If you're the parent of a child 12 and under, then we invite you to participate in the survey by clicking here.

In a nutshell, here's how the survey works. With you (the parent) always at the controls, the survey will ask your child to draw his or her response to a question. There is a special tool for you to upload the resulting drawing, in JPEG format. The survey will then gather some general information about the child's computer use, which should only take 5-10 minutes.

As explained in a background post by Latitude's Kim Gaskins, the survey aims to discover how children use and understand Web technology, the environmental factors that contribute to these understandings, and the extent to which children can think "innovatively" about web technology. The study also intends to deduce real-world applications from the drawings that the kids create.

Click here to begin the survey process.

Latitude is a research-driven consultancy for technology and media companies. It works with clients to discover and develop opportunities for next-generation content, software, and communications technologies through a combination of Web-based applications and innovative research methods. Visit life-connected.com for other Latitude studies, or email ischulte@latd.com to learn more about working with Latitude.

In the new report, findings show that 73% of wired teens now use social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace, a big jump from the 55% who did so back in 2006. Young adults (18-29), too, choose social networking sites as a preferred method of communication. Among this group, 72% report using these sites. Meanwhile, only 40% of those 30 and older do the same.

But blogging? Passé, says the report. The medium once used for sharing either news and/or personal thoughts and feelings is no longer popular among teens. The why is simple: Facebook. With the ability to update your status on social networking sites, the need to communicate using long-form mechanisms like sentences and - ugh! - paragraphs is no longer necessary. Instead of summarizing a day's events via blog post for example, a teen may simply update Facebook multiple times throughout the day with the details as to what's happening in their life at the moment.

These shorter bursts of content, much like the ever-popular text messages sent between friends on cell phones, are easier-to-consume mini bits of information. They take only seconds to read, not minutes. And commenting on them takes only moments as well. Considering the hundreds of online friends people tend to accumulate on these social networking sites, those time savings really add up.

Why the Decline in Blogging?

Although it's obvious that the popularity of Facebook and its ilk have taken away from the teens' desire to blog, Pew doesn't go so far as to speculate why that is. One theory worth considering is that today's teens are overloaded with information and simply don't have the time to read long blog posts. They're already too busy keeping up with texts, multiple social networking sites, email, instant messages, and phone calls - practically drowning in communication tools, it seems. And when there's too much to consume, the easiest things to drop out of the mix would be those that take the most time: blogging, reading blogs, and commenting on blogs.

Another idea we haven't seen mentioned anywhere yet is that it's possible teens weren't ever really into blogging to begin with. In Pew's study, they count the blogs found within social networking sites along with what we would typically consider a blog - standalone websites like this one, The Huffington Post, Perez Hilton, Dooce, etc. However, Facebook and many other social networking sites don't really have a blogging feature, but MySpace does. Coincidentally, MySpace's popularity has been on the decline for years now. As MySpace visits dropped off, so did the usage of its "blogs." In other words, if Pew counted MySpace blogs when asking teens if they commented on or wrote blogs themselves, there's going to be a drop-off.

Blogging, in and of itself, may or may not appeal to teens. It's hard to know considering how the survey questions were worded. If Facebook had a similar "blogs" feature as MySpace, the study may have read quite differently: "teen blogging soars!" To really determine how popular blogging is as an online activity, it may have been better to differentiate between the standalone sites and the long-form updates found within a social network. Failure to do so confuses the issue and leaves us without the answers a detailed study like this aims to deliver.

Mobile ticketing initiatives benefit both parties, the ticket issuer and the purchaser. Consumers win because a digitized ticket accessible via their handheld is a convenience. (Just think: how many times have you left the house without your tickets, having to turn around and retrieve them or miss the event altogether?) For ticket sellers, not having to deal with the cost of printing tickets can provide a huge savings.

Yet despite the multi-billion increases year-over-year, this market still has a way to go. "Although 15 billion sounds large," notes the report's author Howard Wilcox, "it is in fact it a small percentage of total tickets issued -- there is plenty of scope for innovative solutions to penetrate this market." Wilcox sees the next steps for the mobile ticketing industry as encompassing more widespread purchasing via mobile phones and NFC-based ticketing.

Mobile Ticketing in the Real World

Over on online marketing site MarketingVOX, they've detailed several real-world examples of mobile ticketing including Southwest Airlines' iPhone app which allows for mobile ticket purchases, the upcoming NBA All-Star Game in Dallas which is offering special tickets to T-Mobile Android phone owners, AMC movie theaters' pilot program for mobile movie tickets, and MovieTickets.com's paperless ticket test in Chicago.

What's interesting about the U.S.-based initiatives detailed above is what early stages so many are in. Even though 42% of Americans now own a smartphone, companies are just beginning to tap into that demographic with their newly launched mobile ticketing pilot programs and marketing initiatives.

Another interesting detail from the report is the finding that Western Europe will become the leading region in mobile ticketing by 2014 based on the number of tickets sold. That has them overtaking the current mobile ticket leader, the Far East and China region. In the Asian countries, the use of NFC phones has made mobile ticketing much easier to implement. As NFC phone models make their way to other areas of the globe, the opportunities for mobile ticketing increase accordingly.

Taptu estimates that there are 326,000 Mobile Touch Web sites worldwide, which they say compares to 148,000 iPhone apps in the App Store and 24,000 apps in the Android market. Taptu expects the browser-based mobile web market to grow much faster than the app market.

What kinds of sites are more likely to be browser-based for mobile phones? According to the report, 19% of the mobile sites measured were Shopping & Services sites; compared to 3.6% in the same category in the App Store. Content in the 'Social' category also has a higher chance of being a browser-based mobile site, rather than an app (12.9% to 1.7%).

Conversely, just 0.8% of mobile sites were gaming, compared to 18% of apps in the App Store. There is a similar discrepency in the 'Entertainment' category.

It seems then that commerce services are taking more advantage of mobile web browsers than gaming and entertainment providers. But why? Taptu says it's because "many [Commerce] products and services do not really fit into Apple's iTunes content-oriented billing system." Meanwhile, gaming and entertainment content is better delivered as an app, says Taptu, "since apps deliver a much richer, more interactive gaming experience than the casual games available on the Mobile Web."

Taptu says that the increasing sophistication of mobile browsers is one reason why browser-based mobile sites will flourish. In particular, it points to increasing support for HTML 5. See our analysis of Web vs. Native Mobile Apps if you'd like to know more about this.

According to Taptu, "it's getting easier and easier to create rich touch screen user experiences with the browser without having to create platform-specific apps." Taptu also points to increasing usage of open standard APIs, enabling Mobile Web developers to access "deeper device functions such as geolocation."

Taptu does concede that gaming content will probably continue to be delivered predominantly as download apps on iPhone and similar devices. However it claims that for "many other types of app, the economics of software development and publishing favours the Web development route."

Taptu predicts that "the Mobile Touch Web will grow vigorously over the next five years, and will approach the quality of user experience of Mobile Touch Apps across all the app categories except for games."

We should note that Taptu is mostly a browser-based service, although it does offer apps for iPhone and other platforms too. But it obviously has a big stake in the success of the "touchscreen mobile web."

What do you think, do you agree that the future of Mobile Web development will lie in browser-based mobile sites? Or do you think the pull of advanced functionality as an app (on platforms such as iPhone and Android) will draw most types of content and services over time?

Update: The report is now available for download (PDF - 5MB) and a presentation is embedded below.

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Just like the emails that once promised free money from Bill Gates for participation in a Microsoft email beta test, reposting a Facebook status isn't going to produce money from thin air anymore than forwarding a chain email message would have done in years past. And yet, the same people who are now savvy enough to junk the email forwards and scams into their Deleted Items folder are blindly reposting status messages such as these as if they're the gospel truth.

Urban legends have filled our inboxes for years on end. Before the days of technology, these same stories were idly passed around via chats at the water cooler and over-the-fencepost gossip sessions with fellow neighbors. It's said that the tales tap into a society's dark underbelly by posing as cautionary tales about the dangerous world we live in (AIDS from a gas pump! A hook-handed murderer!), or they simply tap into our deepest hopes and dreams. (You can get rich quick! You just have to forward an email!). Legends like these may change over the years, but they will always be around in some form or another and they won't be disappearing any time soon.

Watch Out, You're Being Spied On!

Another recent message making the rounds warns of something called "Unnamed app," a vicious little bot that supposedly slowlys down Facebook while also spying on your activities. While there is some truth to the fact that Facebook applications have an unworldly amount of access to your personal data, this particular app is not a rogue spybot secretly tracking your moves, it's just your everyday, run-of-the-mill software bug. And Facebook fixed it. But that probably won't stop thousands from "helpfully" passing this message onto their Facebook friends for days (if not weeks and months) to come.

Your Account Will be Deleted Unless...

These viral status messages, brand-new creations about Internet dangers and free money, aren't the only hoaxes to find their way to the social space. Older urban legends have also been re-crafted to now fit the Facebook era. Take, for example, the warning passed around in the early 2000's regarding the "overload" of people signing up for Hotmail accounts. According to this missive, Hotmail was over capacity and Microsoft needed to dump some people from the system. In order to prove you were still an active user, you were asked to forward the email to every Hotmail contact you had so that your account would not be deleted. Essentially a harmless prank, this warning transformed itself over the years, reappearing in various forms that threatened the accounts of Yahoo, then AOL, Friendster, Orkut, Bebo, and MySpace users alike. Today, that message is again being circulated as a Facebook status update. The new lingo? It's not "please forward" anymore - it's "Copy+Paste." Because if you don't, you know, your Facebook account will be deleted. Yikes!

In this case, the fear of losing Facebook access has led many users to repost the warning on their own walls, where it's seen by friends who pick it up and pass it around too. But again, there's no truth to this message either.

An Urban Legend or a Deeper Truth?

While the above hoax speaks greatly to our society's increased reliance on technology, how strong those ties are and how fearful we are of being without them, others play on even deeper emotions. The Facebook story about the $1-at-a-time donations might not be true (side note: the company has set up a Disaster Relief page for those interested in legitimate ways to help), there's a photo of a Haitian cross whose existence is harder to prove or disprove. Circulating via Facebook right now is this photo of a stone crucifix still left standing in the wake of the utter destruction that was the Haitian earthquake. That one's real, right? Well, maybe so, maybe not. Ever since the creation of Photoshop, answering questions like these have gotten much harder. What matters though, is not the photo's veracity (or lack thereof), but the fact that, to some, it seems to hold a deeper meaning about the nature of God - how he's still there even in times like these. For Christians, it's an image of hope in a world of suffering. And by reposting it time and again via Facebook, it's spreading virally around the globe.

It's precisely these emotions - our fears, our hopes, our desires - that urban legends tap into. And while some are more harmless than others, it can be difficult to know the difference between the truth and a false claim, as this above example clearly shows.

Think Before You Post

So what can you do? Although we're no longer deluged by the well-meaning warnings and fables that arrive via our email inboxes, we're still being subjected to their far-out claims. It's just that the medium is different. Once again, it's time to be vigilant. Just because you saw it on Facebook, that doesn't make it true. Just because the message comes via a trusted friend or family member, that doesn't make it worthy of reposting. Take a minute to think about it, use common sense, run a quick Google search if unsure, and then decide if that story is one to pass on.

Take real-time, for instance. The next generation of search, aggregation, notification and findability services are being developed using real-time technologies that enable users and machines to receive real-time updates. In a recent post, Robert Scoble said he would be better off curating news than actually attending the Apple launch! What? If you aren't thinking about how real time, along with social networks, mobile and location-based services fits in your marketing plan, you're missing an opportunity.

In a recent post, ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick asked "Why is Google afraid of Facebook?" The answer is because social networking sites have become a key link in the search and information sharing value chain. You would have to be hiding out in a dark hole not to understand social media and the effect it has had on marketing the past couple of years - but surpass search? Oh, right, now I get it: These sites are an important information source for everyone. Importantly, friends' recommendations are key.

Mobile is Better

Google's VP of product development recently stated that, "with all the capabilities these phones that are coming out have - like GPS, cameras - we think there is the potential to actually make this mobile Web better than the PC Web." That is a profound statement for marketing managers. A mobile phone experience better than the web? If you haven't bought yourself a smart phone like iPhone or Android, we suggest you go out and grab one. Mobile applications are proliferating like rabbits. What would be better than to be first to market and offer your customers an exceptional product experience while on the go.

Perfect product placement

Location-based services mean the ability to market right outside your front door is happening now. ReadWriteWeb's Frederic Lardinois reported in June 2009 that 1 in 3 smart phone owners use location based services. Take this simple example. You're in Vail, you just finished 8 hours on the mountain and now you're looking for the perfect apres ski location. You're walking down the Mall, you take your iPhone out of your pocket and ta-da! Buy one-get-one-free margaritas at Las Margaritas. You're standing right outside. Perfect product placement. And now you can talk about the restaurant and broadcast it immediately to all your friends.

If you aren't listening to the conversation, you better start. There are numerous listening applications available to get you started in your pursuit to join the conversation and get a handle on positive as well as negative feedback on your product or brand. A simple saved search in Twitter can go along way.

All these trends have a profound impact on how we market to our website guests at ReadWriteWeb. Not only do we have to understand search engine optimization, but the opportunities offered by social media marketing, the new capabilities and possibilities offered by mobile, geolocation, augmented reality and real-time notification and information sharing. One seems to becoming just as important as the next.

If you don't understand these technology trends as a marketer, you better get out while the getting is good. Enabled by technology, 2010 is already a watershed year for new ways to reach your customers.

Want to know more about the real-time Web? Read ReadWriteWeb's report, The Real-Time Web and its Future.

Photo by Clix.

Google, of course, is mostly interested into turning the mobile web into a lucrative market for its advertising products. For Google, making the mobile web better than the PC web means that you can call advertisers directly from a mobile ad and increase conversion rates.

For most users, however, the ability for ads to let them make calls on their mobile phones is probably not very high up on their wish lists. In the broader context of recent trends on the mobile web, however, Rosenberg's comment does ring true.

Using Sensors to Personalize the Mobile Web

Just a week, ago, for example, Google introduced location aware searches for mobile phones. If you go to google.com on your phone today, Google tweaks its search results based on your current location. Google's regular browser-based search can't do this.

Thanks to the sensors in today's mobile phones and the potential for adding more complex sensors in the near future, the mobile web has the potential to give us a more personalized user experience than our current laptops and desktops are able to.

What do You Think?

Does the mobile web have the potential to be better than the PC web on your desktop? Isn't the small screen a serious impediment for making this experience better than the desktop experience? Or will Apple's mythical tablet solve all these problems and give us a mobile web experience that's somewhere in between the user experience a phone and on the desktop?

When you consider that trillions of sensors will be deployed worldwide in the coming decade and the interest in Internet of Things from such high-ranking officials as China's Premier, IBM's use cases so far and its evolving strategy is definitely worth taking note of.

Palmisano noted one of the key points about Internet of Things early in his speech - it puts computational power into "things no one would recognize as computers." Things like "cars, appliances, roadways and rail lines, power grids, clothes." He also mentioned processes and global supply chains, non-sexy markets that have proven to be early commercial successes for the company in Internet of Things. Finally, Palmisano pointed to implementation in "natural systems, such as agriculture and waterways."

He explained that "intelligence" can be gleaned off all of this data, "because we now have the processing power and advanced analytics to make sense of it all."

IBM claims to have developed 1,200 "smarter solutions" so far. Palmisano said that "in four cities where IBM has helped deploy congestion management solutions, traffic volume during peak periods has been reduced by up to 18 percent, CO2 emissions from motor vehicles were reduced by up to 14 percent, and public transit use increased by up to 7 percent." He listed other examples from healthcare, banking, power metering and retailing.

However, Palmisano cautioned that while the "technology may be ready, [...] your culture may not be." He talked about one of IBM's customers, Rosenau Transport in Canada. That company took over two years to implement a new 'smart' trucking system.

Another key thing to note about Internet of Things is the sheer volume of data that will flow through the Internet in the coming years. Palmisano remarked that "we are amassing an unimaginable amount of data in the world." He claimed that in three years time, IP traffic "is expected to total more than half a zettabyte" (which equals a trillion gigabytes).

He also said that "all this data is far more real-time than ever before" - which of course is another trend that ReadWriteWeb has been tracking closely.

Palmisano didn't neglect to mention the "disquieting implications" of the Internet of Things. In particular, privacy and security. However, he didn't give any reassurances on this front - other than to say that IBM is part of several coalitions, such as the Global Intelligent Utility Network Coalition and the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative. He rather blandly added, "they [privacy and security] will require serious consideration and collaborative decision making across all the stakeholders of civil society."

Overall, we continue to be impressed by IBM's commitment to Internet of Things. It is leading the way in technology and implementation. The privacy implications (in particular) will potentially be a roadblock in some areas, together with the continuing difficulties of implementing technology such as RFID. So it will be interesting to see how IBM deals with those two issues over 2010.

3 Billion in Apple App Sales? Not Exactly

While we're sure the general trend is correct as far as the growth of mobile application stores and Apple's position as the market leader, we have to agree with the note that John Gruber recently made on his blog regarding these figures. He quotes a portion of the report where analyst Chris Foresman says:

Earlier this month, Apple announced that sales had topped 3 billion; that means iPhone users downloaded 2.5 billion apps in 2009 alone. Gartner's figures show another 16 million apps that could come from other platform's recently opened app stores, giving Apple at least 99.4 percent of all mobile apps sold for the year.

Gruber notes that Apple didn't actually announce 3 billion in sales, they announced 3 billion downloads. In fact, you can see the original press release making this announcement here. Not only that, but another Gartner analyst Miguel Fontanez told us earlier this month that Apple, as a rule, does not disclose App Store revenues as a separate line item in their revenue reporting. That means that any estimation of Apple's App Store sales are just that - an estimation.

Last week, in speaking with Peter Farago of Flurry analytics to calculate App Store piracy numbers, we determined that Apple had generated approximately $750 million in sales to date. That's 3 billion downloads over the lifetime of the App Store with roughly 25% of them being paid downloads. In other words, if Gartner used the 3 billion to determine Apple's position as the market share leader in sales, then their calculations would be off.

However, as Gruber also notes, if Gartner's calculations are accurate regarding the other mobile platforms (16 million in app sales, they claim), then it's clear that Apple still has the app store to beat... even if they don't account for 99.4% of the market.

We don't expect Apple's dominant position to change anytime soon - the company has momentum. In November 2009, Apple announced they offer over 100,000 applications and by now that number has likely grown even more. However, other mobile application stores are growing quickly, too. Google's Android marketplace, for example, with its open nature unhampered by any sort of bogged-down app review process, has now topped 20,000 applications as of December. The Android mobile operating system is growing in popularity, too (usage increased 3% over the past three months), meaning it will soon be a contender for a hefty slice of that the app store pie in years to come.

Apparently, some of Android's growth has come at the expense of the iPhone. While still the most popular mobile OS to date, those saying they would prefer to own the Apple device over any other smartphone dropped from 32% to 28% over the past three months (September - November 2009). However, Apple's overall share of the market has increased one percentage point to 31%, notes the survey. Research in Motion (makers of Blackberry phones) retains a 39% share and Palm has slipped to a 6% share.

While this seems like promising news for Android, let's not forget the recent figures regarding sales of the Nexus One, Google's self-sold Android smartphone. Once positioned as a potential "iPhone killer," the N1's first week sales fell short of expectations with just 20,000 sold since its January 5th launch date. So while consumer sentiment may be on the rise regarding the Android OS, the mobile OS still has quite a ways to go before it catches up with the iPhone 3GS (which, incidentally, sold 1.6 million devices in its first week).

However, positioning the N1 against the iPhone isn't really a valid comparison -the N1 is only one of many Android handsets on the market today. Other Android-enabled phones like the myTouch 3G and the Droid also have significant and growing install bases. Combined, the overall marketshare for Android is on the rise. This growth is benefitting both Motorola and HTC, each who offer a version of the Droid smartphone. (HTC is also the maker of the N1). Since September, Motorola has increased 12 percentage points in terms of future buying, the first increase ChangeWave Research has seen for the company in three years. HTC has also increased from 5% to 9% in the same time frame, a change prompted both by the N1 release and the November release of the Droid Eris model.

That segmentation makes sense to us, to let's look now at how the online finance market is shaping up.

Editor's note: This story is part of ReadWriteWeb's Online Finance series, a weekly, three-month long look at how the Internet has transformed finance. Up until April 15, the deadline for U.S. readers to file their taxes, we'll be looking at how finance software has evolved, analyzing top web tools and posting video of our conversations with the people who are shaping online finance. If you are interested in sponsoring the rest of this Content Series, please contact our COO Sean Ammirati.

In our overview of Personal Finance, we explained how free tools like Mint, moneyStrands and Wesabe are making it easy for consumers to monitor their income and expenditure. The current market leader in personal finance is Mint, which was acquired by Intuit in October 2009. Today Mint has more than 1.7 million registered users, about 700,000 of them active every month.

The online small business accounting market is less well formed at this time, which means there are opportunities for startups. Particularly as for years now small business owners have had to suffer relatively expensive and complex desktop software - such as MYOB, Intuit QuickBooks and Microsoft Office Accounting.

Internet DNA

In an August 2008 article, we wrote that many of the small business accounting software incumbents were struggling to make the transition to online accounting. That was one reason why leading financial software firm Intuit acquired Mint, to import some Internet DNA. Just months later and Intuit is already planning to phase out Quicken Online and replace it with Mint.

Just as Mint came out of the web 2.0 world to re-shape the Personal Finance market, it will likely be a web-based company that does the same to the small business accounting market. It may end up being Xero, a completely online accounting service which was founded in July 2006. Xero hails from New Zealand, but is aiming for global success. Full disclosure, ReadWriteWeb uses Xero to manage its accounts. We've found the integration with online banking systems to be impressive, the design slick, and functionality such as multi currencies useful. Perhaps most importantly, Xero has the support of many accountancy firms.

Playing in Multiple Markets

According to Xero founder Rod Drury, another trend in the online finance space to watch is that "each vendor might play in the adjacent market as it's good exposure." We've seen this happening for years with the likes of Intuit and Microsoft. But now even the small players, such as Xero, are doing it. Drury says that for his firm, doing personal finance "creates a great opportunity to talk to banking partners and enables us better access to banking web services." He added, "it's a useful marketing tool, though the primary monetization is upsell to the business product."

We'll discuss Cloud ERP products in a separate post, so for now please tell us your thoughts on personal and small business online finance tools. Which products do you use, whether for personal finance use or your business?

Image credit: An&

We noted however that RFID tags are more functional and flexible than barcodes. While barcodes are cheaper and getting traction in the U.S. with the QR format, the potential for RFID tags is even greater. Apple knows this and if rumors are to believed, RFID will be integrated into the iPhone 4G later this year.

According to a number of believable blog reports, RFID is set to be a part of the as yet unannounced iPhone 4G. Apple holds a patent for a touch screen RFID tag reader and is said to be testing an RFID-enabled iPhone currently. So RFID could be a feature of the iPhone 4G as soon as Spring 2010.

As MacRumors succinctly explained in November, mobile phone usage of RFID technology will come in the form of Near Field Communication (NFC). NFC is a new standard based on RFID and it has three use cases: the phone as an RFID tag; the phone as RFID Reader; and peer to peer communication (P2P) between two NFC-enabled phones.

The first two use cases are the most interesting. Using the iPhone as an RFID tag means it can be a deployed as a payment device (similar to a credit card), identity card, security device, and more. This type of functionality is already happening in Japan, where the RFID Suica chip is installed in some mobile phones.

Using the phone as an RFID Reader allows the iPhone to interact with RFID-enabled objects in the real world. Check out this prototype from a Norwegian research organization called Touch, using the iPhone as a Media Player:

Timo Arnall from Touch noted in a follow-up post in November that RFID and NFC peripherals are beginning to be released for the iPhone.

2010 could be a great year for RFID in the consumer market, if it is to be a feature of the next iPhone. Expect to see it in Android devices too.

Will mobile phones provide the tipping point for adoption of the Internet of Things? We've seen now that mobile phones are a big driver of consumer adoption for both barcodes and RFID tags, so we wouldn't be surprised.

Internet of Things is when everyday objects become connected to the Internet, via technologies such as RFID tags, sensors and barcodes. One trend we saw expanding in 2008-09 was mobile phones being deployed as readers for barcodes.

The Technology

Barcodes are similar to RFID tags, in that they both hold data. RFID tags are generally more functional and flexible than barcodes. Also RFID tags can be read/write, whereas barcodes cannot. However the big advantage for barcodes is that they're cheaper, therefore we're more likely to see scanning as a consumer activity ramp up in the U.S. via barcodes.

The most popular form of 2D barcode is the QR Code (the QR stands for "Quick Response"), which became popular in Japan and is now gaining traction in the U.S. and other markets.

The Products

In a series of posts written over September 2008, Sarah Perez analyzed the then burgeoning "scannable world." As Sarah explained, barcode scanning is not a new technology on the Web. One of the first examples was :CueCat, a cat-shaped barcode reader from the late 1990s. It linked a user to a website by scanning a barcode in an article or other printed matter. CueCat never took off because it required a separate piece of hardware, but now in 2010 smartphones are the hardware.

There's also no shortage of software circa 2010, such as ScanLife and the NeoReader app described in Part 2 of Sarah's Scannable World series. Other barcode reading apps are listed in Part 3 of that series.

There are a variety of use cases for barcodes on the Web. They include Semapedia.org (a non-profit project that aims to augment the physical world with Wikipedia data), QRContact (contact management via barcodes), and barcode wearables such as p8tch ("Think of it as a TinyURL you can wear"). But none of these is likely to become widely used in the mainstream, at least in the near future.

What Will be The Tipping Point?

In Japan, barcode scanning is already a popular activity thanks to the culture of using mobile phones for just about everything. In the U.S., where the Mobile Web took longer to ramp up, barcodes are yet to catch on. However there's one market where barcode scanning could become a mainstream activity in the U.S. and other countries. No, not magazine publishing - although there are valid advertising use cases there. We're talking about scanning retail products using your mobile phone.

By the end of 2009, a lot of barcode scanning apps had gained popularity in the iPhone and Android, in particular. In November we listed our picks for scanning and other mobile shopping apps to test over Black Friday.

There is no clear winner yet in the shopping barcodes market, but here are some applications you may want to try:

• RedLaser (iPhone app getting rave reviews)
• ShopSavvy (popular on Android)
• The Amazon Mobile app; see also SnapTell, owned by Amazon
• StoreXperience
• CardStar
• pic2shop
• Point Inside (good review on CNET)
• CompareEverywhere (Android)
• ZXing Barcode Reader (Android)

Thanks to followers of @rww on Twitter, who suggested some of those.

Will Consumers Adopt Barcode Scanning?

As well as adoption by retailers, another big question is: will consumers want to interact with real world products using their mobile phones? I suspect they will, once they begin to see compelling reasons for doing so - which will probably involve getting the best deals and being able to do advanced shopping comparison very easily.

Finally, it's worth noting that Google is active in barcodes. Google's Favorite Places program allows local businesses to put a sticker on their products which features Google's logo, a scannable barcode and a message reading "We're a favorite place on Google."

Barcode scanning and its applications will grow during 2010, meaning more and more real world data will be connected to the Internet and accessed on your mobile phone. There are many apps trying to entice consumers to wave their mobile phone in front of products, so let us know your favorites in the comments.

Image credits: clevercupcakes; Stan; ScanLife

How is Evolution of Dance doing now, given the influx of pop music and movie videos into YouTube? Not to mention all of those goofy comedic routines by teenagers and cutesy baby or animal videos. Let's check out the top YouTube videos of all time, as it stands today...

2. Evolution of Dance; 134,412,139 views

3. Miley Cyrus - 7 Things - Official Music Video (HQ); 108,577,069 views

4. Jeff Dunham - Achmed the Dead Terrorist; 104,013,553 views

5. Hahaha - Small daring boy; 103,262,937 views

6. Lo que tú Quieras Oír; 99,291,111 views

7. Pitbull - I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho); 92,408,735 views

8. Susan Boyle - Singer - Britains Got Talent 2009; 85,126,780 views

Note: This video has been labeled "Embedding disabled by request" on YouTube, but we've embedded it below via Dailymotion:

9. Timbaland - Apologize (feat. One Republic); 81,299,096 views

10. Vanessa Hudgens Say Ok Music Video (Official with Zac Efron); 78,684,446 views

Update: Originally this post had Hari's comedy act at number 1 with 186,361,277 views. There was a suggestion at the time that it may have been a hack or a glitch. Then a couple of days after publication, YouTube listed this video at 128,712 views only. So it seems that it was listed at number 1 in error, therefore we have updated this post accordingly.

Editor's note: This story is part of ReadWriteWeb's Online Finance series, a weekly, three-month-long look at how the Internet has transformed finance. Up until April 15, which is the deadline for U.S. readers to file their taxes, we'll be looking at how online finance has evolved, analyzing top web tools and posting video of our conversations with the people who are shaping online finance. If you are interested in sponsoring the rest of this Content Series on Personal Finance, please contact our COO Sean Ammirati.

Mint: Leading the Charge

Currently, the two most well-known online tools for personal finance management are arguably Mint and Intuit's Quicken Online.

Mint stood out from the pack early on because the company made it extremely easy to keep track of all your expenses. After giving Mint access to your bank and credit card account, the service simply downloads your financial information at regular intervals and organizes it. Mint can even track your 401(k) for you.

Mint launched in September 2007 and quickly became the darling of the Web 2.0 world. Unlike most of its desktop-bound competitors, Mint managed to talk to virtually every bank and credit card issuer from day one. In October 2008, Mint came out of beta. Today, the company has more than 1.7 million registered users and sees roughly 700,000 active users every month. In October 2009, the company was signing up 30,000 new users per week.

Mint's success didn't go unnoticed by the incumbent market leaders and Intuit acquired Mint in October 2009. In November 2009, Intuit announced that it would begin to phase out Quicken Online in favor of Mint. Microsoft suspended sales of Microsoft Money on June 30, 2009 and doesn't plan to compete in the market anymore. Correction: In December, Microsoft actually announced a plan to enter the personal finance market again with a Mint-like tool it is developing in collaboration with Citi.

Beyond Mint

While Mint gets most of the mindshare on the web these days, it's by no means the only player in this market. Indeed, the success of Mint has given rise to a plethora of similar tools and legitimizes the efforts of companies that tried to enter this market before Mint.

ClearCheckbook.com, for example, launched in May 2006. The company focuses on bringing checkbook management online.

A number of other tools are competing more directly with Mint. Wesabe, for example, also focuses on giving users an overview of how they spend their money. Sadly, Wesabe makes downloading your information from your checking and credit card accounts a bit more difficult than Mint.

Since acquiring Exepnsr, Strands now also offers its own personal finance tool for setting up and tracking personal budgets and staying on top of your finances. Geezeo - which was founded in 2006, and also looks a lot like Mint, has a very strong focus on budgeting.

Most of these tools focus on the U.S. market, but more and more of them are also now available outside of the United States. Kublax, for example, offers a Mint-like service in the U.K.

Going Mobile

Just like almost every other category of online tools, personal finance tools are also making the move to mobile. Mint and Wesabe, for example, offer both an iPhone app and mobile-optimized websites. Most importantly, all of these services are also able to send out alerts to your phone - either through push alerts on the iPhone or as text messages. Whenever you run the risk of exceeding your credit card limit, for example, these services will send you an alert.

Of course, a number of banks have also gotten into this game and now offer their own mobile apps. The Bank of America, Chase Mobile and Wells Fargo apps are currently among the top 10 most downloaded free finance iPhone apps, for example.

When it comes to paying your bills, apps like BillMinder and BillTracker make it easy to never forget when a bill is due.

What's Next?

Over the last few years, the web has clearly transformed the way we use personal finance software. Over the next few months, we will have a closer look at the current generation of personal budgeting and finance tools on the web. We will also analyze the current trends around online finance software.

This is the first post in our upcoming series about online finance. If you are interested in sponsoring the rest of this Content Series on Online Finance, please contact our COO Sean Ammirati.