Inside Social Apps 2012 starts next week in San Francisco. The event, held on February 8-9, will bring together the industry’s leading developers for two days of panels, discussions, and networking around the social and mobile app ecosystem.

How do developers in the industry view today’s top challenges in social and mobile apps and games? Which platforms will see the most growth in 2012, and what are the key opportunities ahead? Our event agenda looks at the industry’s biggest questions from the perspectives of those who are shaping it every day. Inside Social Apps features over 40 speakers including:

• Carl Sjogreen, Director of Product Management, Facebook
• Cory Ondrejka, Director of Engineering, Facebook
• Russ Heddleston, Product Manager, Facebook
• David Glazer, Engineering Director, Google+
• Clara Shih, Founder and CEO, Hearsay Labs
• Barry Cottle, Executive Vice President, EA Interactive

View the full program and speaker lineup here.

Early registration pricing is only $549 and ends tomorrow, February 1 (on-site price is $799). Previous Inside Social Apps conferences have sold out in advance, so register today!

The 2008 presidential election was a big deal for Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and the like. Candidates flocked to social media to attract voters, and news outlets reported Twitter followers like they were poll results.

If that sounds familiar, fast-forward to 2012. This year’s presidential election will be even bigger and better on the social plane than four years ago – and the fine folks at MGD Advertising put together a comparison of how social media was used in the election four years ago and how it’s grown today.
Read more

Twitter announced last week that it would start withholding tweets on a country-by-country basis, at the request of specific governments. And although the company has yet to act on this new policy, two governments have already come out in favor of it. And neither of these governments are known for their freedom of speech.
Read more

If you think their lifestyle is too decadent, look away now: celebrities can earn thousands of dollars for just typing (or, more likely, getting an assistant to type) 140 characters.
Read more

Who do you think shares more about themselves on their favourite social media sites: men or women?

uSamp surveyed 600 men and women about how they share personal information socially online, including education, income, occupation, race, religion, political affiliations and shopping preferences, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, discovered a clear gender gap between the sexes.

Read more

Twitter will see $226 million in ad revenues in 2012, showing growth of 83 percent on last year’s total of $139.5 million, predicts market analytics firm eMarketer.

Over the next three years, eMarketer expects Twitter’s growth in ad revenue to remain solid, but slowly taper off, with the social networking platform targeting $399.5 million in revenue next year and $540 million in 2014.

Read more

Twitter and Facebook present unique challenges and opportunities for law enforcement. They can provide insight into illicit communication between terrorists… or they can give Homeland Security a reason to flip out over a joke.
Read more

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at these kinds of stories anymore, but for some reason they still get to me: Yet another high profile person has been burned by things they themselves put out there for the world to see on Twitter.
Read more

Even though the internet is becoming less and less anonymous, people are still treating it like a free-for-all without rules or repercussions. At least according to a recent poll conducted to see just how responsible people are on Twitter and Facebook.
Read more

Thailand applauded Twitter’s new stance on censorship, which will give governments the right to ask the network to remove certain tweets.
Read more