Welcome to this week’s instalment of the social media roundup, easing you into the weekend with a selection of what’s been hot on the web this week.

Barrichello Wins $500,000 From Google

This week it was announced that Google was ordered to Pay Formula 1 driver Rubens Barrichello $500,000 in damages and to remove all images and fake profiles from the social networking website Orkut which they own. The case is an interesting one as Google claims they remove all content from their network that violates their terms but that they don’t expect to have to police negative commentary about celebrities. You can read more here.

Tweetdeck iPhone App Gets Better

There are tons of really cool iPhone apps on the market for Twitter use but the one that we love and use is Tweetdeck and we were super happy this week when they released a bunch of new features including landscape mode (much needed and the ability to watch video. You can see more about the app here

Search engine war results in free wifi over the holidays

Earlier this week Google announced they would be providing free wifi during the holiday period at 47 airports throughout the U.S. as a ‘holiday’ gift, as well as free wifi on Virgin Atlantic flights. Not to be outdone on the Christmas cheer, Yahoo  then announced they would be offering free wifi in Times Square. Of course, it wouldn’t be a search engine war without all of the big 3 involved, so Bing announced they would be offering free wifi at selected hotspots in airports and hotels, in return for conducting a search on Bing.

Google announces plans to double the speed of the internet

Google announced this week that they are in a research project that aims to make the web faster. The protocol is dubbed ‘SPDY’  and Google broke the news on the Chromium blog. It has currently only been tested in labs, but they’re already announcing that top websites are loading at 55% faster. If you’re interested in learning more about the project, you can join their Google group for discussion

First iphone worm spotted, second one follows

Reports of an iphone worm ‘IKee’ emerged earlier in the week, that only affected ‘jailbroken’ phones. The hack itself was not particularly malicious and continued the popular meme of leaving a picture of Rick Astley as people’s background image. Now though, a second worm is running, that can steal data stored on jailbroken iphones. If you’re worried about the vulnerability of your phone, Read Write Web have got a handy article on how you can secure your jailbroken iphone

Video Of The Week

If you do one thing this week watch this video and listen to the message…

Read other posts related to this topic:

1. Thank F*$k It’s Friday Social Media Roundup Lots of new features coming in to the blog over the coming weeks and...
2. Thank F@*k It is Friday Social Media Round Up Welcome to the third social media roundup, easing you into the weekend with all...
3. Making time for social media I’ve had quite a few conversations lately, that revolve around the issue of time...
4. Why 2010 Will Be The Remembered As The Year Mobile Social Media Came Of Age If 2009 was the year that social media crossed in to the mainstream and...