Here is a summary of the week’s Web Tech action on Read/WriteWeb.
Top Web News
The main Web tech news this week was Adobe’s unveiling of Apollo, their next-generation web development platform which integrates the desktop with the Web. R/WW covered the news in this post, followed by Jay Fortner’s analysis of how it will affect mainstream users. In related news, Adobe announced an online version of Photoshop.
Also in the news this week was Microsoft’s acquisition of MedStory, a Health Search Engine. We explained in our post how this is continued proof that vertical search engines are a strong Web trend going forward.
The Techmeme scrum of the week has to be Ning’s announcement of a meta-social network. The ‘new ning‘ essentially lets people build their own social network. It will be competing with existing products in this space, like PeepAgg and Explode (profiled recently by Steve O’Hear). I’ve written before how meta and open social networks are the future of social networking – and certainly Ning’s Silicon Valley PR network and slick UI will come in handy in this market.
Analysis Posts
It was a great week for in-depth analysis posts on R/WW. Charles Knight released the February version of his Top 100 Alternative Search Engines list. There were 32 new entrants to the list, which meant 32 had to drop out. As he wryly commented afterwards, he now has 32 CEOs mad at him and he’s just made 32 new friends! 🙂 In all seriousness, this list is proving very popular and we will be ramping it up over the next couple of months. The next list will be categorized, for example.
Also check out Alex Iskold’s Software For Virtual Teams and The Attention Economy: An Overview, two superb articles by Alex that cover two very important trends in 2007. Both posts attracted a lot of comments, for example Mike Riversdale noted in the virtual teams post:
“The technology is always the easiest part (I have to say it’s just not quite there yet … yet). The hard part for “virtual” teams is that we, people, the fleshy bits on the end of the computers are social animals and we find it difficult to work outside of that ‘here and now’ contact. We like to be a “part of it”.”
…and Lars Mouritzen commented on the Attention post (and yes, we’re aware of the irony of posting such a long analysis about attention!):
“I think the attention economy is at the heart of the new competitive game in media. It is leading to a three-way battle between search engines, social networks and recommendation engines as the most effective way of mass-aggregation and monetisation of consumer attention. […]”
Other analysis posts this week on R/WW:
- Internet Portals Jump Into Bed With Media, Telecoms
- Enterprise 3.0 = (SaaS + EE)
- 3GSM Mobile Web Review
Startup Action
The startup highlight this week was our profile of Morfik, an Ajax platform that may represent the future of web app development. As noted in the title: Morfik’s Ajax Platform Set To Challenge Google, Adobe, Microsoft.
Other posts:
- Etelos Launches CRMforGoogle – May Attract Google Lawyers
- Exclusive: Revision3 Launches New Underground Music Show
- ThinkFree Reaches 250,000 Registered Users
- YeeYan Translates Blogs Posts Into Chinese
Poll
This week’s poll asked: Was Google Apps Premier The Web Office Tipping Point?. The results:
Yes, Microsoft watch out! 20% (81 votes) No, but the tipping point is coming soon 44% (174 votes) No, the tipping point is still years away 28% (111 votes) No and Microsoft has nothing to worry about 8% (30 votes)
So 64% of R/WW readers think that Google Apps Premier either is a tipping point for Web Office, or that the tipping point is coming soon. Interesting! 2007 is looking like the year Web Office goes mainstream. Just 8% of respondents believe that Microsoft has nothing to worry about in terms of its desktop Microsoft Office.
That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone – and don’t read too many blog posts 😉
Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)