PLANET Bastien

The9, an online game developer and operator in China, has acquired a majority interest in US-based Red 5 Studios for a total of approximately $20 million.

The British Governement, faced with an upcoming general election in which policy toward the internet, digital inclusion of the masses and how government IT interfaces with the private sector will all come into play, has rolled out the big guns in the shape of the Prime Minister and a clutch of ministers and advisers today. In a speech in London, billed as "Building Britain's Digital Future", Gordon Brown ranged over a wide range of topics. Here are the highlights:

I like recent products that let users created personal FAQs one step at a time based on questions from others. You put up a box that invites people to ask you anything. People then ask questions. You answer the ones you want to and publish them. In no time you’ve got an interesting profile of your personality, likes and dislikes.

Have you heard of the startup Gravity? It’s in the same space as  Zaang, a company that we have covered before.

Tr.im, perhaps the loudest of the small URL shortens has stopped shorting URLs today, at long last.

For the future of innovation in the United States, few things seem as important access to broadband Internet connections. The FCC seems to realize this, which is why they’ve set up the National Broadband Plan. And yet, we’re screwed.

Virtual currency platform gWallet is announcing a partnership with online privacy certification company TRUSTe to reinforce gWallet ethical guidelines in the virtual currency space. gWallet partners with both brands and game developers to bring users virtual currency offers on games within social networks.

Skype founders, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, have raised $165 million for a second fund focused on investing in “disruptive” early-stage European technology.

By now, South by Southwest is wrapping up and the legions of nerds and geeks that partied heartily over the last two weeks are slowly crawling back to their homes with their SXSW hangovers. Here at ReadWriteStart, we've kept on truckin' through that time, so here is this week's Weekly Wrapup. This week we discuss whether tracking pageviews is still worth it, how micropayments and subscriptions could be the future of startup business models, which mobile platform is best for small business development, and how credibility is your best friend.

Sponsor

An iPhone geolocation app that has been very quiet about its plans to date has been San Francisco based PlacePop.

via gizmodo.com

Have you noticed that we aren't writers any more? Or filmmakers, or video producers, or even musicians or cartoonists? We're content-creators.

Way too often, I hear Web folks talk about "content" as some kind of undifferentiated commodity: "Yep, figger we're gonna need ten, maybe twelve kilos o' content for that page. You got a bulk discount?" Back a cargo truck up to the content silo, fill her up and you've got yourself a website.

Welcome to The Next Web’s Weekly Recap. If you haven’t already, make sure to grab your tickets for The Next Web Conference taking place April 27-29 in Amsterdam. Some very exciting events will be going on at the conference including the PayPal X Startup Rally where a jury of experts will see if your startup has what it takes to present on the main stage at the conference.

The “God of War” will most likely be exiled from Switzerland along with the characters of probably any other game with either a PEGI 16+ or PEGI 18+ certificate, according to the new legislation that will illegalize violent games.

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Fontcase by Bohemian Coding, is easily one of the best font managers for the Mac and with no doubts the most elegant and beautifully designed.

Some weeks, writing this column is easy. All it takes is for an influential person – a politician, a business person, perhaps even a fellow columnist – to say something dumb and I get to spend a thousand words or so explaining precisely why they’re wrong. The “why x is wrong about y” construction is the columnist’s best friend: it’s as old as the hills and even easier to build a house on.

via @JackSchofield

Editor’s Note: In part one of a two-part guest post, David M Blumenstein of New York’s The Hatchery discusses his experiences of how UK Internet startups differ from those in the US.

Many people, usually those who aren’t using Twitter yet, are under the impression the service has only just launched. In many respects it has, but at four years old it’s fair to say it has officially flown the start-up nest.