When you use a site like Gmail, you have to decide: Do I want to use the service's website, or do I want to use it through an app, like Outlook? Here's how to get the best of both worlds. More »

There’s been a lot of hoopla over the past couple of years about Twitter’s so-called “firehose.” Essentially, it’s an open stream of all their data that is provided to developers to use for third-party apps. Foursquare has a firehose of its own, but access to it has been on lock down. Today, for SXSW, Foursquare opened up its firehose a bit more.

Social Great, a service which tracks trending places in cities back on location data, has just gotten access to this firehose of data. This allows them to show in realtime the trending places throughout Austin, Texas, where SXSW is taking place. The service also pulls in data from Gowalla, Brightkite, and GraffitiGeo (Loopt).

As Polaris Ventures EIR Jon Steinberg notes (who helped build Social Great), “the numbers look crazy.” What he means is the check-in data at SXSW. Judging from what I’m seeing on the ground here in Austin, that may be an understatement. Venues routinely have dozens if not hundreds of other Foursquare users at them when they’re trending.

SimpleGeo, one company that has had early access to Foursquare’s firehose, built Vicarious.ly to visualize real-time check-ins around Austin. That data looks fairly insane as well. Most of the check-ins appear to be coming from Foursquare (which saw over 300,000 check-ins on Thursday alone) and Gowalla, but co-founder Joe Stump notes that the battle is too close to call still.

One other note: all these check-ins are made possible by the fact that AT&T’s network has been up and working the whole time. It’s been impressive. Crisis averted, so far.

CrunchBase InformationFoursquareSocialGreatInformation provided by CrunchBase

There’s no doubt Google has a sense of humor — its excellent April Fools jokes are a testament to that. But there’s a wealth of funnies that can found any time of the year too. Here we pull together a handy list of Google “Easter eggs” that you can uncover right now.

Bearing in mind we’re working up another list covering surprises that can be found in Google Maps, Earth and Street View, have we missed any other tricks from those crazy Google funsters? Do share in the comments below.

---

1. Try a Different Version of the Google Homepage

---

Sure, Google’s doodles make the famously sparse homepage a little more funky on certain days, but there are ways to jazz it up any day with some homepage tricks that will turn your search base into a pirate-, Klingon- or even Swedish Chef- themed online property.

Most of these work by entering an exact search term and then hitting the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. There’s a ton of these, some of which have been active for a while.

Google nods to open source software with Linux- and BSD devil-themed options that can be activated by typing “google linux” and “google bsd” then hitting the IFL button.

Those partial to a bit of grog meanwhile can get their Google homepage pirated by doing the same with “xx-pirate.” Google will display in “hacker-speak” if you type in “google l33t.” The Klingon version can be found with “xx-klingon,” and if you want some bork with your Google, enter “xx-bork” to go all Muppet Show.

Even more options include pig latin (“xx-piglatin”), an Easter egg-themed page complete with bunny mini-game (“google easter egg”), and a dark gothic way to search (“google gothic”). Typing “elgoog” offers Google backwards, and there’s an Elmer Fudd tribute at “ewmew fudd.” Finally, it’s not quite a whole homepage change, but entering “ascii art” will make the Google logo display in that style.

---

2. See Quirky Calculator Results

---

While the few funny answers Google offers via its Calculator app don’t quite top the amusement to be had by typing 5318008 into your upside-down elementary school calculator, they are nonetheless another sign that the search giant doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Case in point — searching for the number of horns on a unicorn makes the Calculator app spring into life with the answer “1,” which is the same number it returns if you ask Google what the loneliest number is. Searching for “once in a blue moon” brings up “1.16699016 × 10^-8 hertz.”

And, always a classic, searching for “the answer to life, the universe, and everything” will trigger the Calculator display “42,” which we all know is a reference to Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

---

3. View Search Results Funnies

---

A classic search gag is revealed by asking Google to “find chuck norris” and hitting the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. The result, in bold red, reads “Google won’t search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don’t find Chuck Norris, he finds you.” Suggestions for the next course of action include, “Run, before he finds you.”

Although not falling into the Easter egg basket, some of the auto-suggestions that can be found via Google’s search service are pretty funny, too.

---

4. Get Teddy Bears and Ninjas

---

Google programmers have messed around with code for both Picasa and Google Reader to yield some surprising results.

Taking Picasa first, when in the desktop software, hitting control-shift-y will make a teddy bear appear. Hitting the same combo again will give the first teddy a new buddy, and so on. It’s since been revealed this was the childhood bear of photographer and photoblogger Noah Grey who worked with Google on the project.

Reader, meanwhile, gets an even more comprehensive Easter egg. With a reference to the old Konami video game cheat code — that, depending on the game, would give you 30 lives or other bonuses — hitting up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, will make your RSS feed reader go into “ninja” mode.

As well as making some of the screen blue, all your feeds will read “30,” and some of the icons will change (e.g. the like/unlike buttons, which turn into animated hearts). A little cartoon ninja will actually appear on the right hand side of your screen.

---

5. iGoogle Theme Surprises in the Wee Hours

---

iGoogle skins are practically chocolate-coated with so many Easter Eggs to be found within. A wide selection of the themes — which tart up your browser bar with pictures that change throughout the day — have a secret that’s revealed at 3:14 AM PST every single day.

Selecting the “beach” theme will mean the Loch Ness Monster makes a mysterious appearance for one minute every day at that time. UFOs will hover over the skyline in “City Scape” and the Yokai, from Japanese folklore, show up in “Tea House”.

Meanwhile, a cartoon monster makes a brief appearance in “Spring Scape,” pi appears in the sky in “Sweet Dreams,” and the Northern Lights put on a show in both “Winter Scape” and “Holiday Village.” Still more include a snow tiger in “Aja Tiger,” pumpkins in “Autumn,” a galleon sailing along in “Hong Kong,” and a spider in “JR.”

It’s almost certainly no coincidence that “3.14″ are the first three digits of pi. It’s the kind of witty play on numbers the Google staffers seem to love and, let’s face it — so do we!

---

More Google resources from Mashable:

---

- 5 Ways to Use Google Wave for Business - Google Wave: A Complete Guide - Google Buzz: 5 Opportunities for Small Businesses - Google Buzz: What is it Good For? - 5 Impressive Real-Life Google Wave Use Cases

Tags: easter eggs, Google, google reader, google search, iGoogle

Working for Demand Media: The Web's Biggest, Scariest Content Machine

EAST WENATCHEE — Douglas County commissioners have given 20 reluctant deputies until April 1 to sign a policy agreement regarding Internet usage. Sheriff Harvey Gjesdal told the commissioners in February the deputies didn’t want to sign the policy as it was written because there was no protection for law enforcement officials who sometimes have to go to pornographic and social Web sites during ...

If you had to pick the one buzzword that’s dominating social media chatter today, it would have to be location. Just over a year ago, Foursquare burst onto the scene at the SXSW conference in Austin, TX. Since then, it’s only grown dramatically.

The result has been a battle for domination in the geolocation space. While many still think Foursquare could be the next Twitter, rivals such as Gowalla are giving the mobile startup some heat, and big players such as Facebook and Twitter are launching location features or are about to launch them.

Our own Pete Cashmore sat down with Bloomberg’s Cris Valerio to discuss the location trend, the battle brewing between Foursquare and Gowalla at this year’s SXSW, the gold mine that is location-based advertising, the iPad, and even a little bit about the future of Mashable.

It’s quite a fascinating video — if you do watch it, let us know what you think of the location trend (and Pete’s on-air performance) in the comments.

SXSWi (the South by Southwest Interactive conference) is certainly our favorite track of the SXSW experience, but it’s not the only portion of the festival taking place this weekend. Film goers are out en masse in Austin too, and directors — both big and small — are using the event to showcase their films. Or in some cases, using it to show off preview of their films.

Texas-native Robert Rodriguez (whose Troublemaker Studios is based in Austin) showcased the first preview of July’s Predators, his newest movie, last night. Predators stars Adrien Brody and Topher Grace in what is essentially a reboot of the storied franchise. Rodriguez, a fan of the original series, produced and contributed to the screenplay. Fox already has a Predators website, complete with Twitter and Facebook integration.

The preview that was shown at SXSW is already online and you can watch it here:

Knowing Rodriguez’s love of digital filmmaking and his Predator fandom, we fully expect to see a digital — possibly even viral — campaign for the film, especially as we edge closer to release. The full trailer will be online on March 18th.

So, are you excited about Predators? Let us know in the comments!

Tags: movie trailers, Movies, Predators, sxsw, sxsw2010, sxswi

It's SXSW weekend so you may be pretty burnt out on conferences - or just sick and tired of hearing about them - but if you're in New York City this week, don't miss what's sure to be a profound and fascinating conversation between Chinese digital activist and artist Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey, and ReadWriteWeb's Richard MacManus.

How do you like your events calendar? As a world map? As an iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file? You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us.

Sponsor

---

12 – 16 March 2010: Austin, Texas

SXSW Interactive

An incubator of cutting-edge technologies, the SXSW Interactive Festival offers five days of captivating keynote presentations, panel sessions, book readings, Salons and Core Conversations that provide hands-on training as well as big-picture analysis. In addition to the business opportunities at the Trade Show and Exhibition and the hands-on gaming fun at the ScreenBurn Arcade, SXSW Interactive provides an array of exciting evening events including the SXSW Web Awards Ceremony. More to the point, coming to SXSW Interactive is a great way to recharge your creativity.

The variety of programming offered at SXSW Interactive means that the event focuses as much on creativity as it does on technology. This focus is augmented by SXSW Film, which runs concurrently with SXSW Interactive and SXSW Music. Moreover, a full slate of parties and receptions during the evening hours help to accelerate the social aspect of the event.

For more information, visit sxsw.com, or for a handy survival guide click here.

---

15 March, 2010: New York City

A 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 ReadWriteWeb's 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.

---

15 – 16 March 2010: London, England

2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum — London

The 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum takes place at the Olympia Conference Centre in London. The two-day event features four dedicated conference streams:

• Social Networking World Forum
• Enterprise social media
• Social TV World Forum
• Mobile Social Networking Forum

The event features key speakers from global brands, organizations, social networking publishers and developers, pioneering social media leaders, top agencies, content producers, and more.

• Full workshop program within exhibition area
• Evening networking reception
• Pre-show online meeting planner for delegates
• Free pass for exhibition only

---

22 – 26 March 2010: New York City

Search Engine Strategies New York Conference & Expo

Go beyond search at Search Engine Strategies New York. Learn the newest trends, strategic action plans, and technology that industry leaders are employing today. Our experts will trace the natural evolution of search exploring topics such as: digital asset optimization, mobile application development, transition from search to discovery and more.Book your pass today. Enter RWW15 to save 15% off the registration. Sessions include:

• Digital Asset Optimization
• Deep Dive Into Analytics
• Augmented Reality: It's a Brave New World
• Bringing SEO In-House: The Pros and Cons
• Advanced B2B Search Marketing
• Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

---

23 March 2010: San Francisco, California

S.F. Beta 4.0

After a long winter's hiatus, S.F. Beta is back, for its forth year straight! Join hundreds of founders, investors, developers, and technologists for a lively evening of demos, drinks, conversation, and new connections. Early bird tickets are available, and they're going fast. Register now for discounted admission. As always, we feature startup demos all night. This time around, the theme is Search & Discovery. If you're building the next Google (or the next Google acquisition), we want you here! Email cperry@sfbeta.com for more info.

---

26 March 2010: San Francisco, California

Freemium Summit

The first Freemium Summit is a one day event focused on exploring what it takes to succeed under the freemium business model. Across all segments of the media landscape, entrepreneurs and executives are pioneering models that combine a free offering with a premium, paid offering. This hybrid business model is one of the most exciting areas of business model innovation impacting the world of media and the Freemium Summit will explore the most important topics on the minds of leading practitioners.

Confirmed Speakers: Toni Schneider, Automattic (WordPress); Matt Brezina, Xobni; Aaron Levie, Box.net; Phil Libin, Evernote; Tom Conrad, Pandora; Drew Houston, Dropbox; Ranjith Kumaran, YouSendIt; Ben Chestnut, Mailchimp; Lance Walley, Chargify; Isaac Hall, Recurly; and Lincoln Murphy, Sixteen Ventures.

---

March 29, 2010: Portland, Oregon

Social Fresh Portland

The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day, you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Intel, Ford, Comcast, Nike and many more, as well as keynote Peter Shankman. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off.

---

4 April 2010: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

ConnectNow

TEDx CMU is an independently organized TEDx event that will be held on April 4th, 2010 at Carnegie Mellon University and will feature a full day of talks by prominent speakers as well as recorded videos from past TEDTalks. Confirmed speakers include Jonathan Fields (author, blogger and entrepreneur), Stacey Monk (founder of Epic Change, a startup nonprofit), Chase Jarvis (photographer, director and social artist) and Nathan Martin (CEO of Deeplocal, an innovation studio in Pittsburgh).

The theme of the event is "Fearless", and we are inviting speakers from cross-disciplinary backgrounds to talk about their experiences, and tell us a little about what inspires them to be fearless in the pursuit of goals. We hope to spark discussions and foster connections between participants, encouraging aspiring individuals to follow their dreams and make a difference. The event is free to attend, and the application deadline is March 21, 2010.

For more information about the event, visit tedxcmu.com or email info@tedxcmu.com. You can also find TEDx CMU on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

---

7 – 9 April 2010: Sydney, Australia

ConnectNow

ConnectNow brings together international specialists and thought leaders in social media, emerging technologies and their intersection with business. Learn how the realtime web, location based services, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing and personalised services are changing marketing and communications. Understand the importance of trust in relationship marketing and what is "social currency". For more info email info@connectnow.net.au.

---

13 – 15 April 2010: Dallas, Texas

PubCon South

PubCon, the premier search and social media conference, features the industry's biggest names and key players shaping the future of the Web. PubCon South will include cutting-edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the world's top keynote speakers. PubCon South at Dallas will also hold a one-day, two-track slate of intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry's most respected search professionals. The event takes place at the Richardson Conference and Civic Center. Register here.

---

16 April 2010: Mountain View, California

Under the Radar: Cloud

Under the Radar: Cloud is must-attend event for dealmakers and heads of IT from large enterprises, SMBs, service providers, carriers and media companies who are responsible for helping their companies leverage new technology and innovation in the fast-evolving IT ecosystem. Join us for the 15th Under the Radar conference, featuring a hand-picked selection of the world's most innovative cloud startups among 350 top tech, media, telcom and finance executives. For ticket and more information, visit http://undertheradarblog.com.

---

16 – 17 April 2010: Royal Oak, Michigan

FutureMidwest

FutureMidwest is the region's largest technology and knowledge conference. Founded by Adrian Pittman, Jordan Wolfe and Zach Lipson, FutureMidwest is the fusion of two successful conferences held in Michigan in 2009 - the Module Midwest Digital Conference and TechNow.

Both conferences highlighted how technology and digital tools have dramatically changed the way we do business and the effect this transition has had on companies. FutureMidwest kicks things up a notch with presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and influencers who are taking action to redefine business in the digital age. Register here.

---

April 19, 2010: St. Louis Missouri

Social Fresh St. Louis

The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Ford, Best Buy, Scottrade, Hardees, CMT and many more. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off.

---

19 – 21 April 2010: San Francisco, California

DrupalCon

DrupalCon is the premier conference focused on Drupal, the award-winning open source content management framework that is galvanizing social publishing and web development today. For a registration fee of $195, attendees get three full days of sessions led by the best and brightest Drupal experts. Drupal has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types including blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and management.

---

26 April 2010: San Francisco, California

Future of Money and Technology Summit

The Future of Money & Technology Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors, solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O'Dell from ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and many more.

Use discount code "rww" to get 10% off registration.

---

7 May 2010: Mountain View, California

ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010

The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 will be an exploration of the latest Mobile development trends - both the technology and the emerging business applications. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of Mobile with the brightest in the industry, your peers! As in our last Summit, The Real-Time Web, the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit is an unconference.

An unconference is a participant driven conference where the agenda is created on the day, in real-time and discussions are lead by conference participants. Read about the history of unconferences.

We will have two main tracks at this Summit - Development and Business - so the Summit will be of interest to managers, marketers, developers, innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders alike. Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks.

• Geo-location services - what can you do using location as a platform?
• Commerce & Marketing - as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel?
• Content, Publishing & Recommendations - the technologies and best practices.
• Mobile Social Networking - how to tap into communities on mobile devices.
• Internet of Things - the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data.
• Augmented Reality - the technology and business applications of AR.
• Native App vs. Browser Based - Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian.

Click here to register now, or to become a sponsor, or to help shape the conference.

---

11 May 2010: San Francisco, California

FinovateSpring

FinovateSpring 2010 will again showcase the most cutting-edge financial and banking technology innovations to Silicon Valley and the world. With Finovate's signature mix of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) from handpicked companies and intimate networking time with their executives, this conference packs a ton of unique value into a single day.

Come see the cutting edge of banking and financial technology and network with hundreds of the leading financial executives, venture capitalists, press, industry analysts, bloggers and fintech entrepreneurs. Early bird registration rates are available.

---

May 17 2010: San Francisco, California

SF MusicTech Summit

The SF MusicTech Summit will bring together 700-plus visionaries in the music/technology space - the best and brightest entrepreneurs, developers, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music, business and technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive-to-dealmaking environment. Enter the discount code "rww" to get 10% off.

---

25 – 27 May 2010: Denver, Colorado

Glue

Glue is the only conference devoted solely to exploring the problem-sets facing architects, developers and IT professionals in a "post-cloud" world. Glue focuses on the APIs and protocols (Twitter, Facebook, Websockets, PubSubHubBub, XMPP), formats and standards (RDF/Linked Data, JSON, Microformats, HTML5), platforms and providers (Amazon, Rackspace, Google App Engine, Salesforce.com, Eucalyptus), Identity Protocols (OAuth/WRAP, SAML, OpenID, SPML) emerging NoSQL data models (Cassandra, CouchDB, MongoDB, Riak, HBase), and other mechanisms that are building the post-cloud world.

ReadWriteCloud will be blogging live from Gluecon and CloudCamp, and ReadWriteWeb's Alex Williams will be moderating the "Managing Complexity in the Cloud" session. Please join us May 25-27 in Denver, Colorado. ReadWriteWeb readers can receive 10% off of registration by using the code "RWW12".

---

15 – 16 June 2010: New York City

Corporate Social Media Summit

The Corporate Social Media Summit is a two day conference focused exclusively on how big businesses can take advantage of social media to enhance their marketing/comms strategy. Featuring:

• Practical and relevant insights from peers who have already used social media successfully
• 20-plus corporate speakers (including PepsiCo, Whole Foods, Dell, McDonald's, General Motors, Citi, Johnson & Johnson),
• Best practice, benchmarks and practical next steps you can use to take advantage of social media in your business
• A tightly-focused agenda with 14 in-depth, practical workshops giving you knowledge on only the most critical business issues surrounding corporate use of social media

Save $400 if you quote RWW400 when booking. Book here.

---

29 – 30 June 2010: London

Cloud Computing World Forum

The 2nd annual Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event to learn and discuss the development, integration, adoption and future of cloud computing and SaaS. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry. Show highlights include:

• Co-located with CloudCamp London
• Co-located with Green IT conference
• Free-to-attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre
• Free-to-attend evening awards presentation
• Hear from leading case studies on how they have integrated cloud computing and SaaS into their working practices
• Learn from the key players offering cloud and SaaS services
• Evening networking party for all attendees

---

5 October 2010: New York City

FinovateFall

FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology from established leaders and hot young companies. The Fall event is the original and largest Finovate and features a single day packed with our special blend of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) and intimate networking time with top executives from the innovative demoing companies.

FinovateFall is a unique chance to see the future of finance and banking before your competition and find the edge you need in today's market. Early bird registration rates are available.

---

Download this entire events calendar in iCal format.

Discuss

What else could you wish more to have in your vector icon collection besides these wonderful vector icons.

Almost everything is covered in this pack so that’s why this is a must have pack!

DIRECT download links are available to premium members only.Login or Become a member for only $9.99 / life so you can download all the vector graphics directly + free + commercial use included!

---

Do you like what you see? Any help is welcome! It keeps me working and provide YOU with Free Vector Graphics. Thank you!

© Garcya for Web Design Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment Post tags: FREE VECTORS, superb icons, vector icons

Playing with cool mobile Internet devices at @Intel brunch.

Hooray for Hollywood! — the big winner this week in our roundup of the top 10 Twitter trends. From the Oscars to Alice in Wonderland (and of course, Justin Bieber), celebrity — whether be it music or film — dominated the Twitterverse.

The latest data, which comes from our friends at What the Trend, gives us a snapshot of what topics dominated Twitter. Given the topical nature of the list, hashtag memes and games have been excluded.

Tween-favorite Justin Bieber lost his spot at #1 to the Big Show — AKA the Oscars. The 82nd Academy Awards dominated Twitter on Sunday night and was the most discussed topic of the week as a whole. Don’t feel bad for Bieber though: he’s still number two on the list.

Now, who’s hot who not/Tell me who rock who sell out in the stores. Well, that would be B.I.G P-O, P-P-A, also know as the Notorious B.I.G. The legendary Brooklyn rapper, who was murdered 13 years ago this week, was #5 on this week’s list of trends. More than a decade after his tragic death, Biggie continues to be a larger than life figure.

Music continues to be a big topic of discussion on Twitter, with artists like Lady Gaga, Bieber and the Jonas Brothers all appearing on the list. We expect to see Lady Gaga next week too, given the camp-infused epic music video for “Telephone” that was released at the end of the week.

Looking forward, we predict Justin Bieber, the iPad and Twilight: Eclipse to all appear on the chart next week.

You can check past Twitter trends in our Top Twitter Topics section as well as read more about this past week’s trends on What The Trend.

---

Top Twitter Trends for 3/7 – 3/13

---

Rank	Topic	Top Index This Week	Change	Description
#1	Oscars	1	1	The Academy Awards, or Oscars, are film awards given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, California. The 82nd annual show aired in the USA on 3/7/2010. (Subtrends: Oscars, Sandra Bullock, Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker, Avatar, James Cameron, Academy Awards, Kathy Ireland, Red Carpet, Precious, Crazy Heart, Tyler Perry, Best Picture, Jeff Bridges, District 9, Molly Ringwald, Zac Efron, SJP, Best Supporting, Food Inc, Robert Downey Jr, Kristen Stewart, Farrah Fawcett, Mo’Nique, Best Director, George Clooney, Fisher Stevens, Amanda Seyfried, Meryl Streep, Barbara Walters, ABC, Sandy Powell, Tom Ford, Christoph Waltz, Best Documentary, Sarah Jessica Parker, Colin Firth, Penelope Cruz, Tina Fey, Tom Hanks, An Education, Matt Damon, James Taylor, Hattie McDaniel, Chris Pine, Cablevision, NPH, Ryan Bingham, Steve Martin, Congrats Monique, Frog, Sigourney Weaver, Miley’s, Best Animated, Anna Kendrick, Art Direction)
#2	Justin Bieber	1		Justin Bieber’s new album My World 2.0 comes out on March 23rd & his fans are excited. (Subtrends: Justin Bieber, My World 2, #weadorejustin, #BieberHasMyHeart, QVC, #KingstonFollows, #bieberismyidol, #ripmary, #InLoveWithBieber, Big News, AXns5tC-dgk, Eenie Meenie, #Biebershirtless, RICK, BBC1, Cmon, Let’s Dance, #OMJDByeah, #omgbiebertrue, NcvLuIHIo10)
#3	Follow Friday	1		Follow Friday is a tradition where people tweet people they believe are fun/interesting to follow (on Fridays).
#4	Alice In Wonderland	2	2	Tim Burton’s eagerly anticipated movie, Alice in Wonderland, opened in cinemas worldwide March 5th and stars Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. (Subtrends: Alice, Alice in Wonderland)
#5	Notorious B.I.G.	1	NEW	This week marks the 13th year of the death of the The Notorious B.I.G. The legendary rapper from Brooklyn, NY was murdered tragically 13 years ago on March 9th. (Subtrends: #ripbig, Biggie, Name Ya Top 5 Biggie, Happy BIG Day, Juicy, Christopher Wallace, #Biggie)
#6	Lady GaGa	3	1	Lady Gaga’s new music video with Beyoncé, Telephone, premiered this week. (Subtrends: Lady GaGa, Telephone, Beyonce, #telephonevideo, GQ95z6ywcBY, #TelephoneThursday, Jonathan Ross, GaGa)
#7	Jonas Brothers	1	NEW	The Jonas Brother announce a tour with Demi Lovato, discussed sweater colors, joked about the paparrazi, and Nick Jonas continues to act as a spokesman for diabetes. (Subtrends: #JonasAreBack, #JoeEatsFood, #YoureANileyFan, #itsagreysweater, Houston, #NickJonasDay, #WelcomeKevinJ, Everybody)
#8	Chuck Norris	2	NEW	Chuck Norris turned 70 years old this week, March 10. As a result, people are tweeting Chuck Norris facts. (Subtrends: Chuck Norris, #iheardchucknorris, #chucknorris)
#9	Happy Women’s Day	1	NEW	International day to celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women. It is celebrated in many different countries around the world on March 8th.
#10	Corey Haim	1	NEW	Canadian actor Corey Haim, best remembered for roles in films ‘The Lost Boys’, ‘Lucas’, and ‘License To Drive’, was found dead March 10. It appears to have been a drug overdose. (Subtrends: Actor Corey Haim, Lost Boys, RIP Corey Haim, #RIPCoreyHaim, LAPD, Goonies, North Hollywood, Corey Haim, KNBC, Frank Albarren, Lucas)

Tags: top twitter trends, twitter, What The Trend

What happens when you pair seven visual artists with seven engineers and technologists? The New Museum in New York City is about to find out. An upcoming exhibit called Seven On Seven will put together artists and programmers for one day and tell them to come up with something together. It could be an application, a work of art, a full-blown product, or anything they want. Some of the participating technologists include Delicious founder Joshua Schachter, WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg, former Facebook data dude Jeff Hammerbacher, and Tumblr founder David Karp.

Here are all seven pairings: Artist / Technologist Cao Fei / Jeff Hammerbacher Evan Roth / Joshua Schachter Aaron Koblin / Matt Mullenweg Monica Narula / Andrew Kortina Ryan Trecartin / Hilary Mason Tauba Auerbach / Ayah Bdeir Marc Andre Robinson / David Karp

Schachter, for instance, is being paired with artist Evan Roth, who has created open-source software to analyze graffiti tags and has even created a Graffiti Markup Language (GML). Schachter, of course, pioneered the use of data free-form tags to categorize Delicious bookmarks years ago. Mulennweg is being paired with Aaron Koblin a digital artist who creates art based on the input of thousands of individuals. He is also the artist who created Radiohead’s “House of Cards” video using no cameras (embedded below)

The seven pairs of collaborators will present their final project at the New Museum on April 17. We have 50 discount codes good for $100 off the $350 ticket price (just enter the code “techcrunch” here).

The idea to pair programmers with artists came from betaworks CEO John Borthwick, who is also a board member of Rhizome, the New Museum affiliate which is put the program together.

CrunchBase InformationJoshua SchachterMatt MullenwegJeff HammerbacherInformation provided by CrunchBase

A couple weeks ago, we noted the city of Topeka, Kansas’ humorous attempt to get Google’s attention: by rebranding their city “Google, Kansas.” Why would they do such a thing? Because they want in on Google’s fiber action — the search giant’s proposed plan to sell 1 gigabit-per-second broadband to consumers. Now Baltimore, Maryland is getting in on the fun as well.

The city has appointed a “Google Czar” — yes, that’s the actual title — to lobby the company to put Baltimore on the list of cities in the initial trial. Tom Loveland, CEO of a local tech company, Mind Over Machines, has been appointed by Baltimore’s mayor to take this exalted, but volunteer position.

The Baltimore movement has also launched a website, BmoreFiber, which states in huge, bold letters, “Ask Google to Invest Billions in Baltimore’s Future.“

These attempts by cities to catch Google’s attention, while humorous, show a massive desire for better broadband in this country. It’s kind of sad that it takes an outsider, Google, to spur faster broadband development. Meanwhile, companies that offer broadband as a core business, like Comcast, drag their feet with service that is an order of magnitude slower at huge prices.

Www.WestJet.Com is the homepage of Canada�s own national air carrier WestJet Airlines. There is a lot of good information on the website that visitors will find very useful.

Doing some weather project / website? Looking for some weather icons for that kind of project?

You’re in luck, here you have all the necessary vector weather icons in EPS format.

If you’re looking for PNG icons you can see the 85 free weather icon in png.

For all the free vector graphics follow @Garcya on twitter or subscribe to the feed for free.

(...)Read the rest of Free Vector Weather Icons ( you won't regret it :-) )

---

Do you like what you see? Any help is welcome! It keeps me working and provide YOU with Free Vector Graphics. Thank you!

© Garcya for Web Design Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment Post tags: free vector icons, FREE VECTORS, free weather icons

I’m here at SXSW waiting for the Can the Real-Time Web Be Realized? panel to begin. I’ll be liveblogging what happens, so stay tuned. Search engines have certainly jumped to add in ways to find real-time content. This panel features reps from three of them talking: Google, Microsoft and Collecta.

The creator of Chatroulette has revealed that he is working on a way to preserve user’s privacy, following the launch of Chat Roulette Map, a Google Maps mashups that pinpoints the location of users of the service.

Andrey Ternovskiy, speaking in an interview with the New York Times Bits blog, stated, “There is a certain level of anonymity on the Chatroulette that Chatroulette Map takes away, but I plan to add something to my site to allow them to still hide their whereabouts.”

Chatroulette Map highlights a Chatroulette user’s location by looking at his or her IP addresses, which is revealed via the peer-to-peer nature of the webcam connection. As well as placing a marker on a map, users are screengrabbed, offering anyone in the world a brief sneak peak through a stranger’s webcam.

This has drawn criticism from privacy advocates, although those behind Chatroulette Map say they will remove an image and marker on request if emailed a matching photo to ensure the authenticity of the request.

17-year-old Ternovskiy, a Russian student currently visiting the U.S., says of ChatRoulette Map, “I enjoy it”, but obviously realizes his users — some of which appear to have a penchant for public nudity and masturbation — might be less likely to use the service without the anonymity it previously offered.

However, this does not mean Ternoviskiy is green-lighting the use of the service for such NSFW activities. He has introduced a “report” button, which will see someone “reported” three times banned from the service.

Other points of interest from the interview are the fact that Ternovskiy has yet to collect his Google AdWords earnings as he’s is still under 18, that he’s been offered a $1 million buy-out, and that last month 30 million unique visitors hit Chatroulette, which is averaging one million new users a each day.

Tags: chatroulette, chatroulette map

A new mobile app tests how fast your phone or home Internet connection is — or isn’t. The app’s owner? The U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The FCC wants consumers to contribute to the Broadband Dead Zone Report

Android adoption by consumers in the U.S. is growing at an astounding rate, according to numbers released this week by comScore. Not only did the Google platform’s market share surge 153 percent from October to January, but it surpassed that of Palm’s webOS for the first time ever. Equally impressive is how Android market share is now almost half that of longtime competitor Windows Mobile.

AT&T become the final major carrier in the U.S. to carry at least one Android phone with the launch of the Motorola Backflip, but early users of the device are reporting that it has been crippled compared to other Android phones. AT&T has removed Google search from the Backflip and replaced it with search from Yahoo, which is more than a little ironic considering Android is Google’s own platform. There are also a dozen special AT&T apps that perform many of the same functions as integrated Android apps, and these special apps are not removalble by the owner. Finally, AT&T has disabled the ability for Backflip owners to download apps from anywhere other than the Android Market.

More on Mobile Apps

• Android This Week: Apple vs. HTC and Gesture Search Tech Insider
• Burbn Funded for HTML 5 Version of Foursquare Tech Insider
• Apple Says WiFi-sniffing Apps Stink Tech Insider
• Google Gesture Search Is Great -- If You Can Get It Tech Insider

Google promised the Nexus One would be going to the Verizon network this year, and this week, some eagle-eyed folks uncovered proof that it is indeed getting close to release. The Verizon information indicates the Nexus One will only be sold online, similar to the T-Mobile version of the phone. Most interestingly, the new Verizon information clearly indicates that its version of the phone will run the HTC Sense interface. Sense is considered a good addition to the Android interface, and the original Nexus One shipped without it.

We’re big fans of Animoto, a website that lets you easily create photo and video slideshows matched to music. The site is constantly innovating its nifty product, most recently adding an iPhone app and the ability to incorporate video. For those not familiar with Animoto, the startup basically allows you to take your images, video and your music and mash them together to create cool videos. What makes the videos cool is the company’s technology that renders the pictures so they’re in-step with the music you’ve chosen, adding nice transition effects. This morning, Animoto is opening up its API, allowing partners to now incorporate Animoto’s compelling technologies into independent sites

The first API that being rolled out for the Animoto Partner Platform is Animoto Quickstart.  The API essentially allows any website to tap into Animoto’s video creation flow.  The aim is to make Animoto one click away from any website that has photos, videos or music.  Quickstart allows websites to connect their own content, including photos, video clips and music to Animoto as the first step in creating an Animoto video. So partners can integrate Animoto’s video slideshow creation tool into their sites. And the startup promises that Quickstart takes only hours to a partner to set up on a site.

For example, SmugMug, a photo sharing site that caters to professional photographers, uses Quickstart so users can ‘pass’ their photo albums into Animoto’s video creation flow. So is the user now has the option of making a slideshow from their hosted photos and simply needs to pick a song to complete their Animoto video. Once a user slicks to make the slideshow, he or she will be taken to Animoto’s site, where their video and photos will automatically be placed into Animoto’s site.

Another use case is a promotion Animoto is launching with iconic musician John Bon Jovi where fans of Bon Jovi can go to Bonjovi’s site to create an Animoto music video with Bon Jovi’s latest single and footage from his music video.  Pepsi also used the Quickstart API to help users create video slideshows in a contest involving its ShareTheJoy campaign.

With the launch of this API at SXSW, Animoto is partnering with music publication SPIN magazine to allow fans to promote their favorite South by Southwest bands for a chance to win prizes. From now until March 31, 2010, fans are can create and submit Animoto videos featuring songs from top South by Southwest bands for a chance to win $1000 and a spot on Spin.com, and other prizes.   Currently Animoto has 1.4 million users and makes money off of its paid subscriptions. On its site its free to create 30 second videos, but you need to pay $3 per video to make an lengthier slideshow. The site sells a year long subscription to users for $30. A large part of Animoto’s subscription business are composed of professional videographers and photographers who pay $20 per year to create their own branded videos that they can download, and burn to a CD (and the slideshow doesn’t bear the “Animoto” logo). Animoto’s CEO Brad Jefferson tells me that 10 percent of users, so 140,000 people, are currently using some type of paid subscription on the site.The company is already cash-flow positive, which isn’t bad for a startup that’s less than three years old.

In terms of monetizing the API, Animoto isn’t charging any of its partners. In fact, its actually paying its partners in terms of affiliate fees. So if any partners lead new or existing users to the site who end up buying a subscription, Animot will give the partner a 40 percent cut of the first year’s fee.

The Quickstart API seems to be the first of a few sets of APIs that will extend Animoto’s technology onto the other sites. It’s a smart move. While many photo sharing sites have the ability to make slideshows, the technology is not nearly as fun and easy to use as Animoto’s. And Animoto is undoubtedly a compelling tool for an brand marketer to use for a campaign. Frankly, the possibilities are endless because Animoto is such an easy tool to use.

CrunchBase InformationAnimotoInformation provided by CrunchBase