space shuttle launch debt: Weekly Wrap-up: Foursquare Ditches Google Maps and More Top Stories

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Weekly Wrap-up: Foursquare Ditches Google Maps and More Top Stories

Foursquare drops the Google Maps API to use OpenStreetMap. We show you an insider's look at how Google search works. The Pirate Bay starts using unstoppable Magnet Links. All of this and 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.

Sponsor

Foursquare Dumps Google & Goes Open-Source for Maps

Foursquare announced it would no longer be using the Google Maps API to power it's maps, instead choosing to use the open source map solution, OpenStreetMap. Foursquare cited Google's decision to start charging for access as the primary reason for the shift.

How Google Search Really Works

Jon sits down with Google Fellow, Ben Gomes, to discover the inner workings of search. Ben tells the story of a single search query, from beginning to end. This is a must read post for those of you who are fascinated by search.

The Pirate Bay Switches from Torrents to Untraceable Magnet Links

The Pirate Bay announced it will stop linking to .torrent files and will instead begin using Magnet Links. These links are more stable, more efficient, and unless the entire page is removed, they're unstoppable.

More Top Posts:

Three New Tools Bring Machine Learning Insights to the Masses

Over the past few years, machine learning has quickly become the "secret sauce" of large-scale web sites. Machine learning systems have historically been hand-crafted by the small armies of computer science and mathematics Ph.D.s in employ at places like Google. With the growing popularity of machine learning and other statistical techniques, the demand for so-called "data scientists" (software developers and analysts with the skill to apply statistical techniques to large data sets) has exploded since 2010. More

The Only 5 Things That Matter at Mobile World Congress

It's easy to get distracted at Mobile World Congress: There are some 60,000 people here in Barcelona, hundreds of booths, some product announcements, and - oh, right - an entire conference of panels and keynotes going on in the background.

But there are five things at Mobile World Congress that actually matter. More

With E-Book Ban, Apple's

With E-Book Ban, Apple's "Closed" Nature Goes Too Far [HOT TOPIC]

It's easy to take jabs at Apple for sometimes being too "closed." From restrictions on mobile apps to the limited customizability of the iPad, it's a reputation that the company has earned even as it sells millions upon millions of devices. Even the original Macintosh infamously discouraged tinkerers by requiring specialized tools to physically open it up. More

Google+ Announces Drug War Debate via Hangout

Google announced a new Hangout video show called Versus today on the YouTube blog. It's a partnership with Intelligence�, a worldwide forum based in the U.K. that has hosted debates for radio and television since 2002. Well-known participants debate a proposed motion, and the audience can vote in real time on the value of the arguments. More

How To Pimp Your Facebook Habits

Love it, hate it, but you will use Facebook. comScore released a report yesterday saying that we use Facebook 19 times more than Twitter and an astounding 135 times than Google+. And while our average time on Google+ was down to 3.3 minutes for the month of January, we now collectively spend about one in seven of our online minutes on Facebook. More

Delicious Founder Creates New People Search Engine, Skills.to

Joshua Schachter and his team of star developers at TastyLabs have begun work on a second project, an endorsement and people search engine called Skills.to. The site lets you endorse people for their skills in various fields, see what the people you know have been endorsed for and search for people with particular skills. More

[UPDATED] Amazon & Google Getting Impatient With Book Publishers

All is not well in the e-book market. Amazon and Google have each scaled back some e-book programs in the past week because business was weaker than expected. Both e-book sellers are having trouble doing business with publishers. More

ReadWriteWeb Channels

Enterprise

Mobile

Cloud

Follow ReadWriteCloud on Twitter and join the ReadWriteCloud LinkedIn Group.

ReadWriteWeb Community

You can find ReadWriteWeb in many places on the web, a few of which are below.