ReadWriteWeb

In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup - our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week - we analyze the continuing popularity of Apple's App store, question the longevity of AIR apps, investigate the waves of changes happening in the book publishing industry, review one 19 year old's innovative and successful news website, tell you about a new trend to track called 'Cross Reality,' report on the latest news about Microsoft's Web-based office initiatives, and more. We also check in on our two new channels: ReadWriteEnterprise (devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' trends and products) and ReadWriteStart (dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs).

When Adobe AIR was first released, we were in love. These glorious rich internet applications let us interact with web services outside our browser. In many ways, AIR apps were revolutionary. More complex than simple desktop widgets, these programs delivered the web to us in beautiful little packages. Almost immediately, we were updating Twitter, streaming video, reading feeds, editing photos, and so much more using various apps built for this new platform.

But recently, we've begun to question AIR's longevity. Now don't get us wrong - many of our favorite apps (TweetDeck, Tumbleweed, Yammer, etc.) are built using Adobe AIR. However, there's no reason why these apps couldn't just run in a browser instead...and that might even be a better place for them. 

If you've ever been to a conference or some sort of large event, you've probably seen a live Twitter stream in action. Up on a big screen in a prominent place, often the stage itself, the live stream tracks the relevant hashtags or keywords about the event, be it a conference, a panel, a meetup, or some other sort of heavily-tweeted gathering.

But sometimes there's an issue with displaying the raw, unfiltered tweets in this way: they can be disruptive. All it takes is one Twitter user trying to be funny - or, worse, a troll saying something rude - to take the discussion off course. Now there's a new solution to deal with this problem: Paratweet.