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On February 8-9 in San Francisco, California, a conference bringing together today’s leading developers of social and mobile apps will be held.  Inside Social Apps is a two-day summit on the future of app and game growth on social and mobile platforms.

Presenters include Tim Chang of the Mayfield Fund, Daniel Terry of Pocket Gems, David Glazer of Google+, Barry Cottle of EA Interactive, as well as representatives from Facebook, Disney Interactive, and many more.  A couple of dozen in total, in fact.

The event is two full days of critical discussion and is being produced by Inside Network.  The agenda is robust and includes:

• Facebook, Apple, Google – Which Platform(s) Hold the Most Opportunity in 2012
• The Facebook Platform Roadmap in 2012
• Monetizing Social Games on Facebook: Credits, Today and Tomorrow
• Social Apps for Marketers and Brands: Maximizing Audience Engagement
• Cutting Edge Mobile App Development: iOS, Android and HTML5
• Social Game Marketing and Performance Advertising on Facebook
• Monetizing Mobile Games on iOS and Android
• Investing in Mobile and Social Apps: Risks and Opportunities in 2012

Rates are held until January 31 for both days or a single day’s attendance.  Given some of the big names involved, it will definitely be a great networking opportunity for startups and entrepreneurs.

In fact, the admission price is worth just that opportunity alone.

Find out more at Inside Social Apps 2012.

As the world moves into the future and we along with it, technology continues to become a bigger and bigger part of our lives.  For many of us, technology is literally with us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  We carry our iPhones, iPods, smart phones, tablets; we have DVD, DVR, desktops, laptops, our cars are connected, our houses are filled with WiFi, and we RSVP our children’s play dates using Facebook apps…

Yet most of us know little about how all this technology works.  Let alone how to make it do stuff for us that might not have been what was intended.  In today’s world, learning how to hack can actually get us further in life than earning an MBA.

So why not learn to code?

It’s not nearly as difficult as people might think.  We seem to think of programming as some kind of complex mathematical thing that only pale-faced, geeky types can learn.  The reality is that only certain types of coding are that way.  Most of it, like the stuff used to make websites look cool, to make blogs do fun stuff, or make nifty little apps for your phone, isn’t that geeky.  You just need to know how it works and the basics of coding to do fun things.

Most programmers and developers actually learn to code on their own – for many, the programming classes they took in college were more like refresher courses.  A few really good coders I know actually tested through all of their programming classes because they already knew it.

If you want to learn to code this year, make a New Year’s resolution, then head over to Code Year and get started!  More than 20,000 people have signed up already and it’s totally free.  There’s nothing to lose!

We could add another sentence to that title, to read “whether you like it or not”.  Yes, the latest change is another one in which users will have no say.  There is no chance of opting out because those in charge at Facebook have provided no option to do so.

According to a spokesperson for the social media giant, the idea is to start promoting the sponsored stories “slowly.”  However, no matter how slowly the site opts to do it, the fact that they give no choice for users to decide whether they want to see such stories or not is nothing short of disturbing.

This advertising is all set to be shown as part of users news feeds.  This particular type of advertising was tried three years ago on Facebook, but they have now decided that they want to make it a regular feature.

The problem is that many users are bound to dislike the new round of changes to the site.  Most users would be happier without seeing the ads, and even one a day (which is the limit being touted by Facebook) might be one too many.  We have already seen a raft of users leaving the site this year due to changes that they do not like.  This could be the latest in a series of upsets that the social media site will have caused.  Clearly some believe that they do not care about their audience – and this latest change could make that number swell further.

You may remember when MySpace was one of the biggest social networking sites on the planet.  There was a time when it was MySpace and Facebook, and there was no mention of Twitter anywhere.

But things can change very quickly in the world of the internet, and before too long MySpace started to slide in popularity.  Twitter took over and while Facebook is still there, MySpace has become the largely forgotten social networking site.

Until now, that is.  It looks like its acquisition by Specific Media could be leading to some interesting changes to come in the future.  There are big plans in store for MySpace during 2012, and while it remains to be seen how these plans will unfold, the first stage has just got underway.

A brand new music player has now been added to the website, enabling users to find it much easier to enjoy music on the site.  The plans involve focusing purely on music in the future, although very little detail is available for 2012’s changes beyond this.  The CEO of MySpace and Specific Media is Chris Vanderhook and he seemed very positive about the future of the site.  He spoke of music as being “white hot” and it is clear that this is the direction of the new site.

There is still the question of how it will develop and whether it is still too little, too late for the site that was once a giant.

It’s rare that you come across a game that is a uniquely original take on a relatively standard game type.  We see knockoffs all the time, or games that are basically just the same old game idea with better graphics and maybe different icons.  Unlike those types of remakes, Amazing Breaker is a truly original take on a relatively common game concept.

The premise is relatively simple: you draw back your sling cannon to launch projectiles at an object and break it down – sort of halfway between Angry Birds and Breakout.  Except you have different kinds of projectiles randomly given to you and you can control some aspects of them mid-flight.

There’s one that breaks into three as soon as you tap the screen, one that can go through the object your aiming for and explode at a given point (you follow it with your finger and when you let off, it explodes), etc.  This adds a whole new dimension to the game play.  That’s on top of the game’s other core twist..

The objects your aiming for?  They’re made of ice.  They are beautiful renderings of stained-glass-like artwork and your goal is to break them down in as few shots as possible.  It’s easy to hit the objects (missing is actually more work, honestly), but hitting them strategically so as to do the most break-up per shot is a challenge.

You can bounce your shots off the sidewalls of the screen to hit higher points or get around obstacles and you can use the unique missile type you have on each shot to go for unusual shots as well.

This game is very addicting and a whole lot of fun.

When you hear about someone buying a stake in a social media site, you probably don’t initially think the stake will be somewhere in the region of $300 million dollars. That is exactly how much a Saudi prince has invested in the site.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has bought what has been termed as a ‘strategic stake’ in the microblogging social media company. The Prince will probably have found it quite easy to find the cash, since he is estimated to be worth around $19 billion dollars. It marks the latest foray into the social media scene for the Prince, who has already invested in other similar sites.

The cash will no doubt come in handy for those in charge at Twitter, as the site is currently undergoing a revamp. The aim of the changes is to speed up the site and make it even easier to use than it is at the moment. According to reports, a strategic holding basically means that a single investor has invested in more than 3% of the company.

The news has certainly hit the headlines around the world, and Twitter will no doubt put the money to good use as it tries to make changes to the site in order to attract more advertising revenue. There are definitely some big plans on the horizon for Twitter as we move into 2012, and this injection of cash will be a very welcome addition to the pot.