Who needs the World Cup when you can demonstrate world domination via Facebook?

Americans were recently ranked #1 in accessing social media sites from mobile devices in a new study by comScore. The industry research firm compared mobile content use in the US, Japan and Europe - and the results gave everyone a little something to cheer about.

In nearly every other category besides social networking, the Japanese handily beat their American and European counterparts. Over 75% of mobile users in Japan browsed, accessed applications or downloaded content, running virtual circles around the 43.7% of U.S. users and 38.5% of Europeans.

While the Japanese mobile users were the "most connected" of the three markets, the Europeans proved to be texting machines, with 81.7 percent sending a text message in June, compared to 66.8 percent in the U.S. and just 40.1 percent in Japan.

The legendary battle between Apple CEO Steve Jobs and software maker Adobe took an unexpected turn towards reconciliation today, as Apple announced it was relaxing development restrictions on iOS apps.

"We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart," Apple said in a statement. "Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license...to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year."

Many analysts are doubtful that Jobs simply had a altruistic change of heart, noting that the rapid rise of Google's mobile OS Android could have been a significant motivator.

Extending another olive branch, the notoriously secretive company announced that it will be posting its App Store Review Guidelines "to help developers understand how we review submitted apps."

Industry leading metrics provider comScore just announced that Web users in the US consumed almost 34 billion videos in May, over twice the number of videos viewed over the same period in 2009. Google Sites ranked as top video property with 14.6 billion videos, due in no small part to favorite son YouTube, which accounted for the vast majority of videos viewed at the property. YouTube.com reached a record level of video views in May with an all-time high of 14.6 billion, and surpassed the threshold of 100 videos per viewer for the first time ever.

At the 2010 Google I/O conference, Google showed off the capabilities of their new mobile advertising system. Think rich media, interactive, location sensitive targeted mobile ads with the power and maturity of Google's Adsense, Adwords, Analytics and Doubleclick platforms. Awesome features include expanding ads, click to call, embeddable videos and maps.

Check out the preview of the platform at minute 35:50 on the keynote

The team at Omni Group, makers of the very cool OmniGraffle and OmniPlan applications, have been prototyping a new application for the iPad. They got pretty serious about it, but we love the attention to detail and UI experimentation! Check out their iPad UI Design Session.

The Web is aflutter with excitement about Google Buzz, the search giant’s most recent social media offering. Critics and fans alike are saying that Google’s latest product could dramatically shift the social landscape. So what’s all the buzz about?

Google Buzz integrates with Gmail to enable users to share updates, photos and videos while engaging in real-time conversations with others in their network. And perhaps most importantly for the industry as a whole, it's Google's best effort yet to compete directly with social media heavyweights Twitter and Facebook.

The social explosion has meant extraordinary growth for the big social players - Facebook usage is up over 100% over last year, while Google lags behind at 15%. Industry pundits agree that Google must secure a foothold in the social media climb in order to dampen their momentum.

Some of the top Google Buzz features:

• Automatic friends lists created by pulling Gmail contacts • Auto-follow functionality • "Rich fast sharing" combines sources like Picasa and Twitter into a single feed sharing from sources like Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, and Google Reader • Public and private permission levels • Dynamic email updates covering all Buzz thread content

Some early potential Buzz-killers:

• Inbox overload – the potential for an unending stream of social chatter in your inbox • Privacy concerns – Google is working around the clock to reassure users that they are in full control of their data • Uh-oh potential – without hyper-vigilance regarding privacy management, it can be too easy to share the wrong information with the wrong people at the wrong time • Not Facebook friendly – since there’s currently no way to integrate with Facebook, you have to start your networks basically from scratch

So will Google Buzz truly redefine the social landscape or end up another mere blip on Facebook's quest for social world dominance? It’s still too soon for Google to break out the champagne, but early indications say that this social media tool is most definitely worth the buzz.

Not since the time of Moses has a tablet been the object of such reverence and devotion. Hark, the Apple iPad is here!

Cuker joined over 120,000 tech aficionados in the City of Sin for the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on January 7th - 10th. CES is the the largest consumer electronic trade show in America, showcasing the latest innovations in wireless communications, digital video, Web development, and other technologies. In a sea of digital eye-candy, 2500 companies exhibited over 20,000 products that competed to wow the crowd. Though what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, there was lots of great information to take home. The three biggest trends for 2010, according to the buzz? Mobile, mobile, and mobile...

Google Labs has created a very nice, statistically driven visualization of what different percentiles of users see of your website. Where visual effect is key, it is critical to keep in mind what is actually visible!

http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/