A combination of hi-tech Christmas gifts and seasonal discounts led to the milestone finally being breached, but leading mobile analytics firm Flurry expects that we’ll see the mobile market continue to increase throughout 2012. Currently the USA is the top app downloader, responsible for over half of all app downloads in the record breaking week:

Top App Downloaders (Final week of 2011)

1. USA – 509 million
2. China – 99 million
3. UK – 81 million
4. Canada – 41 million
5. Germany/France – 40 million each

It’s estimated that around 7 million new smartphones were activated on Christmas Day alone (with Google Android phones accounting for over half), and unsurprisingly this has led to predictions that (just like 2010 and 2011) 2012 could finally be the year of mobile:

“Looking forward to 2012, Flurry expects breaking the one-billion-download-barrier per week will become more common-place.   While iOS and Android growth continues to amaze, the market is still by all measures relatively nascent.  We look forward to continuing to chart the unprecedented adoption of mobile computing devices, usage of applications and the way in which this technology is changing consumer behavior worldwide.”

Peter Farago – The Flurry Blog

If this does mark the start of a trend, then you need to make sure that your website works on mobile platforms. And that’s something that FirstFound can help you with.

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Apparently we’re all ditching our old featureless phones so that we can Tweet, Skype and send Facebook messages on the move, and this could mark a change in the way we use the internet. With more and more people accessing the internet on the go, it’s time to start thinking about smartphones and the mobile internet more seriously.

Apple No Longer Top

The ComTech research which shows the increase in smartphone usage also shows something strange about the sort of smartphones that people use.

Despite landmark advertising campaigns, strong branding and the fact that everyone you meet seems to think Apple products are cool, the iconic iPhone isn’t the most popular smartphone on the market.

And, stranger still, it isn’t even the runner up.

The UK’s Top Three Smartphones

• Google Android – 50% of smartphone sales
• RIM BlackBerry – 22.5%
• Apple iPhone – 18.5%

However, the rise in smartphone usage doesn’t mean that we’ve all embraced Apps and abandoned more traditional methods of communication. As analyst Carolina Milanesi pointed out in her comments to The Guardian newspaper,  people haven’t given up on chatting and sending SMS messages just yet:

“People are still pretty much using them for calls and texts.

But I think next year we will see people using these devices more effectively as more apps become available on low-end devices, especially as those become more powerful.”

Carolina Milanesi – Analyst, Gartner

This news means that millions of people are now using mobile connections as their primary way of searching the web, meaning that it’s more important than ever to ensure that your website works properly on mobile browsers.

Fortunately, most modern websites work perfectly well on smartphone browsers, but if your website is getting on a bit, you might want to consider a redesign.

It’s a thought so terrifying that you could be forgiven for thinking it’s just another Halloween prank.

But despite what the papers will say, this development looks like being less of a trick for homeowners, and more of a treat for businesses.

Instead of sticking a camera into your front room while you’re looking the other way, this new scheme is on a volunteer-only basis, and is aimed at business.

Starting out in London, Paris and a number of US cities, Google will be dispatching professional photographers to gyms, hotels and shops who’ve signed up, in order to provide searchers with high quality photographs showing just what these businesses are like inside.

And far from insisting that everyone joins up, Google has already said it won’t be photographing huge chain stores (because we all know what a Tesco looks like), lawyers offices or hospitals.

But if this commitment to the privacy of hospital patients seems out of character for Google, you won’t be surprised to hear that once the search engine has pictures of your business, there’s no reason for them to ever give them back.

So there’s the trade-off – extra publicity on Google Local, balanced against Google having full access to pictures of your hotel’s front desk.

We’ll be interested to see just how many people volunteer to sign up…

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Following sustained pressure from the parenting group Mothers’ Union, British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced plans for an ‘opt-in’ system for adult internet content.

Under Cameron’s proposed rulings, Internet Service Providers such as BT, Virgin, Talk Talk and Sky will block ‘adult’ content to new subscribers who don’t specifically ask for the naughty pictures to be left on. It’s not clear just what constitutes ‘Adult Content’, but the four providers mentioned are promising that parents will be able to block all pornography from appearing on their computers forever.

The move is an attempt to placate groups who feel that “UK children are beset by commercialisation and sexualisation”, and will be joined by the launch of a whistleblowing website for complainers who are offended about adverts, t-shirts and the deteriorating moral fibre of the nation. ‘Raunchy’ pop videos by artists like Rihanna will also be targeted, with music videos restricted to post-watershed TV slots and ‘age-appropriate’ websites.

However, away from parents’ groups, not everyone is happy with the proposed legislation. A number of bloggers have pointed out that no committee exists to rule on what constitutes “adult content”, which could allow various groups to restrict access to information on alternative sexuality, STDs and abortion.

And when you bear in mind the fact that government content filters once led to Scunthorpe County Council being unable to send or recieve email, due to Scunthorpe’s hidden swear words, it’s easy to see a world where even family-friendly content is banned by an over-zealous filter.

We’ll wait and see how this will affect UK internet users. But it goes without saying that many people aren’t convinced by this move.

The ICM Registry caused a bit of a stir earlier this year, when it announced the launch of the new adult content-focused .xxx domains.

As of today, you can now register your very own .xxx domain – regardless of whether or not you’re peddling smut to the online masses. Brands and companies that don’t want to be associated with pornography have 50 days to claim their domain, which will then be closed down in order to prevent adult content providers from creating an unintentional link between their output and existing brands.

Companies wishing to do this will be able to pay a one-off fee of around £200, depending on who their domain registrar is. It might seem like a lot, but many brands will be willing to splash the cash to avoid their carefully sculpted public images being associated with the sort of graphic content that luddites claim the internet was invented for.

However, celebrities need not worry as thousands of stars’, musicians’ and politicians’ names have already been blocked by registrars, meaning you won’t be able to register AngelinaJolie.xxx and BradPitt.xxx, or (somewhat disturbingly) MargaretThatcher.xxx, TonyBlair.xxx and DavidCameron.xxx.

This will likely come as a great relief to politicians, as it’s almost a certainty that if internet pranksters could use a .xxx domain and a number of photoshopped pictures to discredit a public figure, they would.

35 major porn companies have already claimed over a thousand .xxx domains, with registration applications being taken until October 28th 2011.

But don’t worry. You’re not about to lose indispensable tools like Analytics, Gmail and Docs. The products being dropped are things you’re not likely to have heard of, let alone used:

What We’ve Lost

Google Pack – A bumper pack of Google and third party software that allowed you to download Picasa, Realplayer and Google Earth at the same time! No, we can’t understand why this didn’t take off either…

Aardvark – As medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammals native to Africa, Aardvarks don’t really fit in with Google’s bright new future. And neither does Aardvark, an experimental social search tool Google acquired in 2010. Expect the interesting parts to reappear in Google+.

Google Notebook – An older, less useful, less developed version of Google Docs? We’re surprised that Notebook made it to 2011 unscathed…

Sidewiki – Sidewiki was an experiment that rattled quite a few SEO cages, as it promised to allow Google users to amend the information provided by Google. Much like everything that’s going to “Kill SEO”, it’s about to sink without a trace.

Google Desktop – Need the speed and effectiveness of a Google Search to find something on your desktop? No? Fair enough then.

Fast Flip – An experimental tool designed to make reading online content more like flicking through a newspaper, we can’t think of a single reason that Fast Flip didn’t take off. With the slight exception that there’s not a single person online today that wishes reading online content was more like flicking through a newspaper.

Google Web Security – What do you mean, you don’t want all of your online security in the hands of a company that keep getting taken to court for accidentally stealing or storing your information?

Image Labeler – Image Labeler was going to improve Google Image Search by making you and a partner label an image. They’d show you a bird, you’d type “bird”. Thrilling. Although we’re not surprised that people would far rather play Angry Birds on Google+.

Google Maps API for Flash – Given that Google has long been unable to deal with Flash, it’s not surprising that they’re dropping Flash functionality entirely. The message is clear. You want a Google Map (or to be found in Google’s search), ditch Flash.

Subscribed Links – Subscribed Links let you “create custom search results”. Nobody wants custom search results. Which is why nobody wants Subscribed Links.

If any of the closed services have anything of value, expect parts of them to be incorporated into the products that have survived the spring clean. But, given that this is the first time many of you have heard of the services being shut down, we don’t think you’ll miss them too much.

It’s been widely claimed in the past that the pub is the centre of British social life. But some people are beginning to worry that internet use is supplanting the Great British pub as the hub of all our interactions.

So rather than letting Facebook and Twitter overtake The Dog and Duck in the hearts of the masses, Heineken and BT are joining forces to offer drinkers free and unrestricted WiFi access in over 300 pubs around the UK.

If you’re a BT Broadband customer, or you use an iPad, iPhone, iTouch, Android, Samsung or Blackberry device or smartphone, you’ll be given free internet access while you down your drink – including an online copy of the Independent’s i newspaper.

Whether there will be a mandatory sobriety test to stop drunk people Tweeting their ex-partners or posting Facebook messages about their employers is yet to be confirmed.

The Heineken Wi-Fi Hub currently covers 100 pubs London and Cardiff, but 200 more pubs around the country will be added over the next 12 months.

The Internet pressure/hacking/community action (delete as applicable) group Anonymous released a statement yesterday, claiming that they were planning to take down Facebook due to their privacy record:

“Prepare for a day that will go down in history. November 5, 2011. Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed.”

“Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your privacy settings, and deleting your account is impossible,” the speaker says. “Even if you delete your account, all your information stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time.”

So far, so threatening. But this morning, members of Anonymous moved to distance themselves from the ‘dissident splinter faction’ looking to take down Facebook:

“We absolutely disown #OpFacebook … We’re supposed to fight for the users, not against them. Don’t violate private citizen privacy please.”

Apparently more sensible members of the group suggest that if you don’t like Facebook, you should just delete your account and move on to more worthy causes.

Of course, if you do like Facebook, you should sign up for one of our business pages. Even though Anonymous haven’t mentioned those in either press release.

We’re looking forward to see how this pans out, but one thing is for sure. On November 5th, there will be fireworks*.

*Because it’s Bonfire Night. See what we did there?

Domains have hit the news a few times this year; with customisable suffixes being announced while whole groups of sites were being unceremoniously dumped from Google’s index. But the biggest domain story of last year was the launch of .xxx domains. And now it looks like even reputable brands want in on the triple X rated action.

ICM registry, who are selling the .xxx suffix, have announced a “sunrise” period to allow brands to purchase addresses containing their trademarks. Why? It’s all in the name of brand management.

When it comes to brand searches, the search engines tend to list websites that have the brand name in the URL. That’s why huge brands like Apple tend to dominate the results pages with a list of .com, .co.uk, .org and .info addresses. But the issue is that there’ll be nothing stopping a .xxx domain sneaking on to that results page. And nothing screams “not-so-wholesome brand” like a page full of X-rated images appearing under a company’s name.

ICM have declared that if companies don’t want the embarrasment of being linked with the internet’s ‘red light area’, they should start to buy up addresses. And pay $200-300 dollars in an attempt to avoid cybersquatters into the bargain.

Given Google‘s commitment to “Safe Search”, it’d surprise us if safeguards weren’t put in to place to avoid “Virgin.xxx” showing potential broadband customers a little more than they bargained for. That said, if you’re worried about the potential reputation issues, you have until September 7th to register your brand’s .xxx domain.

What you do with it once it’s registered is entirely up to you.

Sick of .com? Bored to tears with .co.uk? Dreaming of the day that you can have a .dave domain name? Well, now you can, thanks to Icann.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has decided that there’s no reason to keep limiting domain names to the current 22 ‘Generic Top-Level Domain Names’ (.com, .org, .biz) and 250 country codes (.de, .fr), and that the only limit to what a website can be called should be the human imagination.

That means that large corporations, niche industries and the extremely vain could start using suffixes such as .google, .seo and .andrewiswonderful – if they can cough up the cash.

The BBC are reporting that applying for a custom suffix could cost upwards of £100,000, and that an applicant would have to show a legitimate claim to the name they’re buying. This should hopefully avoid the sort of claim-staking that blighted the early days of the web, as people would buy up domain names for leading brands and ransom them off at inflated prices.

And that’s not the only question you’ll be asked – apparently 50 questions will be necessary, each requiring 2-3 pages for an answer. So if you’re planning on registering a vanity suffix, you’d best start saving, and start practising your essay writing skills. You’ll need them to get past Icann’s panel of experts.

Applications will be accepted after January 12 2012.