Isolation

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ocean

I was at a reception last week at the home of the US Ambassador to New Zealand, Mark Gilbert. The event was in celebration of innovation in New Zealand. “We share an ocean,” joked Ambassador Gilbert, as he listed some things America has in common with New Zealand. He meant the Pacific Ocean. New Zealand’s Minister … Read more

Why Following People On Twitter Is Broken (And What To Do About It)

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Most social media products rely on the ‘friend or follow’ model of connecting to other people. Friending usually means a two-way connection, whereas following is most often a one-way connection. Friending is inherently a strong connection, because it mimics how we operate in real life – friends socialize and share things together. But just how useful is it to have a follow connection with someone? I’m going … Read more

ReadWrite Turns 12

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12 years ago to this day, I started a blog called ReadWrite/Web. It’s now called ReadWrite. Twelve years is a long time in the Internet world. Back in 2003, Facebook had just been launched from Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room, there was not yet a YouTube or Twitter, Apple’s most popular product was the iPod, and the height of mobile technology was … Read more

Emerging Markets: Social VR

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The virtual world Second Life launched in mid-2003 and from the start it was out of place. Its jerky and cartoonish graphics seemed to belong more to the 1990s than to the new era of social software. Nevertheless, Second Life enjoyed as much media attention in the 2000s as Web 2.0 darlings like Flickr and YouTube. Nowadays, in the … Read more

My New Book Project: A Novel About Virtual Reality

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I recently started work on a novel, on the theme of Virtual Reality. I think VR is the most promising consumer technology around right now. Products like the Facebook-owned Oculus Rift, Sony’s Project Morpheus and Samsung’s Gear VR are all early stage (Oculus hasn’t even released a version 1.0 for consumers). But VR is poised … Read more

Trackers eBook Now Available On Amazon & iTunes

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I’m pleased to announce that my book, Trackers: How Technology is helping us Monitor & Improve our Health, is now available on the Amazon Kindle Store for $7.99 and the Apple iTunes Store for $9.99. Click on one of the following links to purchase the book: Amazon Kindle Store Apple iTunes Store The ebook will also … Read more

RicMac’s Top 10 Tech Of 2014

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Every December since 2004, I’ve posted a year in review of Internet technology. In 2010, I began doing a top 10 list of my favorite technology products and I’m continuing that format this year. 2014 has been a particularly interesting year for new media, with innovations in blogging, podcasting, curation and paid content. Three of my top ten are examples of new media innovation. … Read more

What Apple Watch Means For Trackers

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This morning Apple announced its much anticipated smartwatch, called Apple Watch. It will be released “early 2015,” which I’m thrilled to say is also when my book about self-tracking will be released! My book, entitled Trackers: How Technology Is Helping Us Monitor & Improve Our Health, is about how technology is fundamentally changing how we track our daily health … Read more

The Quantified Doctor

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My first book, due out January 2015, is about the Quantified Self movement. It’s called Trackers: How Technology Is Helping Us Monitor & Improve Our Health. One of the chapters is about a doctor who encourages her patients to use self-tracking tools, such as Fitbit or MyFitnessPal. Well now there’s a self-tracking company that caters … Read more