Earlier this month, Gowalla made a splash at SXSW in Austin, seeing all sorts of check-ins and earning the conference’s top award in the mobile category.  Now (although there probably isn’t a true cause and effect), the company’s going to …

Today, StartUp Britain was launched, an initiative offering support and resources for businesses just starting out or looking to grow.  The initiative has the backing of many companies known intimately by those of us on this side of the pond …

Check-in company Foursquare may itself be on the move in a sense.  Although nothing’s certain just yet, its cofounder and CEO, Dennis Crowley, has gone on the record stating that he’d like to establish an office in the UK rather …

One month before The Social Network lost to The King’s Speech at the Oscars, it seems that a category of sites led by Facebook pulled off a big (and arguably related) victory in the UK.  Experian Hitwise indicated today that …

Google has purchased UK price comparison site for financial products BeatThatQuote.com for £37.7 million ($61.3 million). News of the deal was confirmed by BeatThat.Quote.com managing director John Paleomylites on the company’s website. “Our team is excited about becoming a part …

Months ahead of the actual wedding date, the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton has generated all sorts of media attention and page views, with people all over the world taking an interest.  And now Google’s right in the midst of it, as the search giant’s been picked to host the official Royal Wedding website.

YouTube users in the UK may soon gain access to a bigger and better selection of movies through the site – if they’re willing to fork over a fee.  Rumor has it that Google intends to begin testing a Netflix-like subscription service in the region.

Last month, something called "World View" began when YouTube users were asked to submit questions for President Obama.  Now, the series is continuing, as YouTube users have been asked to submit questions for Prime Minister David Cameron.

This is a big deal for Google’s video-sharing site.  Many different politicians have been happy to use YouTube at various points, making the development something other than a breakthrough, but it’s not every day that one of the most important people in the world sets aside a chunk of time for a special Q&A.

European flight search provider Skyscanner has acquired UK travel startup Zoombu, which only launched its own travel search site last year (the company started in 2008).

Zoombu was founded by Rachel Armitage and Dr. Alistair Hann, who have moved into key roles at Skyscanner. With Zoombu, their goal was to provide multiple transport options in a single search. 

The term "austerity" was almost omnipresent in British culture last year, with budget cutbacks being discussed on a regular basis by just about everyone.  Only it seems the search industry came out more than okay, as a new report from Econsultancy indicates the UK marketplace for SEO came to be worth roughly $680 million.

Groupon has had a few ads flagged after some issues with the Advertising Standards Authority, an independent watchdog for ad standards in the UK. 

The ads in question were found to be misleading, because they failed to make clear certain terms, such as the fact that one person had to pay full price for a meal to get a second one at a discounted price, or that another deal didn’t apply to weekends. One "misleadingly exaggerated" the savings it offered, according to the ASA. 

Many retail sites that cater to people in the UK had a great time of things yesterday.  In keeping with tradition (and barring some strange New Year’s Eve surge), new UK-specific Experian Hitwise data shows that Boxing Day turned out to be the busiest day of the year for online retailers.

If any Facebook employees were still manning their stations two days ago, you can be sure they sent up a cheer as traffic data rolled in.  A report from Experian Hitwise has indicated that, at least in the UK, Facebook received more visits than Google for the first time ever.

At least in the UK, Google may finally be able to put its recent Street View privacy gaffe behind it.  The company’s signed a commitment to improve its handling of data, and as a result, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office has given Google permission to delete the sensitive information it collected by accident.

Facebook is far past the point where it’s an "ooh, look at that" moment every time an important person joins the site.  Another celebrity here or there hardly matters when it’s got more than 500 million users.  Still, it may be worth noting that an official British Monarchy Page has launched.

Posts on the Page actually date back to mid-September, but today marks the Page’s formal debut.  It’s gotten off to a great start, too, already collecting "likes" from 65,536 individuals.

The UK online display advertising market for the third quarter of 2010 showed strong gains compared to Q3 2009, according to the latest report from comScore.

UK Internet users received more than 221 billion display ads during the third quarter, marking a 34 percent increase compared to a year ago.

In the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office has concluded its investigation of Google’s Street View privacy gaffe, and there’s good news and bad news for the search giant.  The bad, which arguably outweighs the good: it’s been judged guilty of a "significant breach of the Data Protection Act."

In a formal statement, the ICO said, "The Commissioner has concluded that there was a significant breach of the Data Protection Act when Google Street View cars collected payload data as part of their wi-fi mapping exercise in the UK."

The U.K. Internet economy contributed $159 billion (£100 billion) in 2009, representing 7.2 percent of U.K. GDP- more than construction, transport, or utilities, according to a new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Amazon said today its 70 percent royalty option for its Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) is now available in the UK.

Amazon began offering the same 70 percent royalty option in the U.S. in June. For each book sold from the Amazon UK Kindle Store, authors and publishers can choose to earn a 70 percent royalty, minus the delivery costs.

Some Facebook users who live to the east of the Atlantic can now share their location on the site.  Today, Facebook Places launched in the UK, allowing people to check in and tag their friends (or not) as they move around in the real world.

Nothing’s different about the way Facebook Places operates in the UK compared to the US, so we won’t bother with lots of long descriptions and technical details.  Plenty of documentation already exists.

Depending on their tolerance for awful writing and acting, YouTube users in the UK should now be able to watch around 400 movies for free on the site.  YouTube’s expanded its movies section due to deals with companies like Blinkbox, Lionsgate, MGM, and Sony.