Welcome again to our weekly edition of the hot and happening news from the digital world. This week has been really exciting for us, with the official launch of BlogLeveland re-launch of TweetLevel and all the conversations it stirred up around social influence, instantly after its launch. For more details, please check out our Arabian Bytes article here. Below are some of the other interesting social media / digital stories that caught my eye this week:

It’s a short week for those of us in the UAE, but there’s still plenty to highlight in this special all-Google edition from the week that was. Google Launches Google+ The much-hyped Google social network, dubbed Google+, is now open for a public beta and invites to the Google+ network are already going fast. Once inside, users will notice some striking similarities to Facebook, or as some commentators have uncharitably put it, a “clone.

Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in digital and social media. As always, the news and latest developments in the digital world have been overwhelming and really exciting. Here are some of the news pieces that caught my attention: Mubarak fined for information shutdown Hosni Mubarak was ousted in an uprising in Egypt in January 2011. A Cairo court yesterday fined the ousted president and two ex-ministers $US90 million for a mobile and internet shutdown during the uprising.

The spate of 2011 prediction articles that have been rolling out to mark the New Year make for some enjoyable reading. Below are some links to trends I’ve found particularly interesting. Of course, I couldn’t resist throwing in three of my own about the Middle East so here they are… Social buying heats up (more) in Middle East In an already crowded field including GoNabit.com and Cobone.com, the granddaddy of social buying sites, Groupon, has recently launched a UAE site at Groupon.