Richard MacManus

In my ZDNet blog, I’ve published the first in a 3-part Case Study of a Web 2.0 business. Yellowikis is an open business listings site that has the potential to shake up the $22 billion Yellow Pages industry. What Wikipedia is to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Yellowikis may be to Business listings. In an email interview, … Read more

TechCrunch has the scoop about Yahoo’s new e-commerce web app, Yahoo! Shoposphere. Mike’s taken it for a test run already and here’s his description: “Yahoo is making a major push into search personalization and recommendations – the overall project is called “Shoposphere” and the major feature being released is called “Pick Lists”. Their goal is … Read more

Alan Taylor and Anil Dash report that Amazon is rolling out tags in a big way. In a discussion board message, Amazonian Blake Scholl announced that 50% of Amazon customers will see the tagging features at this time. You will be able to apply tags to any item on the Amazon website and your tags … Read more

In my ZDNet column today I took a look at the top websites in the world according to Alexa. You might be surprised by what I found. Here is the current top 10 in terms of traffic: 1. Yahoo! 2. Microsoft Network (MSN) 3. Google 4. Yahoo! Japan 5. Baidu.com 6. sina.com 7. EBay 8. … Read more

The Hard Man of 2.0, Ben Barren, takes out his nutcracker and starts crunching the numbers of Internet companies. Wielding financial methodologies, Ben intends to get some REAL analysis happening in the hot-air-o-sphere. Things like profit, revenue and unique user multiples relative to market cap. Not for the faint-hearted then. Ben’s made a start with … Read more

This week: International Web 2.0, Mainstream Media Meltdown, Microsoft “Leaked” docs, Web 2.0 poster children rebel, 2.0 Post of the Week – samy conquers myspace. sponsored by: Web 2.0 – Rockin’ All Over The World This week we’ve seen evidence that Web 2.0 is taking over the world reaching out to other parts of the … Read more

Dave Winer points to my post about Portals 2.0 and questions if there are really only 3 powerful Internet companies: “Richard MacManus talks about The Big 3, and there is a trend to think about three companies — Google, Microsoft and Yahoo — as the leaders in online. But I don’t think that really works, … Read more

Last night my friends in Melbourne held a Long Tail BBQ, as part of the worldwide Long Tail Camp. Seeing as I live across the ditch in New Zealand, I participated virtually via a Skype call – which Cameron Reilly from The Podcast Network recorded. The MP3 is here (10MB – 30min). At first I … Read more

Irina Slutsky of Geek Entertainment TV interviewed Ryan and Eran of supr.c.ilio.us about Web 2.0 at their launch party last night. Unfortunately they let slip about the Web 2.0 Conspiracy – and what’s worse, they named names. It was very tough questioning by Irina and she basically bullied the supr.c.ilio.us guys into spilling the beans. … Read more

Tristan Louis has compiled some excellent comparison charts of products across the Big 4 Internet companies – Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL [nb: Tristan’s site was down when I checked, but you can also access his post here on Google cache]. The charts are worth poring over, but the crux of them is this: “Google … Read more

Rebecca MacKinnon has been at the Chinese Blogger Conference and has come away from it wondering if “Web2.0 is potentially a very Chinese thing.” She explained: “One of the most important words in the Chinese language is “guanxi.” It means “relationship.” Whatever you think about the term “Web2.0”, the point is that social networking and … Read more

As part of my analysis of the Microsoft “Internet Services” memos, in ZDNet I dug into the details of what Ray Ozzie wrote about Office Live: “Ray Ozzie’s memo indicates that Microsoft is still internally questioning the approach for Office Live. Should they web-enable traditional desktop personal productivity tools like Powerpoint? A web-based Office will … Read more

Dave Winer has published a leaked email from Bill Gates and memo from Ray Ozzie. This comes from a source within Microsoft, who Dave Winer won’t name. In Gates’ email, he outlines Microsoft’s high level vision for Internet services: “The broad and rich foundation of the internet will unleash a “services wave” of applications and … Read more

RememberNing.com, the service for building and using social applications? I’ve been waiting for a really interesting app to come out of that – and this may be it. Anytown Marketplace is the creation of the exceedingly clever Jonathan Aquino. Jon described it as “a Craigslist-like app that you can clone and customize for your city … Read more

The dotcom boom and bust has been voted the most influential Internet moment of the past 10 years, by organisers of the annual Webby Awards: “Launched by Netscape’s IPO in 1995, the dotcom boom spurred trillions of dollars in private investments into the Internet, new technologies, marketing, and fiber optic cable and led to the … Read more