ReadWriteWeb

It's the end of a big week here at ReadWriteWeb. For one, we just got acquired by SAY Media. As I sit here thinking about what happened in 2011 and what's to come in 2012, I keep in mind the simple fact that soon ReadWriteWeb will be operating under a very clean look and feel in this brave new tech world. What does that have to do with 2012 predictions? Not much. Just thought I'd remind you about the state of tech news right here and now.

Which brings me to my 2012 predictions for Facebook, e-commerce, location and social networks, the four areas I've been watching closely since I joined the rad team at ReadWriteWeb this past October. Come along to the next page!

Shopping is overwhelming enough, especially around the holidays. The leading consumer Web companies are falling over themselves to make it easier using all the innovative technologies at their disposal. As they figure it out, though, that only leaves consumers with even more options. Do we shop in person, on our desktops, our phones or our tablets? Do we go to a website or launch an app? Which one? How do we pay?

These questions have to be answered before we even get to choosing what to buy. They all make shopping easier, though, whether through giving us more information before we buy or by speeding up the process. Here are three kinds of Web-powered innovations that will contribute to the future of shopping.

Amazon threw down the gauntlet against terrestrial competitors today by announcing that Kindle and Kindle app customers can borrow and purchase Kindle books from more than 11,000 local libraries in the United States.

In essence, these first 11,000 local libraries just became a chain of local bookstores for Amazon's catalog of virtual books.

Everything's easier in China, even managing the end of your relationship. Users of the eBay-like site Taobao managed by Alibaba are making a killing on outsourcing their breakups to complete strangers in exchange for a little bit of dosh.

You met someone and thought it would turn into a great relationship, only to be disappointed later on by the harsh reality that they just are not that into you. Well, for a few yuan (eight yuan roughly equals a dollar), you can hire someone to be the emissary for this hardest of all social missives.

Groupon's Chinese joint venture Gaopeng is not doing so well. It has apparently closed 10 offices and fired at as many as 400 employees over the past three months.

Executives of the Chicago-based daily deals company, which is planning an IPO at some point, say changes are part of a shift in strategy and that that the company will now concentrate on middle-tier and upper-tier cities rather than the smaller cities in more distance reaches of the country.

Have you been waiting for more practical implementations of augmented reality (AR) technology outside of gaming and marketing initiatives? So have we. That's what makes the technology Zugara is launching now so interesting. It has teamed up with U.K.-based online clothing retailer Banana Flame to offer a virtual dressing room of sorts which lets online shoppers "try on" the clothes featured on the retailer's website.

Using the computer's webcam and Zugara's AR e-commerce software dubbed "Webcam Social Shopper," shoppers can immediately see what clothes look like on them and can ask friends for an opinion via Facebook and Twitter.

Payments company Jumio is today launching a new technology called Netswipe that turns any webcam into a credit card reader, both on the desktop and on mobile. The service aims to bridge the convenience of online and mobile shopping with the security inherent in face-to-face transactions. It also makes it incredibly easy to shop — you just hold up your credit card in front of your webcam to complete the transaction.

Today, mobile application development vendor appMobi launched a new 1-Click payment technology called cloudKey which secures users' credit card information for online purchases on their device, not on remote servers. With the wave of recent high-profile hacking attacks on companies like Sony, Citi and AT&T, even non-security minded folks have become aware of the need for improvements to the current system.

Until now, credit card accounts and personal information have been stored in centralized, online databases, making them vulnerable to attacks. With the new cloudKey system, which uses standard encryption technology and a "distributed key" topology, appMobi aims to deliver a more secure solution.

A new report from e-commerce platform maker Demandware dug into today's mobile shopping trends among consumers and found that retailers are falling short of delivering the experiences customers want. Although there's high demand for things like barcode scanning, branded applications, mobile checkout, price comparison services, mobile coupons, access to mobile product information and more, many retailers simply aren't offering these types of tools to their customers.

Online and mobile cash-based payment service Dwolla has launched its first API (application programming interface), which the company calls "Grid." This tool allows for the integration of Dwolla's cash-based payments service within other platforms and applications. The operation works somewhat like a Facebook Connect for payments - instead of merchants holding your personal data on their servers, that sensitive information is stored within Dwolla. How much of your data they can access is up to you, the consumer. The benefit here is that with less access to this data, there's less risk of fraud.