ReadWriteWeb

Mark Zuckerberg's closely-watched, 2010 trip to China isn't the only reason why Facebook may be the safe bet on which of the major U.S.-based social networks will be the first to get the go-ahead to operate in China.

Access to Facebook, Google+ and Twitter are all currently banned by the Chinese government. Google may be renewing expansion efforts in China, but a recent crackdown on popular Chinese microblogging sites designed to mimic Twitter suggest that if any of the big three get the permission to operate in China, the nod will go to Facebook.

Google and Twitter couldn't make a deal to renew their real-time search partnership, and now Google+ is plowing ahead on its own. A new Google+ feature makes searches on the network more timely, social and shareable. Google+ users can now post updates to their streams directly from search results.

If you search for a topic or hashtag, such as "SOPA," a post box at the top promps the user to "join the discussion." Posts from this box include the note "Shared from the Google+ SOPA stream." The topic name links back to the search results page.

Where were you on the Internet in 2010? What about in 2011? The folks over at Royal Pingdom have compiled a nice set of data for the Internet, by the Internet. That is, an entire list of data about email, websites, web servers, domain names by their .dot web addresses, Internet users by country, types of social media, web browser usage, mobile users, videos and images. We decided to take a look at the data points that tell us the most about the read/write web: websites and domain names, Facebook, Twitter and Internet users by continent. More importantly, we'll look at how the Internet of 2011 compares to the Internet of 2010.

College students appear to have gotten over the creep factor of connecting with their professors on Facebook and would prefer to use the 800-million member social network for formal class assignments and discussions over other platforms, including Twitter.

Those are the preliminary findings of Dr. Rey Junco, a college professor who has been studying social media in the college classroom. Not too long ago, students often bristled at the idea of using Facebook in classes because it meant connecting with their professors. But Junco's more recent research shows students prefer Facebook because they're already using it.

"I think [using Facebook] would've been easier and a little more comfortable for people because I think pretty much everyone in my class had a Facebook and nobody had either one of these thing," one student in the study said of a class that gave students the option of using Twitter or Ning, a service that lets people create closed social networks.

Michelle Obama's first day on Twitter was marked by four tweets (two presumably written by the First Lady herself), a retweet and more than 235,000 new followers.

For her part, Obama followed five accounts, including her husband's, three official White House Twitter accounts and the account of Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina. The account is being maintained by Obama's reelection campaign, with tweets posted by the First Lady signed "-mo."

A new report by Jeremiah Owyang out last week describes the growing proliferation of social media across corporations and shows exactly how out of control things have gotten. Owyang, an expert on the topic who is part of the Altimeter Group, has a lot to absorb here. He surveyed 144 corporations using social media along with 27 software vendors who have various management tools to help. One of the nice things about this report is he lists his sources explicitly, so you know the quality of the information. On average, a company has 178 different corporate accounts on various social networks. And that isn't counting the personal accounts. That is a lot of stuff to manage.

Many of ReadWriteWeb’s readers are old hands at Twitter, but the service gets thousands of new users every day. That includes a lot of folks who suddenly need to use Twitter as part of their job. If you’re just being introduced to the joys of Twitter (or introducing it to another user), here’s a short and friendly primer on what you need to know about using the site.

After posting “10 Tips on Using Twitter Wisely” in December, I had a few notes from folks who said (basically) “thanks for the tips, but I didn’t know all the jargon.”

Several of the largest Interent firms - including Google, Facebook and Twitter - are backing alternate legislation being proposed to the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP Acts.

The OPEN act sponsored by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., would allow the International Trade Commission to order online ad networks and payment processors to sever ties withe foreign websites that are targeted by patent infringement claims.

SOPA, and its Senate counerpart, PIPA, on the other hand, would force search engines and websites to block links to sites that are listed as being "dedicated" to copyright infringement. SOPA has been widely endorsed by traditional media companies, but Web firms and free speech advocates have likened it to government-enforced censorship.

While visiting relatives over Christmas I was faced with the rather grim prospect of being in New York, where the New England-Miami game was locally blacked out.

A generation ago I would have been forced to wait for halftime updates during the Jets-Giants games, but Twitter and a slew of apps designed specifically for sports fans allowed me to follow the game in real time (I also got to watch the Jets lose, which wasn't a half-bad consolation prize).

But these apps aren't just for when you can't watch the game -- they're great supplements when you're glued to the television or in the stadium and worth downloading before the NFL Playoffs kickoff on Saturday, as they help cut through a lot of the clutter and deliver the information most relevant in helping you understand (or vent) about what's happening on the field.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won last night's Iowa Caucus by eight votes, and the consensus on what role Twitter and social media played in the contest may be just as evenly split.

Jenn Deering Davis of TweetReach, a social media analytics service by San Francisco-based Appozite that tracks Twitter mentions and reach on a wide range of subjects, said Tuesday afternoon that volume about the Iowa caucus was "pretty low."

"We track more tweets in an hour about a single TV show than we have in five days about all nine candidates," she said.

Yet if you only paid attention to the social media scorecards leading up to Tuesday's race, Ron Paul would have been your clear-cut pick to win. While Paul finished a respectable third, his finish did not live up to the pre-caucus hype on Twitter and in the tech press.

One of the reasons why social media once again failed to predict election results is that it is still, by-and-large, a way for voters to connect and follow their favored candidates. Undecided voters may still be turning to mainstream and traditionally objective media sources, and may be less likely to post comments about a candidate on Facebook or retweet a campaign update.