriteCloud

Our channel ReadWriteCloud, sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

• Canonical Ubuntu One Music Service Goes Into Public Beta
• Dell: Build Your Own Cloud
• Enterprise Cloud Control: Q&A with Eucalyptus CTO Dr. Rich Wolski

That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Discuss

As part of our ongoing series in conjunction with Tableau Software and TweetStats, we’ve been looking at some of Twitter’s most influential users. What it means to be a “top” user on Twitter has changed a lot since 2007. Recently we found out that a high number of followers, which most people use to judge the popularity of an account, doesn’t actually really mean anything. However, Twitter lists – where we identify our favorites as “most influential” or “essential” – are still revealing. Today we’re using lists to unscientifically analyze what we think are some of the some of the most influential people and entities on Twitter.

Sponsor

Editors Note: This post is part of a series ReadWriteWeb is producing in partnership with Tableau Software, where we examine interesting data sets relevant to technology trends today. You can use Tableau Public to create interactive visualizations like this and publish them to your own blog or website or anywhere online. This is the last week to enter Tableau’s User Generated Graph Contest. Winner will receive a free trip to Web 2.0 and $500. Sign up before March 26.

We used a variety of lists to identify 485 accounts and then ran those names through Tableau’s data visualization tools. What did we find? Surprisingly, the majority of influencers retweet fewer than 30% of the time.

Play With the Influencers

The top graph shows the distribution of total tweets from all of our influencers. You can play with the data yourself. When you select an account on the right you can see they fall in the larger @, retweet and hashtag trends. The data is from January and February.

The Data

Thanks to TweetStats for providing the Twitter data.

Discuss

Our top story this week was about bad news for the big guys: Google, Facebook, Digg’s top users. As you catch up on the news, be sure to watch the conversation about China, tech and democracy that took place between activist/artist Ai Weiwei, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and ReadWriteWeb’s Richard MacManus. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things.

Note: We’ve refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010, as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your thoughts on the new format.

Sponsor

Story of the Week: Nexus One’s woes, spies love Facebook, top Diggers lose power

• Oops: Google Denied Trademark on Android Nexus One
• Big Changes Are Coming to Digg: More Power to Publishers, Less Power to Top Diggers
• How US Government Spies Use Facebook (Updated)
• Cartoon: Can’t Go to SXSW? We Feel Your Pain
• Nexus One Flopped, but Android Didn’t

More coverage and analysis from ReadWriteWeb

Announcing the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit

Join us for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7 in Mountain View, California as we explore the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Be a part of the discussion on geo-location services, augmented reality, native app vs. browser-based, commerce and marketing, mobile social networking and the Internet of Things. Sponsorship enquiries: [email protected],

Register now for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit and get early bird rates – only $295.

Mobile Web

• Microsoft Updates Bing iPhone App and Removes It from All International iTunes Stores
• Blockbuster Brings New Releases to Android, Windows Mobile Phones
• Mobile App Marketplace: $17.5 Billion by 2012

More Mobile Web coverage

Internet of Things

• Internet of Things Explained (Video)
• 6 Ways to Better Living: Inside an Internet of Things Home
• 8 Ways to Better Understand the Internet of Things

More Internet of Things coverage

Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App

We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we’ve made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes.

Real-Time Web

• OneRiot Brings Its Real-Time Ads to the Web
• Why Wikipedia Should Be Trusted As A Breaking News Source

More Real-Time Web coverage. Don’t miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb’s report, The Real-Time Web and its Future.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

• The Death of the Pageview
• Micropayments and Subscriptions: How Business Models for Startups are Shifting
• 6 ReadWriteStart Lists: Our Best Startup Advice

ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0’ and using social software inside organizations.

• Provider Fail: Vodafone Sells HTC Smartphone Loaded With Malware
• Google Apps Offers Migration for Microsoft Exchange

ReadWriteCloud

Our channel ReadWriteCloud, sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

• IBM Makes A Major Move Into The Cloud; Amazon Is In Its Sights
• Rulers of the Cloud: Will Amazon’s Computing Fabric Become a New Economy?
• The Oracle Effect: Sun’s Best and Brightest Move On to New Places

That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Discuss

Our top stories this week were about cutting the strings that tie us to our desks. And also about stalking celebrities at SXSW. Read on for our coverage and analysis. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things.

Note: We’ve refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010, as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your thoughts on the new format.

Sponsor

Story of the Week: Leaving your desk for the cloud, a bike or someplace you’d rather not say.

• Put.io Turns Torrents Into Streams [Invites]
• Bicycling Directions, Trails Come to Google Maps
• Chatroulette Creator Coming to America?
• 6 Thoughts About Location Madness
• SXSW 2010 for Web Celeb Stalkers

More coverage and analysis of location-based technology

Announcing the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit

Join us for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7 in Mountain View, California as we explore the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Be a part of the discussion on geo-location services, augmented reality, native app vs. browser-based, commerce and marketing, mobile social networking and the Internet of Things. Sponsorship enquiries: [email protected],

Register now for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit and get early bird rates – only $295.

Mobile Web

• Twitter Location? Thanks, But No Thanks
• Is the iPhone Still More Personal than Professional?
• Japan’s Largest Telco Goes OpenID

More Mobile Web coverage

Historic Conversation in NYC: Ai Weiwei, Jack Dorsey & Richard MacManus

On March 15, at the prestigious Paley Center in New York City, a conversation will take place between Chinese digital activist and artist Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey, and yours truly, Richard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb founder and editor in chief. The moderator will be Orville Schell, the director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York.

The topic of the event is the emergence of digital activism for fostering positive social change. The onsite event is invitation only, but it will be live streamed exclusively on ReadWriteWeb on Monday, March 15, at 6:30 PM EST (-5 GMT), from the Paley Center for Media, New York City.

Internet of Things

• Stickybits: Portal to Another Dimension or Graffiti for Nerds?

More Internet of Things coverage

Real-Time Web

• Google Wave Extensions Gallery Launches
• Chasing Real-Time Raindrops in an Ocean of Content
• Google’s Mobile Product Search Now Shows Real-Time Local Inventory

More Real-Time Web coverage. Don’t miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb’s report, The Real-Time Web and its Future.

Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App

We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we’ve made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

• 10 Principles For Not Killing Your Startup
• All the Small Things: Facebook Demonstrates How to Get Big Results From Little Changes
• First Look at TechStars Historical Results Data

ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0’ and using social software inside organizations.

• International Blackberry Outage Goes Into Day 2
• Will StatusNet Be Another Open-Source Star in the Enterprise?

ReadWriteCloud

Our channel ReadWriteCloud, sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

• SXSW 2010 for Cloud Lovers
• Cloud Religion: Do’s, Do Not’s, and a Glimpse of Nirvana
• Cisco in the Core: Preparing for the Next Generation Internet

That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Discuss

Reporters Without Borders released its annual report [PDF] on online access today. They call it Enemies of the Internet, and it shows a world where online censorship, intimidation and worse is increasing.

It’s not surprising that as access to the Internet expands, more and more dictators and tyrants will try to suppress it. But what’s troubling about this year’s report is the inclusion of two democratic countries: Australia and South Korea.

Sponsor

Both countries were included in the report’s Under Surveillance list – a sub group of the main Enemies list.

Australia’s proposed online filtering system is something RWB says it has “never before seen in a democracy.” Additionally, in the state of South Australia it’s now against the law to be anonymous online if it’s in the context of an election.

In South Korea, a new censorship law allows for five-year prison sentences for anyone found using the Internet “to disseminate false news intended to damage the public interest.” The same law requires online visitors to register their real name and national ID card number when visiting sites with more than 100,000 members.

Here are a handful of the worst violators of online freedom of expression on the Enemies of the Internet list:

Burma

Two high-ranking government officials have been sentenced to death for having e-mailed documents abroad. Net censorship is a serious matter in Burma. Massive filtering of websites and extensive slowdowns during times of unrest are daily occurrences for the country’s Internet users. The legislation governing Internet use – the Electronic Act – is one of the most liberticidal laws in the world.

China

As its polemic with Google and the United States on the Internet’s future unfolds, China continues to intensify Web censorship, faced with an increasingly forceful online community.The much-vaunted promises made by organizers at the open ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games have proven to be mere illusions for the world’s biggest netizen prison. Expanded dissemination of propaganda, generalized surveillance and crackdowns on Charter 08 signatories are commonplace on what has become the Chinese Intranet – with significant consequences for trade.

Egypt

More than a mere virtual communications tool, the Egyptian Internet has become a mobilization and dissension platform. Although website blocking remains limited, authorities are striving to regain control over bloggers who are more and more organized, despite all the harassment and arrests.

Iran

Iran, one of cyber-censorship’s record-holding countries, has stepped up its crackdown and online surveillance since the protests over the disputed presidential reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on June 12, 2009. The regime is demonizing the new media, which it is accusing of serving foreign interest.While a dozen netizens are serving out their terms in Evin Prison, bold Internet users are continuing to mobilize.

Saudi Arabia

An emerging bloggers’ community is up against harsh censorship. These bloggers are confronting the traditional forces of Saudi society, which are attempting to prevent the Internet from becoming a forum for free discussions. Saudi Arabia is one of the first countries to have been authorized to write Internet domain names in Arabic.The Internet penetration rate, currently estimated at about 38% of the population, is rising. How- ever, it is still one of the most repressive countries with regard to the Internet.

Syria

Syria is reinforcing its censorship of troublesome topics on the Web and tracking netizens who dare to express themselves freely on it. As a result, social networks have been particularly targeted by omnipresent surveillance. The promised technological improvements are slow to materialize. The authorities’ distrust of the potential for dissident online mobilization may be playing a role in this delay.

Vietnam

The progress made by Vietnam in the domain of human rights, which allowed the country to become a member of the World Trade Organization in 2007, is nothing but a distant memory. As the 2011 Communist Party Congress draws nearer, the regime is muffling dissident views on the Internet, and its first target is critics of the country’s policy toward China.

Discuss

Our top story this week was location – location-based networks, services, advertising and even “feelings”. Read on for our coverage and analysis. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things.

Note: We’ve refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010, as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your thoughts on the new format.

Sponsor

Story of the Week: Location

• Can Brightkite Beat Foursquare & Gowalla With a Universal Check-in?
• Google Patents Location-Based Advertising
• 2 Services for DIY Mobile Social Networks
• Google Chrome Becomes Location Aware
• Can Geosense for Windows Help Kickstart the Development of Location-Aware Apps for Windows 7?
• Glow: Location-Based “Feelings” for iPhone

More coverage and analysis of location-based technology

Announcing the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit

Join us for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7 in Mountain View, California as we explore the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Be a part of the discussion on geo-location services, augmented reality, native app vs. browser-based, commerce and marketing, mobile social networking and the Internet of Things. Sponsorship enquiries: [email protected],

Register now for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit and get early bird rates – only $295.

Mobile Web

• Watch Out, iPhone Devs: One-Man Android App Nets $13K Monthly
• Netflix on the iPhone? Yes, Please!
• Can We Kick Our Keyboard Addiction by 2013?

More Mobile Web coverage

Historic Conversation in NYC: Ai Weiwei, Jack Dorsey & Richard MacManus

On March 15, at the prestigious Paley Center in New York City, a conversation will take place between Chinese digital activist and artist Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey, and yours truly, Richard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb founder and editor in chief. The moderator will be Orville Schell, the director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York.

The topic of the event is the emergence of digital activism for fostering positive social change. The onsite event is invitation only, but it will be live streamed exclusively on ReadWriteWeb on Monday, March 15, at 6:30 PM EST (-5 GMT), from the Paley Center for Media, New York City.

Internet of Things

• McKinsey: Get Ready For Sensor-Driven Business Models
• Ads with Eyes: Keeping Digital Signage in Check
• Google Wants Your Lamp to Tell You How Much Power It’s Using

More Internet of Things coverage

Real-Time Web

• Google Index to Go Real Time
• 10.5 Million WordPress Blogs Get PubSubHubbub
• Beyond Twitter Search: Semantic Analysis of the Real-Time Web

More Real-Time Web coverage. Don’t miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb’s report, The Real-Time Web and its Future.

Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App

We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we’ve made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

• The Startup Bus: Is This How Outsiders See Startup Culture?
• Picnik CEO to Startups: The M&As Are Out There
• Are Crowdsourcing and Outsourcing No-Nos For Startups?

ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0’ and using social software inside organizations.

• Will StatusNet Be Another Open-Source Star in the Enterprise?
• Drupal Founder Critical of SaaS and its Proprietary Nature

ReadWriteCloud

Our channel ReadWriteCloud, sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

• Steve Ballmer: Microsoft’s Future Is in the Cloud
• Weekly Poll: What is the Top Threat to Cloud Computing?
• How Many Enterprise Workers Will Work in the Mobile Cloud? Try 130 Million

That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Discuss