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Once upon a time, you had to bring travel guides, maps and paper tickets on every trip. Today, you can just take your smartphone and get access to all of this information without having to lug a couple of books and magazines around with you. Today, according to a new study by analytics firm Compete , 38% of smartphone users conduct travel research on their devices and 28% use their phones to book at least some of their trips and travel activities. Sponsor Compete found that the most popular travel-related activity for smartphone owners is finding more information about a destination while they are already traveling (34%). Close to a third of smartphone owners who responded to Compete’s survey also use their phones to check up on the status of their lodging and transportation reservations. For most smartphone owners, this probably means checking up on the status of their flights. A quarter of smartphone owners also use their phones to research lodging, destination and transportation options. Marketers will be happy to hear that 22% of users look for a specific transportation company’s or hotel’s website and 21% use their devices to do research on a specific travel agency’s site. Interestingly, though, while about a third of smartphone owners use their devices for travel-related activities, only one-fifth of all smartphone owners have installed travel apps on their devices yet. Those who haven’t installed travel apps yet are looking for comprehensive services that can notify their users of unplanned schedule changes (52%), notify users of rate changes (48%) and consolidate all travel reservations into one itinerary. While there are already numerous apps like WorldMate and TripIt that solve these problems, there is clearly an opportunity for these companies to market their apps to a wider audience that isn’t aware of them yet. Discuss

For many people, Twitter offers a larger, more diverse stream of constantly flowing data than they’ve ever had to deal with before in their life. Depending on how many people you follow and how much they tweet, the information can become unmanageable. To that end, we have user lists, third-party clients, Twitter tools and search. And today, it looks like Twitter has begun working on making this last option – search – more useful for its users by offering the ability to percolate popular search results to the top of the page. Sponsor Jennifer Van Grove at Mashable noticed an update in the Twitter API Google Group this morning that alerts us of a soon-to-come search feature – popular tweets. From the post on Google Groups: Until the popular tweet feature all search results have been sorted chronologically, most recent results at the top. If a search query has any popular results, those will be returned at the top, even if they are older than the other results. Basically, the API will now offer a variable named “result_type” that can will return either “popular” or “recent”. Programs will be able to use the variable to either return search results with popular tweets at the top as default, show only popular results or show only recent results. Also added to the Twitter API this week are two other variables for the retweet API. The first will return up to the first 100 user representations of those who have retweeted the tweet specified in the url by :status_id. The second will return just the ids of those retweeters for the cases where that’s all you care about. Perhaps these have some sort of implication in how tweets will be deemed popular, but even if not, it could be useful in watching the trickle-down spread of a tweet. Discuss

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission built upon its growing new media prowess with the launch of its own iPhone and Android applications. The FCC’s new apps allow users to test the speed of mobile broadband services and report deadzones where mobile broadband is not available. The FCC iPhone app is a free download from iTunes or the Android marketplace . Sponsor Alexander B. Howard is the associate editor of SearchCompliance.com at TechTarget. His work there focuses on how regulations affect IT operations, including issues of data protection, privacy, security and enterprise IT strategy. You can find him on Twitter at @digiphile . Before he joined TechTarget, he was the associate editor of WhatIs.com , and worked at Bain & Company and Sapient, along with stints as a teacher and carpenter in Massachusetts. “Transparency empowers consumers, promotes innovation and investment, and encourages competition,” said chairman Julius Genachowski in a press release. “The FCC’s new digital tools will arm users with real-time information about their broadband connection and the agency with useful data about service across the country. By informing consumers about their broadband service quality, these tools help eliminate confusion and make the market work more effectively.” The Consumer Broadband Test and the Broadband Dead Zone Report are also available as fixed applications at Broadband.gov . According to the FCC, the Ookla, Inc. Speed Test and the Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT) running on the Measurement Lab (M-Lab) platform are used to power the app. On the night of March 13th, the FCC tweeted that over 80,000 tests had been registered using the Broadband Speed Test. It was unclear how many tests were through Broadband.gov or the apps. In the future, the FCC says it will making additional broadband testing applications available for consumer use. Consumers can also submit availability information by e-mail to fccinfo@fcc.gov . And, perhaps taking a page from Google’s playbook, this application is in beta. According to the Consumer Broadband Test information page, “this beta version is the FCC’s first attempt at providing Americans with real-time information about their broadband connection quality.” I ran a quick test on my home cable Internet connection. My downlink isn’t quite fiber optic speed, but I found it close to existing tools. The test depends upon Java, though many users are likely to have that installed at this point. I tried out the mobile app as well, which used the GPS in my iPhone to discover my location. According to the FCC mobile broadband testing app, I’m getting 1.42 Mbps download speed from AT&T 3G here on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., and .11 Mbps upload. My connection certainly beats GPRS, if not a Clearwire 4G connection — or my Wi-Fi. Privacy Concerns? The FCC states that it’s “committed to protecting the personal privacy of consumers utilizing these tools, and will not publicly release any individual personal information gathered.” It’s posted a privacy statement to that effect. Crowdsourcing Citizen Reporting The larger context of the release of the FCC mobile broadband testing app is worth noting. The FCC will release its National Broadband Plan this week. Part of that plan will certainly incorporate assessing where broadband service exists, how robust it is and how closely service matches advertised rates. An executive summary of the National Broadband plan is embedded below: FCC National Broadband Plan Executive Summary This kind of data collected by the FCC’s broadband tests could serve in much the same vein as the FTC’s consumer complaint assistant works at FTComplaintassistant.gov . By releasing the apps and test at Broadband.gov, the FCC has given citizens a tool to report service quality and availability around the country. Equipped with that data, commissioners may be able to make policy decisions informed by data as they roll out the national broadband plan. Discuss

Nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and fueled by leaders and social hubs such as Micah Baldwin , Tech Stars mentor, #followfriday creator and now chief community caretaker at Graphic.ly of Digital X, and Robert Reich, the founder of Boulder/Denver Tech Meet-up, Boulder’s startup community is pumping, even in the midst of recession. Boulder is the home of Blue Mountain cards , one of the first successful online greeting cards websites. In the 1990s, Fortune 1,000 tech companies popped up all over the Western prairie between Boulder and Denver. Since then, Boulder’s creative, crunchy, beautiful mountain environment has nurtured a self-supporting startup tech ecosystem. Sponsor We already wrote about Boulder in our Never Mind the Valley series , and recently had the chance to visit the city and lunch with four of the region’s startups. Here is what we found. Community Support RWW’s Never Mind the Valley series: The Boulder startup community, continues to be a supportive, passionate community with talented individuals, inspired ideas that is affecting change politically and economically in the United States. Lunching with four startups that Micah Baldwin organized was like lunching with a family. The group we talked with share office space, mentor each other and talk proudly of each others ideas and accomplishments. The Underground Rail Road Attracting talent is foundational to any startup environment. Eric Marcoullier, co-founder of Gnip described the “underground railroad” of transients that have made their way from Silicon Valley to Boulder. “Weekly I would get emails asking about what Boulder was like. Eventually I just started telling people to come here, visit and ask the locals themselves,” he said. Venture capitalists have also made their way from busy Silicon Valley to the Boulder Valley. Affecting Change – The Startup Visa Act Once you have the foundation of talented motivated individuals, ideas flow. Brad Feld of TechStars took the idea for a national startup visa bill and made it a reality. TechStars receives proposals from all over the world. Startups based in foreign countries come on tourist visas with great ideas – and potential jobs are being sent home with them. The startup bill seeks to change this. The bill will enable companies that do not have U.S. citizen or resident status, but who have blessed by at least $100,000 in VC investment, to start their companies in the United States. Measuring Outcomes The four thought-provoking, pioneering startups we met with had had nothing but positive things to say about TechStars and starting a business in Boulder. Each had a unique story; two of them were locals and all of them men. Gnip Eric Marcoullier , co-founder of Gnip , launched two years ago with the unique idea of providing data collection and analysis of social signals across multiple social websites to help companies improve their product and service experience. The Gnip platform and service bridges the gap between the data APIs between large companies and multiple social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Post Rank. ReadWriteWeb has covered Gnip extensively . Since its launch, Gnip has changed its technology strategy and will be re-launching soon. Everlater Natty Zola and Nate Abbott spent one year sleeping on couches as they traveled across five continents before they came up with the concept for Everlater . Everlater allows travelers to easily record and share their travel experiences through Twitter and Facebook. The platform allows users to use data from across multiple photo sharing sites. People can also publish their travel “scrapbooks”. An algorithm lays out the book automatically so you don’t have to. For hopeless photo organizers like me, this is a godsend! Next Big Sound Alex White , co-founder Next Big Sound , provides cultural analytics specifically to music companies. Music professionals can track how fans interact with their music, or music from many musicians across sites such as MySpace and LastFM. It is currently developing a premium service. Graphic.ly Micah Baldwin is not only social hub-connector extraordinaire, but also works for the uniquely cool comic book community Graphic.ly . Graphic.ly, which is currently in private beta, hopes to open opportunities for comic book creators, publishers and enthusiasts that are currently suffering under a one distributor model – as well as reawaken America’s and the world’s love for online comics. Members can both purchase and discuss comic books on Graphic.ly. Ties to the Universities Startup’s ties with Colorado universities are immature, but starting to materialize. The morning of our lunch someone from the Colorado startup community (who we promised not to name) had met with the University of Colorado. As the individual put it, “Universities are turning out graduates prepped for a traditional computer science career at the likes of Lockheed Martin. We don’t need MBAs – we need coders.” The local Universities are overlooking careers in startups that are based – literally – around the corner or down from “The Hill” as a viable career option. An exception, University of Colorado Law School is has been offering startups free legal advice in exchange for student experience. Judging from the close-knit group of entrepreneurs we saw, Boulder has matured significantly since the dot-com boom and bust. The only thing lacking at lunch was more estrogen. Discuss

Our top stories this week were about cutting the strings that tie us to our desks. And also about stalking celebrities at SXSW. Read on for our coverage and analysis. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things. Note: We’ve refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010, as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your thoughts on the new format. Sponsor Story of the Week: Leaving your desk for the cloud, a bike or someplace you’d rather not say. Put.io Turns Torrents Into Streams [Invites] Bicycling Directions, Trails Come to Google Maps Chatroulette Creator Coming to America? 6 Thoughts About Location Madness SXSW 2010 for Web Celeb Stalkers More coverage and analysis of location-based technology Announcing the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit Join us for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7 in Mountain View, California as we explore the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Be a part of the discussion on geo-location services , augmented reality , native app vs. browser-based , commerce and marketing , mobile social networking and the Internet of Things. Sponsorship enquiries: sales@readwriteweb.com , Register now for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit and get early bird rates – only $295. Mobile Web Twitter Location? Thanks, But No Thanks Is the iPhone Still More Personal than Professional? Japan’s Largest Telco Goes OpenID More Mobile Web coverage Historic Conversation in NYC: Ai Weiwei, Jack Dorsey & Richard MacManus On March 15, at the prestigious Paley Center in New York City, a conversation will take place between Chinese digital activist and artist Ai Weiwei , Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey , and yours truly, Richard MacManus , ReadWriteWeb founder and editor in chief. The moderator will be Orville Schell , the director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York. The topic of the event is the emergence of digital activism for fostering positive social change. The onsite event is invitation only, but it will be live streamed exclusively on ReadWriteWeb on Monday, March 15, at 6:30 PM EST (-5 GMT), from the Paley Center for Media, New York City. Internet of Things Stickybits: Portal to Another Dimension or Graffiti for Nerds? More Internet of Things coverage Real-Time Web Google Wave Extensions Gallery Launches Chasing Real-Time Raindrops in an Ocean of Content Google’s Mobile Product Search Now Shows Real-Time Local Inventory More Real-Time Web coverage . Don’t miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb’s report, The Real-Time Web and its Future . Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app . As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we’ve made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes . ReadWriteStart Our channel ReadWriteStart , sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark , is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs. 10 Principles For Not Killing Your Startup All the Small Things: Facebook Demonstrates How to Get Big Results From Little Changes First Look at TechStars Historical Results Data ReadWriteEnterprise Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0′ and using social software inside organizations. International Blackberry Outage Goes Into Day 2 Will StatusNet Be Another Open-Source Star in the Enterprise? ReadWriteCloud Our channel ReadWriteCloud , sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing. SXSW 2010 for Cloud Lovers Cloud Religion: Do’s, Do Not’s, and a Glimpse of Nirvana Cisco in the Core: Preparing for the Next Generation Internet That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone. Discuss