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Over the weekend, it seemed that everyone in the tech blogosphere contributed to the discussion around fractured blog comments; Robert Scoble even went so far as to say that the "era of blogger's control" is over. What all these discussions hinged on was whether or not a web service called Shyftr had the right to appropriate bloggers' RSS feeds and build their brand around our content (a practice they've now modified due to this outcry).

"The Brand Center," Catherine Linden writes for the company, "explains how Residents can promote their own brands, products and activities in the Second Life world and use appropriate logos to enhance their message." That's a remarkably positive way to describe what's mostly a list of thou-shalt-nots, combined with an ugly new logo that users are allowed to put on their stuff.

Microsoft released the results of a survey today indicating that the small percentage of young people who know the laws around copyright are much less likely to violate them than are kids who do not.

The survey was released along with a new website at mybytes.com ("They're MY bytes, not yours!") and a newly announced curriculum for middle and high schools to teach the Microsoft economic and political agenda. “Intellectual Property Rights Education" is the innocuous name of the Microsoft provided curriculum materials.

Popular BitTorrent search engine TorrentSpy lost a copyright case brought against it in a US cought by the Motion Picture Association of America by default for destroying evidence, reports the BBC. The site's operator's apparently ignored an order to keep server logs of the IP addresses of people who facilitated the trading of files via the site.

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Here is a summary of the week's Web Tech action on Read/WriteWeb. For those of you reading this via our website, note that you can subscribe to the Weekly Wrapups - either via the special RSS feed or by email.

Web News

Microsoft Invests in Facebook

The week was dominated by the news that Microsoft beat Google to an investment in Facebook. There was initially a rumor that Google had won the much hyped deal. But then the news hit that Microsoft had invested $240 million for a minority stake in Facebook, at a valuation of $15 billion. As part of the deal, and probably driving it, Microsoft expanded their advertising agreement with Facebook to international markets (they already had responsibility for US banner ads). Note however that this deal leaves room for Facebook to run its own advertising network, which we have been discussing on Read/WriteWeb. Facebook's ad system will likely use social profiling to target ads, given the wealth of such data that Facebook has.

There was a lot of follow-up discussion on the deal, including from our Read/WriteWeb writers. Alex Iskold wrote an intriguing article entitled Should Google Be Afraid Of Facebook?. He concluded however that Facebook isn't in the same league as Google, so the Mountain View company doesn't have a lot to fear. Josh Catone offered a contrarian view, in light of the massive influx of cash that Facebook received earlier in the week - and more importantly, who it came from.

Let us know, in the comments to the Wrapup, whose view you agreed with more - Alex's or Josh's?