Web & AI Analyst
A mix of personal blog posts and tech analysis not published elsewhere as journalism.
This month I began yet another web side-project: a weekly newsletter called Web Technology News on the Ghost platform. I currently have two other active websites: Cybercultural, my internet history site that I run via Eleventy and Cloudflare (and Buttondown for email delivery); and my personal website, ricmac.org, which has been running on WordPress for … Read more
Today I’ve gone live with a new website and email newsletter platform for Cybercultural, my tech history newsletter that I started on Substack in 2019. What pushed me to migrate off Substack is its stance on hate content, which I personally object to. But over the past several months, I’ve also been pondering how to … Read more
I came across the above tweet today from Joost de Valk, who was the founder of SEO product Yoast. For the benefit of those who can’t see the image, here is the main part (emphasis mine): If your content is not better than what Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) can generate on its own, based … Read more
How emerging tech trends in the 2020s — metaverse aka 3D internet, Machine Learning, AR apps, web platform, and NFTs — are changing the way we perceive the world and ourselves.
This week I launched a new website: Web Development History. As the name suggests, it’ll be an ongoing chronicle of internet history — but from a development perspective. Simply put, I want to describe how the web actually works and how that has evolved over the past 30 years.
I’ve been thinking lately about what value long-form writing has in the current internet era, which is dominated by a combination of video (e.g. YouTube), images (e.g. Instagram), ‘in the moment’ multimedia (e.g. Snapchat, TikTok) and the black and white opinions prevalent on social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook). There are two key aspects of the … Read more
A writer’s role is to build something thoughtful and/or delightful that is of value to people. It should help readers do their jobs, or help them understand the world, or help them cope with the world (by providing entertainment or comfort). Would that qualify as a “builder” in Marc Andreessen’s eyes?
I’ve been working at The New Stack for five weeks now, and am enjoying it more than any other job I’ve had since ReadWriteWeb. A big part of that is due to the team of people I’m working with, who have been generous with their time and knowledge, and welcoming. But I’m also feeling energized … Read more
Life in a time of pandemic, and updates about my new job and the status of my writing projects.
20 April was the 15th anniversary of ReadWriteWeb‘s launch, back in 2003. Usually I do an anniversary post, but this year I was a little busy with the arrival of my second child during April. Having a child puts everything in context. Just as I’m a product of Generation X, RWW was a product of … Read more
This week I started a cool new job at Newsroom, one of New Zealand’s premier independent media companies. I’ll be their Chief Product Officer for a few days a week, and also writing my weekly technology column for the site. As I noted in my LinkedIn profile, I’ll be responsible for building the Newsroom technology platform … Read more
It’s been over five years now since I left ReadWriteWeb. During that time I wrote and published two books – Trackers (2014) and Presence (2016). But it was time for a change in 2018, so I’ve started up a new tech blog. That’s because I’ve become obsessed, in a healthy way, about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. … Read more
Every December I write a blog post looking back at the leading technology trends of the year. I first started doing this in 2004, when Read/Write Web was my personal blog. That was also the year “Web 2.0” was named, denoting the trend of using the Web as a platform. There’s a connection, at least … Read more
I’ve just spent an inordinate amount of time creating an archive of all my past online writing work, in particular of the tech blog I founded ReadWriteWeb. I thought I’d outline my reasons for doing this, and why I ended up relying heavily on the Internet Archive instead of the original website sources. With ReadWriteWeb … Read more
Yesterday I wrote a post about blogrolls. I published it on AltPlatform, the new tech blog I recently started with my old ReadWriteWeb friend Emre Sokullu. It was the second post in a series I’m doing about IndieWebifying my personal website. I got some great responses, which I’m going to discuss in this post. Firstly, … Read more