Next year’s favourite websitesWhat’s the next big Twitter or 4Square? Perhaps it’s the program that uses Facebook to study. Or oBaz, the site that brings you together to get a group discount on a product. Check out BizSpark, a program by Microsoft that supports start-ups.
Apps
Hywood on Fairfax …expectation, hoping, wishing …
Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood faced a 40-minute interrogation yesterday. As the relatively new CEO of Fairfax, he’s a good performer. Hats off. But there’s an anomaly in his message that just can’t be ignored.
Simons: will Fairfax apps change the fundamental outlook?
Can the slick new Fairfax apps for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald save the newspaper journalism business model?
Grindr: where the gays go to play
It’s the world’s biggest gay bar: more than a million men in 180 countries across the world use the social media app Grindr. Is it just an easy way to find hookups or is it something more? asks Matt Kapp.
How Angry Birds became a flying success
Angry Birds: it’s one of the most popular iPhone apps of all time — and one of the best time wasters around. Wired examines how Finnish developers Rovio set out to create the perfect smart phone game, and made themselves millions in the process.
graph pr0n 
When it comes to new media, it’s all location, location, location
Location-based apps and websites are theMyTown and Twitter’s geolocation function. But who’s looking at what, where?
The end of guidebooks
The days of trekking through foreign lands with a dog-eared, note-filled Lonely Planet guide will soon be over, predicts travel writer Hackpacker. Apps simply offer so much more.
rumour 
Twitter app makers plot a revolution
Twitter has bought-out Twitter iPhone app Tweetie, and the folks who have made all the other third-party Twitter clients are pissed — rumour is that they’re now plotting “Project Shark”: a scheme to replace Twitter with an “open” alternative.
Adobe: “Go screw yourself Apple”
Apple has once again shut out Adobe’s multimedia platform Flash from the iPhone. Flash evangelist Lee Brimelow tells Steve Jobs and co where to go.
All the new iPhone features
Steve Jobs has revealed the new features of the next iPhone makeover, and there are some huge changes: a new interface, app folders, iBooks, bluetooth keyboards and the long-awaited addition of multitasking. Gizmodo has the full list.
iPhone app maps US sex offenders — on Sydney streets
A popular iPhone app has been falsely listing American sex offenders as living in Sydney suburbs, raises privacy concerns, fears of vigilantism and questions about Apple’s own internal policies, writes James West.
leaked 
The full list of approved iPad apps
App Advice has compiled a list of all the apps that will be available when the iPad App Store launches next weekend. So far, the only news app is Reuters Pro, which they have a sneak peak of here.
The Oz: We’re ready for our iPad, Mr Jobs
The Australian says it will be “among the first newspapers to offer an iPad edition”. It isn’t naming a price — but there will be one — but ominously notes that its sister paper, the WSJ, is charging AU$19.80 a month.
iTunes names the best apps of 2009
Apple’s iTunes has named the “best” (in its staffers’ opinions, presumably) and top selling apps for 2009 — everything from Jamie Oliver’s 20 Minute Meals to the obvious Flight Control to Crikey favourite Tweetie 2.
Facebook’s FarmVille: now bigger than Twitter
Facebook says it is now has 350 million users around the world — 69 million of whom are using the site’s (inexplicably) popular sim game, FarmVille: more than three-times the number of Twitter users.
NSW gets its geek on
NSW Premier Nathan Rees this morning reinforced the state’s commitment to “open government” with the apps4nsw program. It’s in stark contract to what happened in March this year.
