Jon Mitchell tells you what the point of Foursquare is. Richard MacManus shows you 10 gorgeous apps to drool over. Learn more about these stories and many 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.
What Is the Point of… Foursquare?
If you’ve tried to figure out why people use Foursquare, Jon Mitchell explains that beyond the badges, check-ins and branded ad campaigns, Foursquare offers significant user value in its recommendations.
Forget the annoying badges and mayorships, too. There’s one useful thing at which Foursquare is very, very good: recommendations.
10 Beautiful Apps & Websites To Drool Over
Some apps are very clearly not blessed with beauty. These apps are different. They stand out from the pack because thoughtful design and elegant UI is more than skin deep. There were a few more great finds in the comments:
“Google+, Chrome Beta, Pocket, YouTube are some gorgeous apps on Android.”– Redwan Huq
More Top Stories
Who’s Winning The Battle For The Interest Graph: Facebook, Google+ or Twitter?
Do you use Google+ more than Facebook? Are you an avid Twitter user, but not so active on Google+? Do you autoshare online media, such as songs or news articles, on Facebook? These are just some of the questions being asked in the ongoing evolution of the “Interest Graph,” succinctly defined by software engineer Adam Rifkin as “WHAT people care about.” He was contrasting it to the term popularized by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “Social Graph,” which is WHO people care about. More
Socialcam is being called the “Instagram for Video” app. With this phrase comes the idea that, like seemingly every startup nowadays, the goal is to build an awesome and thriving community, pump up the product to the level of ultimate coolness and then cash in by selling to a bigger social company that may or may not have a working business model. That’s one way to look at it. More
New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for April 2012
Following all the great apps released for iOS and Android in March, it seemed like we were in for an April letdown. That is not the case. Some huge names published great apps this month, including Google releasing its Drive app for Android and Instagram making its debut outside of the iPhone. Taken by themselves, that would make for a notable month of apps. But, we have more. A lot more. What were the top apps this month? Check out the second edition of our ReadWrite Recommends Apps of the Month for iOS and Android. More
The Rise of Beautiful Apps
A noticeable trend this year is beautiful apps or websites. It’s all part of a larger trend that we’re calling The Visual Web, meaning that images and video are becoming an increasingly important part of what we consume online. Pinterest is the best example of that larger trend. But by “beautiful apps or websites,” I’m specifically referring to extremely well-designed apps or websites. Ones that make you drool. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But I think we all agree that Johnny Depp and Reese Witherspoon are particularly fine examples of beauty in human form. So what’s the app equivalent of Johnny Depp? Or the website version of Reese Witherspoon? More
Cartoon: Pinterest for Dummies
OK, Can We Have Super Mario for iPhone Now?
Nintendo is in trouble. The Japanese gaming giant, which has long felt building pressure from mobile computing platforms, is now officially losing money. Lots of it. Last week, the company reported an operating loss of $458 million, the first such deficit in its long history. While larger economic trends are partially to blame, it certainly doesn’t help that Nintendo is refusing to consider the one thing that could possibly save it. More
Why “Instagram For Video” Apps Will Go Big
The latest trend in smartphone apps is social video. That’s because ever since Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 Billion, attention has focused on video sharing apps and whether one of them will win the next Zuckerberg lottery. The two leading contenders are Socialcam and Viddy. ReadWriteWeb’s Alicia Eler profiled those two apps, along with a third called Klip, in a post Wednesday. More
10 Executives Who Lied On Their Resumes – And 2 Who Got Away With It
We learned that Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s resume boasts a computer science degree he never got. This news is likely to have a ripple effect as we discover who else in the Valley has tried to pull a stunt like this. Here’s what happened to 10 other executives who fibbed on their resumes. More
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