Richard MacManus

With two conferences to keep track of (CES and Macworld), it’s easy to get lost in all the website coverage. One blog though is doing an outstanding job of covering both events – Engadget. I’m also enjoying the CNET CES coverage for down and dirty details on the products. Today I’ve been scanning through the … Read more

At the Steve Jobs keynote speech at Macworld this morning PST, he announced “three revolutionary new products”. An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator. But turns out it’s all one device: the fabled iPhone! We’ll have extended analysis about this later today, but for now let’s review the news. Here’s the feature list: Instead … Read more

After only 3-4 months of general release, distributed social network MyBlogLog has been bought by Yahoo for an estimated $10-12M. This adds to Yahoo’s collection of trendy Web 2.0 apps – they can pop the MyBlogLog folks in with Flickr and del.icio.us. When MyBlogLog initially came out in October 2006, I described it as “a … Read more

Yahoo issued a slew of press releases today, at CES, all about their mobile Internet services. The main news is the launch of Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 (now available for java-based handsets) and Yahoo! oneSearch. This comes on the back of recent initiatives by Google, which appears to be leading the Mobile Internet and … Read more

Web Security firm Finjan has just released their Q4 2006 report on web threats, which includes describing two cases of web 2.0 hacker attacks, on Wikipedia and MySpace. What’s more, the report says that hacking the Web is very much a commercial activity nowadays – which is keeping Web security companies like Finjan on their … Read more

Bill Gates’ keynote at CES was webcast live by Microsoft. This keynote was entitled ‘Connected Experiences’ and a relaxed-looking Bill Gates kicked things off by cracking a joke about how, at future CES appearances, he might talk about infectious diseases (referring to his increasing involvement in philanthropy work). The Digital Decade He starts off by … Read more

It’s going to be a big week of tech news, as Apple’s Macworld conference and expo in San Francisco goes head-to-head with the 40th annual CES (Consumer Electronics Association) show in Las Vegas. Both conferences kick off Monday 8 January and there will be no shortage of blogs and other websites covering the news. What … Read more

In the current Read/WriteWeb poll (see below), we’re asking what ‘search 2.0’ concepts you think stand the best chance of beating Google. The results so far are interesting, because Artificial Intelligence is currently top pick – despite having a history of underachievement in the tech industry and there being no real AI search contenders yet. … Read more

Metalink is a new technology that makes it easier and faster to get large files. It’s kind of like a playlist for such files (they can be FTP, HTTP, or P2P), because it stores multiple file locations in a single file – and then the download proceeds according to a set of rules. The Wikipedia … Read more

Interesting development from Microsoft – and one that makes perfect sense given their media device strengths (a.k.a. stranglehold over the OS). Microsoft has released a Windows Live for TV beta. The project is code-named “Orbit” and it is built on the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Windows Live for TV will connect people via a Vista … Read more

div for entry content including hero As we all know, web statistics are an unreliable thing at the best of times. I posted on this issue back in March 2006, noting that Urchin and web server stats can be used by people to grossly exaggerate their statistics. Well now Nik Cubrilovic has posted on a … Read more

Forrester Research has done a usability comparison between RIA (Rich Internet Apps) and HTML apps, in a report entitled Smackdown: Rich Internet Applications Versus HTML. The result: “We looked for examples of rich Internet and HTML applications in each of four categories and compared how well they supported relevant user goals. We found that, on … Read more

When I was looking for submissions for Best Web Companies and Innovators of 2006, a R/WW commenter pointed to a non-profit site called kiva.org – calling it “web 2.0 meets the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize”. Kiva.org lets you loan money to an entrepreneur in the developing world. On the homepage there is a list of … Read more

Disclosure: Eurekster is a sponsor of Read/WriteWeb Eurekster has quietly rolled out an interesting upgrade to their social search service, Swicki. Now users can contribute their own search answers to a swicki, if they feel they have expertise in the topic. This essentially makes Swicki into a ‘read/write’ search engine! The owner of the swicki … Read more

To usher in the new year, we’re very pleased to announce the new Read/WriteWeb Job Board – brought to you in association with JobThread. While there are a few prominent and excellent job boards run by other tech blogs, there are a couple of differentiating factors with ours: 1) It’s less expensive! $100 for a … Read more