The tech blog I founded, now named ReadWrite, turns thirteen years old today. On 20 April 2003 I wrote its debut post, The Read/Write Web. Re-reading that post today, I’m pleased that I remain focused on empowering Internet users. With a couple of tweaks to update the language to 2016, the following sentence could slot into my weekly newsletter Augment Intelligence: “Ordinary people should be able to write to the web, just as easily as they can browse and read it.” Augintel is all about empowering “ordinary people” on the Internet, so you should subscribe to it – especially if you once enjoyed my writing on RWW.
I am grateful that ReadWrite is still around. Since I sold the business at the end of 2011, the site has found it tough going in a media landscape dominated by selfies and GIFs. But under its current owner, Wearable IoT World, ReadWrite has an enthusiastic new editor in Christopher Caen and is mining the promising niche of Internet of Things. I was invited into its Slack channel earlier this year and I can tell you there are some very smart and active contributors there. Takes me back to the old days of Skype rooms at RWW.
My best wishes to Christopher, Redg and all the current ReadWrite team. Keep rockin’.
Then:
Now:
How far we’ve come!