Richard MacManus

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

Here’s a site to keep an eye on – an English language blog about Web 2.0 in China: “China Web2.0 Review is a blog dedicated to track and review web2.0 development in China. We will profile and review web2.0 applications, products, services and business in China, and track the buzz about web2.0 in Chinas internet … Read more

Flock has been getting a lot of flack from certain quarters. Mostly they’re being (unfairly) tagged as a kind of symbol of the so-called Web 2.0 bubble. I’ve been dismayed by some of the venom that’s been directed at Flock – some of it has been downright spiteful. I’m a bit saddened to see it’s … Read more

This week: Microsoft Live, Flash Maps and the Mechanical Turk, Web 2.0 meet-ups all over the world, 2.0 Blog of the Week – Supr.c.ilio.us. sponsored by: Microsoft Live wrap-up The big news of the week was Microsoft’s announcement of Windows Live and Office Live. My post entitled Microsoft Livens Up Web 2.0 summarized all the … Read more

Interesting NY Times article about Yahoo!. Some key quotes: “The idea that human judgment can improve a search engine’s automatic findings is hardly new. From the dawn of the Web’s history – that is, over the last 15 years – companies have invented tools to help users assess the quality and relevance of information, often … Read more

What is Amazon Mechanical Turk? It’s a web service that enables you to “complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get paid for it.” Amazon describes it thusly: “…when we think of interfaces between human beings and computers, we usually assume that the human being is the one requesting that a task … Read more

The UK has its own Web 2.0 Conference on 11 November in Brighton, in the form of d.Construct: “d.Construct 2005 is the UKs first grassroots Web 2.0 conference. It is an affordable, one-day event aimed at those building the latest generation of web-based applications. The event will discuss how new technology is transforming the web … Read more

Dion Hinchcliffe has an excellent post outlining the top 10 issues for Web 2.0 today (an 11th was added in the comments by Paul Montgomery). Here’s a summary of Dion’s list with comments from me, but be sure to check his site too because he has useful commentary for each point. 1. Excessive Hype: “Nothing … Read more