Home Weekly Wrapup: Social Media Monitoring, Future of Firefox, eBay Sells StumbleUpon, And More…

Weekly Wrapup: Social Media Monitoring, Future of Firefox, eBay Sells StumbleUpon, And More…

In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup, our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week, we look at the latest in social media monitoring tools, investigate how cloud computing is being used in scientific research projects, review some future Firefox concepts, check out the latest iPhone app usage stats, report on eBay selling off StumbleUpon and preparing for a Skype IPO, and more. Also, we look at featured stories from ReadWriteHire, our new product which tracks hires in tech and new media.

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Web Trends

The Future of Social Media Monitoring

Ten years ago the ClueTrain manifesto said that “markets are conversations” but today a more pertinent statement could be that conversations are becoming markets – or that there’s a market for monitoring conversations. A whole class of technologies are emerging to help companies keep track of the conversations exploding online. The web moves fast enough that we may as well start looking at what comes next. Easy to use and affordable tools like Radian6 and ScoutLabs that track blog and twitter mentions are a given – but what kinds of crazy innovations can we hope for in the future?

Web as Platform For Research on Oceans, Galaxies

The University of Washington has announced two new research projects that will utilize cloud computing platforms from Internet companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM. According to the press release published on Genetic Engineering News, the University of Washington has won grants from the National Science Foundation to fund projects examining ocean climate simulations and analyzing astronomical images. Both of these projects will utilize cloud computing to examine and interact with “the massive datasets that are becoming more and more common in science.”

Twitter Leads to Immorality? C’mon!

This week we heard Fox News reporting that Facebook may be responsible for lower GPA scores and later in the week a new study came to light claiming that rapid-fire media – like that of Twitter for instance – can actually impact our moral compass. In fact, the study says the fast-moving nature of some online social spaces may not provide us with the time we as humans need to feel higher emotions like admiration and compassion.

This Messaging Fragmentation is Crazy

Why do I have to go to LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to send messages? Why do people insist on using these non-standard messaging systems? If people said, “Don’t call me on the telephone — I prefer the delephone,” you would think they were crazy. For a while, this was a minor inconvenience, but now it is starting to get out of control.

Should the Government Control Internet Standards?

One role of the government is to protect the country and make its citizens feel safe through policy and regulation. But in today’s digital era, policy making is moving to the people, and we are witnessing individual corporations – be they for profit or not – getting more involved in Internet standards. A panel of industry experts convened at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco earlier this month, and moderated by ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick, discussed the issues surrounding Internet standards. We’ve written up our notes below and hope to begin a conversation about whether Internet standards should be administrated by private organizations or our leaders in the White House.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

A Word from Our Sponsors

We’d like to thank ReadWriteWeb’s sponsors, without whom we couldn’t bring you all these stories every week!

  • Mashery is the leading provider of API management services.
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  • Aplus provides web hosting services for small business hosting needs.
  • MediaTemple provides hosting for RWW.
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  • SixApart provides our publishing software MT4.


ReadWriteHire

Who’s Getting Hired in Tech? Q1 Numbers from ReadWriteHire

Rapleaf’s Auren Hoffman says that hiring is harder in a downturn because the noise goes up but the quality stays the same. That’s a pretty strong statement to make, but if it’s true then it’s all the more remarkable to see which companies are making hires now.

Our site ReadWriteHire covers new hires in tech and new media. We’ve just published our aggregate numbers for the first 3 months of 2009. Who’s hiring? Software and IT companies, social media and social networking companies and marketing and advertising firms.

SUBSCRIBE TO READWRITEHIRE FOR THE LATEST NEWS ON JOB HIRES IN TECH

Web Products

The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity

Thanks to its extensibility, Firefox quickly became the favorite browser for most power users. But while extensions are a great way to make Firefox more functional, Mozilla‘s designers are also currently thinking about a complete redesign of the way the browser looks and feels, in order to keep up with changing usage patterns. The most radical proposal we have seen so far would do away with the standard browser tabs, and replace them with an interface that looks more like iTunes than Firefox.

The Most Used iPhone Apps (They’re Not Games!)

Earlier this month, comScore released statistics regarding the top application downloads of all time for Apple’s iPhone platform. According to that information, which showed that nearly half of the top 25 are games, many people assumed that games are making the iPhone the success it is today. However, when looking at another metric, it seems that games might not be as popular as originally thought. When it comes to everyday use of applications, you see, there are several others that rank higher. Can you guess what they are?

StumbleUpon Breaks Free from eBay – Founders Buy it Back

Want a geeky way to chill out after a long work day of focus, focus, focus? There are few better ways online to keep the synapses lubricated than through the semi-serendipity of social sharing service StumbleUpon. Now you can Stumble outside of the shadow of the mega-corporate overlords at eBay – two years after Stumble founders Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith cashed out and handed their baby over to the ecommerce giant, they’ve come back with a team of investors and bought StumbleUpon back from eBay. It’s pretty exciting.

eBay Lays Groundwork for Skype IPO in 2010

Online auction giant eBay, rumored to be shopping around for a buyer for its 2005 acquisition of voice-over-IP phone service Skype, announced in a press release this week that it has now decided to prep the ground for a 2010 Skype IPO launch. The announcement also says that this is one of several outcomes considered for Skype when eBay president John Donahoe became CEO early in 2008.

Facebook’s Redesign: Bad News for Some Developers

According to All Facebook, not only did Facebook’s latest redesign frustrate a lot of its users, but the new emphasis on the social network’s news feed has turned out to be a major headache for developers. Some of the most popular Facebook applications have seen a 15 to 25% decline in usage over the last few weeks. Causes, the number one Facebook application, saw a drop of 24% in monthly active users since the redesign went live, and a number of popular applications from developers like Slide, RockYou, and FamilyLink saw a similar decline.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

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

About ReadWrite’s Editorial Process

The ReadWrite Editorial policy involves closely monitoring the tech industry for major developments, new product launches, AI breakthroughs, video game releases and other newsworthy events. Editors assign relevant stories to staff writers or freelance contributors with expertise in each particular topic area. Before publication, articles go through a rigorous round of editing for accuracy, clarity, and to ensure adherence to ReadWrite's style guidelines.

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