This week was dominated by iPhone Fever, which ended Friday evening US time when they were finally released to the public (as you can see from the photo on the left). The hype and anticipation around Apple's launch of the iPhone - for those non-geeks among you, a next generation mobile phone based on iPod and other innovations - was incredible. Read/WriteWeb focused on the web applications being developed for the iPhone. See our post iPhone Web Development Frenzy for an overview of the web apps being readied for the iPhone. Also we looked at Office Apps on the iPhone, in particular the brewing competition between iPhone and the leading corporate PIM/phone device, the Blackberry. We also reviewed the first iPhone Development platform, created by Morfik.

Somewhat overshadowed by Apple was the Day of Silence from Internet radio stations. last100 covered this too. On Tuesday thousands of US-based webcasters went silent for a day, in a unified effort to draw attention to the Copyright Board’s pending 300% Internet radio royalty hike. Notably absent: last.fm, which was recently acquired by CBS.

There was plenty of other news this week:

• CNN.com To Launch Web 2.0 Re-design This Weekend
• LinkedIn to Open Up - How It Can Take On Facebook
• Google Opens Pocket to Gadget Developers
• Microsoft Announces Next Generation of Windows Live

Analysis Posts

This week we explored recent trends and activities around some of the big companies: Yahoo, Facebook, Google, Microsoft. Here are those posts:

• Yahoo! 2.0: Its Reorganization and Future
• Facebook Acquisitions: Fad or Proof of Platform Success?
• Google vs. Microsoft: Just a 'PR Stunt'
• Google's Marissa Mayer on The Future of Search
• Google's Sheryl Sandberg on Next-Generation Advertising

For the more developer-inclined among you, you will enjoy Alex Iskold's proposal for Standard URLs, which Alex says will result in a Web with Less Search.

We also continued our popular Top Web Apps international series, with a look at the Top Web Apps in Canada. As you will see from that post, Canada is home to a lot of innovative web services and the population there is very Internet-savvy.

Featured Posts

Josh Catone brought us 3 new market review posts:

• Who's Asking? A Roundup of Q&A Sites
• Swap Meet 2.0: Selling Handmade Goods Online
• Keeping Tabs on Web 2.0

R/WW Network Blogs

Our Digital Lifestyle blog last100 tells us about 3 features they wrote this week:

• Five resources to create a Wii media center
• the Neuros OSD, a media center set-top-box based on open-source firmware
• Vuze, an application for Mac or PC that allows users to search, browse, and download ‘near DVD’ and HD quality video content, using the peer-to-peer protocol, BitTorrent.

Over on AltSearchEngines, there are some excellent reviews of new search engines - including green ones, Russian ones, and cooking search engines.

Startup Action

This week's Startup of the Week is Zude, aStart Page on Steroids that Phil Butler reviewed. We also reviewed, in depth, the following new Web products Fairtilizer, a new Online Music service (with an odd name!) and the much hyped Spock, which Alex Iskold says is vertical search done right.

Poll

Our poll this week asked: will you buy an iPhone; and if so - when?. We had a little under 1000 votes (as at press time) and here are the results:

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I'll buy it as soon as it's available in my country (June 29 for US) 19% (185 votes)

I've already got an iPhone! (e.g. you're press, or won a prize, etc) 0% (3 votes)

I'll wait a few months, then buy one 22% (214 votes)

I have no plans to buy one, at this stage 42% (406 votes)

I'll never buy one! 17% (160 votes)

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So 42% have no plans to buy one at this stage, while a further 17% say they'll never buy one. Somewhat surprising that nearly 60% of respondants won't be buying an iPhone in the near future, given that Read/WriteWeb has a very early adopter audience. Only 19% said they'll buy it immediately.

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

iPhone pic: lead.salad