The NFL continues its blitz on building up its non-American fan base in a geeky way, this time teaming with Foursquare to create a virtual Super Bowl party for the big game on Sunday early Monday morning.

Good news, Dodgeball Google Latitude fans. After a quiet stretch when we thought Google might just give up on Latitude, the longest running of all geo-location check-in services (if you count its past as Dodgeball), the search king has announced it’s not dead, but instead will be recast as a mobile app that works with Google Maps.

Twitter has posted to its blog this time-lapsed video of the world celebrating the arrival of the New Year last weekend. The occasion marked a new record in Tweets-per-second, set yet again by the Japanese, the new Twitter-mad nation, with 6,939 TPS wishing friends and followers a fond “Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu” (“Happy New Year!”).

That’s the conclusion we draw from the latest Burson-Marsteller research into how companies are adapting to the mobile web. Despite the explosion in smart phone usage and the innovative mobile apps that are transforming industry sectors, many of the world’s largest companies are sitting on the sidelines.

What does it take to build a fully-functional social network from scratch? Users, and lots of them. But how do you convince the public that this new network is worth their time? For askalo, the new location-based Q&A network, the key is to hit the social niche with a game-based pitch. And, to go hyper-local.

‘Tis the season for launching new mobile retail applications. Here is the second installment of our shopping apps review, a look at some of the latest entries that are trying to change the way you tackle your holiday splurge.

Facebook is the first to say its new communications platform, Facebook Messages, is not email, nor is it some kind of “email killer.” Maybe not. Still, the web’s biggest email providers, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL, should be quaking today.

It’s hardly a surprise that Google-powered Android smart phones is gaining on rivals, becoming the tech business story of the year. New numbers out of the U.S. show Android phones could actually overtake Apple’s iPhone with a strong Christmas.

Yes, it’s still a week to go before the Christmas lights are “officially” illuminated along Regent Street, but we want to get a jump on the season anyhow with our first (of many) reviews of the latest social shopping apps to hit the market in recent weeks. Here, we review Starbucks, Amazon, Walmart, and Debenhams, grading each.

Facebook’s big announcement on Wednesday is a new feature that gives users the ability to categorize friends into smaller, targeted groups with the ability to share and converse with them individually or on a group level. It’s a great idea for organizations and brands looking to further target their message, but there’s just one catch: Sorry, this feature (for the moment anyhow) is not meant for you.