Facebook & Apple restricting the 'open internet'?, King.com overtakes EA on Facebook, Twitter targets Japan growth & Facebook catches up with G+

Facebook & Apple amongst forces that restrict the internet, says Google co-founder Brin
In an interview with The Guardian, Google co-founder Sergey Brin voiced his disappointment towards attempts to censor and control the 'open internet'. He criticised the rise of 'restrictive walled gardens', notably Facebook and Apple, who tightly control the software that's allowed on their networks.  He also voiced his concern over governments that continuously push to censor the internet, such as China, Iran and the US (who spearhead the SOPA and PIPA bills).

Brin was the driving force behind Google's partial pullout from China two years ago, largely due to censorship and cyber-attack threats from China. 

EA falls behind King.com on Facebook
Social games company King.com overtook Electronic Arts on Facebook with almost 10 million daily players on its games, thanks to Bubble Witch Saga. The figure outnumbers Zynga's Farmville, and comes after King.com launched on Facebook just over a year ago.

The social gaming landscape has become extremely competitive, with companies such as Wooga, EA and Zynga all fighting for more players from within Facebook's 800 million-strong userbase.  

Twitter targets business growth in Japan
With the third-largest Twitter userbase of 29.9 million accounts, Japan is set to become an important revenue stream for Twitter. The company's CEO, Dick Costolo, announced plans to "aggressively" hire sales staff and engineers in Japan to push for more advertisers and to increase local user growth.

Facebook catches up with G+ through minor updates
After Google+ launched its redesign (a bit too late) and update, Facebook was quick to respond by copying *ahem*, adding, similar updates. The first notable update is larger profile pictures, from 130x125 to 166x160. Secondly, Timeline URLs and Facebook email addresses will now be merged, much like Google+ and Gmail.